SCENE V.

_Another part of the same._

_A grassy space shaded by palms, before a cave at whose entrance_ FERDINAND _and_ MIRANDA _are discovered playing chess_.

MIRANDA. O Ferdinand, the play was mine.

FERDINAND. I thought ’Twas mine, but it shall e’en be as you will; I’ll take it back.

MIRANDA. Indeed, you should not, prince, For whatso’er you do it seemeth right To me, and now I see I did mistake. Good sooth, I will not have it back. I say, I will not have it back--but what are these Tending their steps this way? a halting pair.

[_Enter_ NURSE _and_ PETER.

NURSE. Peter!

PETER. Anon.

NURSE. Take my cloak, Peter. Truly the sun’s heat hath made me all of a quiver, as they say. Marry I would e’en taste a little food before I go a step more. I’ll warrant you we are many a mile from Verona by this.

PETER. A good mile, I take it, for I was never in this place before that I wot of.

NURSE. Say’st thou so, Peter?

PETER. Marry, that do I, and will answer to ’t before any of womankind, and any of mankind too, that be less lusty than I.

NURSE. Peter!

PETER. Anon.

NURSE. Some food, Peter, and presently.

PETER. Here be strange fruits whose use I know not. A serving man of the young county Paris’s did to my knowing eat an apple that was brought from afar in a ship’s stomach, being a lusty youth and tall and much given to victual, and he did swell to bursting and died thereof while one might count thirteen by the clock. He made a fearsome dead body, as the saying is.

NURSE. Peter.

PETER. Anon.

NURSE. Thou shalt taste these fruits for me singly and in order, good Peter, and if no such harm come to thee as thou pratest of, then will I eat likewise.

PETER. Nay, but nurse, good nurse, good lady nurse--

NURSE. Hold thy peace, thou scurvy knave. Would’st suffer me to go nigh to death for lack of food and thou stand by the while like a jack o’ the clock when his hour has struck? Out upon thee, and do my pleasure quickly.

[_Enter_ MERCUTIO _and_ ROMEO.

MERCUTIO. Here’s fine matter toward. Thy Juliet’s nurse, and her man Peter, quarrelling.

NURSE. God ye good den, gentlemen.

MERCUTIO. God ye good morrow, most ancient, and most fair ancient lady. Thy five wits, meseems, are gone far astray the whiles.

NURSE. Is it but good morrow? I had sworn ’twere long past noon, but, indeed, in this strange place, as one may say, there’s no telling so simple a circumstance as the time of day.

ROMEO. Many things there be of which there’s no telling, such as the number of times a maid will say no, when her mind is to say yes; how many days the wind will sit i’ the east when one would desire fair weather; and how many years the toothless grandsire will wither out a young man’s revenue.

NURSE. That is all very wisely said, good sir. Are you that he they call the young Romeo?

MERCUTIO. He is rightly called Romeo, but as for his youth, if knavery be not left out of the count, why then was Methusaleh a very babe to him, a suckling babe.

NURSE. Say you so? Then will I tell my lady Juliet so much, an’ I can come by her in this heathen place.

MERCUTIO. Most ancient lady, yon Romeo would deceive the devil himself.

NURSE. Beshrew my heart. Then were my young mistress (who, to be sure, is no kind of a devil at all, saving your presences), led straight to a fool’s paradise. She shall know, and presently, what a piece of man he is.

MERCUTIO [_seeing_ MIRANDA _and_ FERDINAND. O Romeo the young; young Romeo, Forget thy Juliet but a space, for here A lady is, fairer than Juliet, [_pointing to_ MIRANDA] And mine eyes serve me truly.

ROMEO. O how rare One pearl’s esteem’d until another’s found, While that becomes the chief, till straight a third Shines forth. So is’t with me. When Rosaline I saw no lesser she might then with her Compare. Next Juliet came athwart my sight, And her I lov’d, forgetting Rosaline. But now is Capulet’s young daughter sped From forth my heart and in her place this fair Unknown in Juliet’s stead is worshipped.

[_He seems about to approach_ MIRANDA, _but is withheld by_ MERCUTIO.

MERCUTIO. Inconstant Romeo, have a care. For me, I think her wed, and that the husband there, May have a word to change with thee.

ROMEO. Prate not To me of husbands, my Mercutio--

MERCUTIO. Have peace, rash Romeo, thou--But who comes here?

[_Enter_ OPHELIA, _strewing flowers_.

