Plays and Poems

Cran. The greatest monarch now alive may | siege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication glory

In such an honour: how may I deserve it,

That am a poor and humble subject to you? K. Hen. Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. You shall have

Two noble partners with you; the old Duchess of Norfolk,

And Lady Marquess Dorset: will these please you?

Once more, my lord of Winchester, I charge

Noise and tumult within. Enter Porter and his Man. Port. You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals. Do you take the court for Paris-garden? ye rude slaves, leave your gaping.

Within. Good Master porter, I belong to the larder.

Port. Belong to the gallows, and be hanged, ye rogue! Is this a place to roar in? Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves, and strong ones: these are but switches to 'em. I'll scratch your heads: you must be seeing christenings! Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?

Man. Pray, sir, be patient: 'tis as much impossible,

Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons,
To scatter 'em, as 'tis to make 'em sleep
On May-day morning; which will never be.
We may as well push against Paul's as stir 'em.
Port. How got they in, and be hang'd?
Man. Alas! I know not; how gets the tide in?
As much as one sound cudgel of four foot,
You see the poor remainder, could distribute, 20
I made no spare, sir.

Port.

You did nothing, sir.

Man. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor
Colbrand,

To mow 'em down before me; but if I spared any
That had a head to hit, either young or old,
He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker,

Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again;
And that I would not for a cow, God save her!
Within. Do you hear, Master porter?
Port. I shall be with you presently, good
Master puppy. Keep the door close, sirrah.
Man. What would you have me do?

Port. What should you do, but knock 'em down by the dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? or have we some strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the women so be.

is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening will beget a thousand: here will be father, godfather, and all together.

Man. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now reign in 's nose: all that stand about him are under the line, they need no other penance. That fire-drake did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged against me: he stands there, like a mortar-piece, to blow us. There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that railed upon me till her pinked porringer fell off her head, for kindling such a combustion in the state. I missed the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out 'Clubs!' when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw to her succour, which were the hope o' the Strand, where she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place; at length they came to the broomstaff to me; I defied 'em still; when suddenly a file of boys behind 'em, loose shot, delivered such a shower of pebbles, that I was fain to draw mine honour in, and let 'em win the work. The devil was amongst 'em, I think, surely.

Port. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the Tribulation of Tower-hill, or the Limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to endure. I have some of 'em in Limbo Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days; besides the running banquet of two beadles, that is to come.

Enter the Lord Chamberlain.

SCENE V.-The Palace.

Enter Trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, the Lord Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, the Duke of NORFOLK, with his marshal's staff, the Duke of SUFFOLK, two Noblemen bearing great standingbowls for the christening-gifts; then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, etc., train borne by a Lady: then follows the Marchioness of DORSET, the other godmother, and Ladies. The troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks.

Gart. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth!

Flourish. Enter the KING and Train.

Cran. Kneeling. And to your royal grace, and And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches the good queen,

My noble partners, and myself, thus pray: All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady, Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy, May hourly fall upon ye!

K. Hen.

Thank you, good lord archbishop:

What is her name? Cran.

K. Hen.

Elizabeth.

Stand up, lord.

The KING kisses the Child. With this kiss take my blessing: God protect

thee!

To all the plains about him; our children's

children

Shall see this and bless heaven.
K. Hen.

Thou speakest wonders,
Cran. She shall be, tothe happiness of England,
An aged princess; many days shall see her,
And yet no day without a deed to crown it.
Would I had known no more! but she must die,
She must, the saints must have her, yet a virgin;
A most unspotted lily shall she pass
To the ground, and all the world shall moura her.
K. Hen. O lord archbishop!
Thou hast made me now a man: never, before
This happy child, did I get any thing.

K. Hen. My noble gossips, ye have been too This oracle of comfort has so pleas'd me, prodigal : I thank ye heartily: so shall this lady When she has so much English. Cran.

Let me speak, sir,

For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth. This royal infant, heaven still move about her! Though in her cradle, yet now promises

Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be,
But few now living can behold that goodness,
A pattern to all princes living with her,
And all that shall succeed: Saba was never
More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
Than this pure soul shall be: all princely graces,
That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,
With all the virtues that attend the good,

Shall still be doubled on her; truth shall nurse her;

Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her; She shall be lov'd and fear'd; her own shall

'Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here: some come to take their ease,
And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear,
We have frighted with our trumpets; so 'tis clear
They'll say 'tis naught: others, to hear the city
Abus'd extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'
Which we have not done neither: that, I fear,
All the expected good we're like to hear
For this play, at this time, is only in
The merciful construction of good women;
For such a one we show'd'em: if they smile
And say 'twill do, I know, within a while
All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap
If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their war-like fraughtage: now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.

Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,

To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are :
Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I 'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry

the bolting.

baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I sit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts, So, traitor! 'when she comes!' When is she thence?

Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

Tro. I was about to tell thee: when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile;

But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, well, go to, there were no more comparison between the women: but for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her; but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did: I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but

Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, - 50 When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad In Cressid's love: thou answer'st, she is fair; Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;

Handlest in thy discourse, Ol that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure

The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,

As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.
Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.

Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in 't. Let her be as she is if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

Tro. Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between, and between, but small thanks for my labour.

Tro. What! art thou angry, Pandarus? what! with me?

Pan. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.

Tro. Say I she is not fair?

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father: let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter.

T'ro. Pandarus,

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me! I will leave all as I found it, and there an end.

Exit PANDARUS. An alarum.

Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

101

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus-Ogods! how do you plague me.
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.
Alarum. Enter ÆNEAS.

Ane. How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not a-field?

111

Good; and what of him!

Alex. They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk,

90 sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant

as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant; a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it. He is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair he hath the joints of every thing, but every thing so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

Alex. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Cres. Who comes here?

Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

Enter PANDARUS,

Cres. Hector's a gallant man.

Alex. As may be in the world, lady.
Pan. What's that? what's that?

Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

Pan. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.
Cres. To say the truth, true and not true.
Pan. She prais'd his complexion above Paris.
Cres. Why, Paris hath colour enough.
Pan. So he has.

Cres. Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his: he having colour enough, and the other 40 higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

112

Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

Cres. Then she's a merry Greek indeed.

Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window, and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin,

121

Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. Pan. Why, he is very young; and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother

Hector.

Cres. Is he so young a man, and so old a lifter? Pan. But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin

Cres. Juno have mercy! how came it cloven? Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better than any man

Cres. What! is he angry too? Pan. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man in all Phrygia. of the two.

Cres. O Jupiter! there's no comparison.

Pan. What! not between Troilus and Hector?

Do you know a man if you see him?

Cres. O! he smiles valiantly.
Pan. Does he not?

Cres. O! yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn,

Cres. Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew that Helen loves Troilus, him.

Pan. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

132

Pan. Why, go to then. But to prove to you

Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll