Expect your highness' doom, of life, or death.

6

K. Hen. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting

gates,

To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!— Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives, And show'd how well you love your prince and country:

Continue still in this so good a mind,

‹ And Henry, though he be infortunate,

Assure yourselves, will never be unkind:
And so, with thanks, and pardon to you all,
I do dismiss you to your several countries.
All. God save the king! God save the king!

Enter a Messenger.

* Mess. Please it your grace to be advértised, *The duke of York is newly come from Ireland; *And with a puissant and a mighty power