Poor, tearful lady! See, she weeps, and smiles Aweeping, wrings her hand, and smiles again.

ROMEO. She makes as if to speak to us, poor soul.

OPHELIA. This is All Hallow Eve. They say to-night each Jill may see her Jack that is to come. But these be idle tales to juggle us poor maids, withal, for I no Jack have found. Cophetua, they say, was a king who was wed to a beggar maid; a pretty tale is’t not? But there’s no truth in’t; there be no such happenings now, for my love was a prince indeed, but we were never wed, and now he is gone. [_Weeps_] He was a goodly youth to look on, but he is dead by this and burns in hell. [_Sings_]

He is dead who wronged the maid; He is dead, perdy. In the grave his bones are laid, Hey, and woe is me.

O my love was tall and fine; Fair he was to see. As light doth from a jewel shine, His eyes shined on me.

I cry your pardon, good people all. But there’s something lost, I think, and ’twill not be found for all my searching.

[_Enter_ HAMLET.

HAMLET. The fair Ophelia. Sweet maid, do you not know me?

OPHELIA. No, forsooth; I did never see you before, and yet methinks your eye hath a trick of Prince Hamlet’s in it. But that’s all one, for the Lord Hamlet is dead, and they say his soul is in hell for cozening us poor maids. [_Sings_]

He is dead that wronged the maid; He is dead, perdy.

MIRANDA. I scarce can see for weeping. Would there were But somewhat I might do to ease her pain.

FERDINAND. Her woe, me thinketh, is long past its cure. But look! here comes a sadder wight than she.

[_Enter_ CONSTANCE, _with hair unbound_.

CONSTANCE [_to_ OPHELIA] Thy wits are all disorder’d as mine own: Then might we play at grief as who should know The worst, but mine’s the heavier. You do mourn A lover faithless, I a son whose face, So sweet and gracious, made the world for me; Perpetual solace to my widowhood.

OPHELIA. I do not know you, but you weep and so do I, and surely that doth make us sisters in grief, and so because of that I’ll follow you whither you list, and you will let me.

CONSTANCE. Come then, and such cold comfort as I may I’ll share with you, but sorrow’s cure is not For us. Your lover groans in hell; my son, My Arthur, lies within some oubliette, Far down beneath the gracious day, dog’s food His only meat, and cries on me, his mother. Then may I well make friends with stubborn grief, Since grief alone the heavens have spar’d to me.

OPHELIA. Sad lady, I will go with you, weep when you weep, and be your humble pensioner in grief.

HAMLET [_advancing_] Ophelia, stay a little! What! not know Me yet? Doth recollection show thee naught Familiar in these eyes, this face, this form? What, faded quite, my love and me, from out Thy memory as the summer shower when past Is quick forgot with one short hour of sun?

OPHELIA. Love? I know what that doth signify. Is not love what we poor maids are fool’d with? Thus have they told me, and therefore I’ll not listen to you, for indeed I never saw you before, that I remember, and yet there’s something not so strange lurks within your speech. But go your ways, sweet sir. My Hamlet he is dead, and so I care for none of mankind now. [_Sings_]

He is dead, perdy.

[_Exeunt_ CONSTANCE _and_ OPHELIA.

HAMLET. Alas, poor maid, I lov’d thee truly once And still had lov’d, and so had wedded thee With all due rites, but that my father’s ghost Did stride between to part us evermore.

[_Sad music heard_] [_Exit_ HAMLET _slowly_.

_Enter_ LAUNCE _leading a dog_.

LAUNCE. What a very dog is this my Crab here for a stony-hearted cur! Why but now there met us two distressed females weeping their hearts out at their eyes, and sighing, moreover, as ’twould move a very Turk to pity, and yet this cur took no more note on ’t than they had been two sticks or stones. Why, the Woman of Samaria would have plucked out her hair in pity of the twain, nay, so would I have done the same in her stead,--yet what say I, for there’s not so much hair on my head as my mother’s brass kettle has of its cover. A vengeance on ’t, now where was I? O, truly, I was e’en at the Woman of Samaria. Now, good sirs, and gentles all, the Woman of Samaria had for ruth plucked out her hair, but did not my dog Crab, who by your leaves is as hairy a dog as goes on one-and-twenty toes, shed even one hair in sorrow for the twain: not e’en the smallest hair on ’s nose. And the matter of the meeting was on this wise. This small stone, with the crack in ’t, is the maid, she with the flowers; and I think there be a crack in her wits, but no matter for that; this stone, a something bigger, ay, and with a crack in ’t, too, shall be the lady with her hair all unbound; this tree shall be the dog; nay, that’s not so neither, for I am the tree and the tree is me, and this stick is the dog, and thus it is. Now doth the small stone weep as ’twere a fountain gone astray, and may not speak for weeping; now doth the something bigger stone weep too, yet with a difference, and she doth not speak for weeping either, and truly I did weep likewise and no more could speak for my weeping than the poor distressed females might, yet there came all the while no word of comfort from this dog’s mouth, not even one tear from his lids. Pray God, gentles all, there be no such hard hearts among any of you, or ’twere ten thousand pities. ’Tis an ill thing to have a sour nature like my dog Crab’s, and no good comes on ’t.

NURSE. Beshrew my heart, and that is so. My Mistress Juliet hath the tenderest and the most pitiful heart that lives in a maid’s body, I do think, for she will weep by the hour together if she but behold a fly caught by the wings in a spider’s web.

MERCUTIO [_to_ ROMEO] No, Juliet, but a Niobe. Eh, man?

ROMEO. Prate not of Juliet now, for I do love Another way from her.

MERCUTIO. O, Romeo, Once yet again I tell thee; have a care!

[_Enter_ FALSTAFF.

FALSTAFF. This were a goodly place enow, and there were sack to be had.

TRINCULO [_aside_] The fat fellow is verily in the right on’t, but since the old gentleman Prospero did give us here the sack there’s no sack here for the wishing.

FALSTAFF [_calls_] Francis.

TRINCULO. I think there be none here by that name.

FALSTAFF. ’Tis no matter for the name; the play ’s the thing, the name is mere hollowness and sound. Here, you fellow with the dog, you whoreson shaveling of a man, what is thy name?

LAUNCE. They call me Launce, an’ it doth please you, sir.

FALSTAFF. How if I do not please? Marry, and what is _then_ thy name? Answer to that.

LAUNCE. I could never i’ the world tell that, sir, and no more, indeed, sir, could my dog Crab that’s here, who, saving your presence, is the most hard-hearted cur alive.

FALSTAFF. No exceptions, good Launce; exceptions are the devil’s counters, therefore, beware of exceptions. But hark you, good man Launce. Fetch me here some sack, and let it o’erflow the tankard, too, for I’ve a thirst upon me such as Hercules came most honestly by after his twelve labours.

LAUNCE. Please you, sir, I do not know the meanings of sack and Hercules. I did never see either of the gentlemen you speak of.

FALSTAFF. ’Tis no matter for Hercules, but, God’s pity for ’t, to be unacquainted with sack is to have lived as a dead man liveth. Sack, good Launce, is the prince of roystering blades; the pearl of price; the nonpareil of the world, the--nay, there’s no fit comparison to be made. Ambrosia and nectar together were but ashes i’ the mouth to ’t.

TRINCULO [_coming forward_] You speak nothing aside the matter, sir, as I’m a true man. There’s nought to be named i’ the world before sack, and herein, of all places i’ the world, there’s no inn, no sack, no sack within. So you’ll e’en have to stomach that, though you’ve small stomach to’t.

FALSTAFF. Small stomach, say you? An’ you denominate this belly of mine a small stomach, there’s no truth in your tongue.

TRINCULO. And no sack in your stomach, either.

LAUNCE. These be as fine words as ever I heard.

FALSTAFF. Now, Sir Shaveling, and who bade you to speak?

LAUNCE. None, sir. I speak but when I have a mind, sir, and I am silent when I have a mind, likewise.

FALSTAFF. Have a mind to silence and let bigger men speak for you.

LAUNCE. Then I can tell who will do all the tongue-wagging, sir, for I spy none here that is bigger i’ the girth than yourself.

FALSTAFF. As for the girth, Shaveling, that cometh of sack.

TRINCULO. And pillage of the larder, too, or I’m no true woman’s son.

FALSTAFF. No inn within this heathen isle, no sack within the inn! Is this a fit place to bring a good Christian knight? ’Twere enough to make a man of my sanguine and fiery composition turn Muscovite on the instant, for your Muscovite, as I take it, is a most ungodly knave, and an infidel to boot, and without a moderate deal of sack, such as is needful for a man of my kidney, how is Christendom to be kept on its legs? What gives the justice discretion? Why, sack! What gives the lover whereby to gain the hand of his mistress? Why, sack! What gives the young man a merry heart and the old man a sanguine favour? Why, sack! What gives the soldier courage in the day of battle? Why, sack! Marry, then, he that hath his bellyful of sack hath discretion, courage, a ruddy visage, a merry heart and a nimble tongue.

LAUNCE [_aside_] The discretion that cometh with what he calls sack is e’en but a scurvy kind of discretion, to my thinking, for all of the stout gentleman’s saying. Here’s Crab, my dog, and he be not so niggard of his tongue, could tell so much as that comes to, on any day i’ the week.

FALSTAFF. What be these folk that forswear sack? Why, lean anatomies with not so much blood in their bodies as would suffice for a flea’s breakfast. The skin hangs upon their bones for all the world like a loose garment. You may feel the wind blow through their bodies. ’Twere a simple abuse of terms to call such starvelings men: your poor forked radish would become the name better.

MIRANDA. This stout knight hath a nimble wit, in sooth, But yet he doth not please me, for his eye Bespeaks wanton desires, intemperate loves, That ill do company his thin grey hairs.

_Soft music heard._

[_Exeunt_ FALSTAFF, LAUNCE, MERCUTIO, ROMEO, NURSE _and_ PETER _by twos. A mist arises, and after a little vanishes._

TRINCULO. A murrain light on all unsociable folk. They might have bidden us to be of their company, methinks.

STEPHANO. Why, man, these are but ghosts come from nowhere. By the bones of my dead grandsire, I’ve small mind to turn myself into a ghost even thereby to leave this isle and Caliban’s hard service. But, look you, Prospero’s daughter and her prince are stayed behind; an’ they be not ghosts of the same feather I marvel where they have bestowed themselves on this isle since Prospero forsook it.

CALIBAN. Will you be ever talking, fool? [_beats him_] take that, And make your tongue a prisoner to your teeth.

STEPHANO _runs away, crying out loudly the while_.

[_Enter the_ FOOL _and_ LEAR.

FOOL. Good nuncle, here be Christian folk; let’s bide. The night cometh when a rotten thatch, even, is a more comfortable blanket than a skyful of little stars.

LEAR [_pointing to_ MIRANDA] What, in Goneril’s palace? Did she not with her own hands push her old father out of door? [_To_ MIRANDA] Nay, mistress daughter; I’ll not bide with you. A million murrains light upon thy unnatural head; ten million plagues burn in thy blood; a million pains lurk in thy wretched bones, thou piece of painted earth whom ’twere foul shame to call a woman.

MIRANDA [_affrighted_] O Ferdinand, what means this strange old man? There burns a direful lustre in his eye And I do fear some certain harm from him.

FERDINAND. Sweet, do not so. He is but mad o’er some Past wrong, and ’tis the quality of such To take the true for false, and thus cry out On him that’s near, the guilty one not by. See, he is faint and old, and cannot harm.

FOOL. Good nuncle, methinks the sun hath made of thee a very owl, for she whom thou callest upon so loudly is not so eld by twenty summers as thy daughter Goneril.

LEAR. ’Tis no matter for that. She is a woman and the daughter of a woman, therefore she will spin foul lies for her pleasure and bid her father out of sight when he is old.

FOOL. Fathers that give away all their substance ere they be dead and rotten are like to see strange things come to pass. An’ thy bald crown had been worthy thy golden one it had worn thy golden one still and thou wert warm in thy palace.

LEAR. This daughter! O this daughter, Goneril.

_Enter_ KING RICHARD II.

KING RICHARD. He lieth in his throat that swears I am No king. ’Tis Bolingbroke doth wear the crown He pluck’d from me, but there’s no power can wash Away a king’s anointing. I put it by, Being constrain’d, but that constraining told Not of my will but my necessity.

FOOL. Lo! here’s another wight that has given away his crown. [_To_ RICHARD] Art thou a king, too?

KING RICHARD. I am, and England was my sovereignty.

FOOL. Then thou liest abominably, for a king that lacks wit to keep his crown on ’s head is no king, and that’s a true saying.

LEAR. Wert thou a king, indeed? Why so was I. And hadst thou daughters, black, unnatural?

KING RICHARD. Nor daughters nor no sons have I to call Me father.

LEAR. Then by so much art thou blest. Forget not that, poor man that wast a king.

KING RICHARD. My kingdom was both daughter and my son, And e’en as Judas sold his master Christ, So did my kingdom chaffer for my crown, And so deliver’d me to Bolingbroke.

FOOL. Is’t he that hath thy crown?

KING RICHARD. ’Tis he, my sometime subject, Bolingbroke: He hath my crown and kingdom both, and I Of all sad monarchs most disconsolate.

FOOL. Then have we here a pair of kings lacking both crowns and kingdoms to wear ’em in. These be but evil times for kings or fools either; and to my thinking there’s not so great a difference betwixt a fool and a king, save that the fool may chance be the wiser man of the two. Of a surety there was little wit a going begging when these twain put their golden crowns from off their simple skulls. Though I’m but a fool, and no wise man, I were but a fool indeed were I to change places with a king.

_Enter_ KING HENRY VI.

KING HENRY. What sayest thou of kings? Kings are but men, Cool’d by the same wind as their subjects are, And blister’d by the self-same burning sun. O happiest are the common folk who toil Afield by day, eat scanty fare, and sleep Anight unvex’d by cares of state or plots Of traitorous nobles envious of a crown.

FOOL. What do I say of kings? Marry, I say they were best to watch well their daughters and their kingdoms; it needs no fool to say so much as that. Prithee, art thou a king of the same mould as these thou beholdest here in this place?

KING HENRY. At scarce nine months was I anointed king.

FOOL. Truly, thou serv’st a tender apprenticeship to thy business and I marvel the less at thy present having. [_To_ LEAR] Good nuncle, here’s yet another king out at the elbows, one, belike, that shook his rattle as ’t were a sceptre, and wore his porringer on ’s head where his crown should have been.

LEAR [_to_ KING HENRY] And thou, too, wert a king?

KING HENRY. I was, but now Am I a king no longer. Edward of March Usurps my title and my crown. There come No suitors unto me, a shadow prince Mated with Madge of Anjou, strong where I Am weak, for she loves war, and weak where I Am strong, for I am joined to content Which she, poor soul, wots little of.

KING RICHARD. O let Us make a compact with this same content; As which shall joy the most in it, that thus The hours shall fleet unhinder’d o’er our heads As o’er the shepherd’s gazing on his flock From out the hawthorn shade. Or what say you, Were it not fitter pastime to bewail Our loss of crown and kingdom morn by morn, Evening by evening, till at last we died Of grief?

KING HENRY. Wiser it were to strive to find What comfort’s left to us.

KING RICHARD. Why, so we will. Come, fool, be thou our numbering clock and tell Item by item all that’s left to us Unhappy kings, brothers in wretchedness.

LEAR. A plague upon ye both that will not curse The authors of your woes, that will not vex The heavens with prayers for their undoing. Curse On curse I’ll heap upon the heads of those She wolves, my daughters, sprung from out my loins; The kingdom’s ruin and their father’s bane. [_Exit raving._

FOOL. Farewell to you both, for I must after him that’s such an eager spendthrift of his curses, and may each of you come upon a kingdom to your mind--when the sun shall smite in January. [_Exit_ FOOL.

KING HENRY. A more than common grief look’d from his eye That roll’d so wildly in his head; pray God We keep our wits, whatever else be lost To us.

KING RICHARD. And I might see proud Bolingbroke In such a case as his that parted now, I deem that I could die full willingly.

KING HENRY. Would I were dead, an’ it were God’s good will; But whilst I live I ne’er will còntrive aught Of evil ’gainst mine enemy, nor wish Him ill, for so weighs woe the heavier On him invoking. Our good captain Christ Did bid us to the smiter turn the cheek That’s smitten yet again, nor harm him not For all the mischiefs he doth put on us. [_Soft music heard._

KING RICHARD. How softly steals sweet music on the soul, Shutting its doors to misery and pain, Closing the senses ’gainst all foes without, Turning the hard couch unto airy down, Dissolving time in melting harmonies. O I could list forever to its sound, But it, or something stronger, masters me. [_Sleeps._

KING HENRY. Poor, changeful-hearted man that wast a king, Led captive by each wayward quick caprice, Unhappy fate call’d thee unto a throne As it did me; our kingdoms suffer’d for’t. Enjoy thy sleep by music underpropt, Till waking show thee as thou wert before, A crownless monarch weeping for thy crown. [_Exit_ KING HENRY.

MIRANDA. My heart is full of pity for these kings Wanting their crowns.

FERDINAND. Those crowns had still been worn Had they known truly what it is to be A king. O, my Miranda, only such That are compos’d of strength and gentleness In fair proportion mix’d, should e’er essay The sceptre. He that may not rule himself Is of all monarchs least significant. [_Exeunt._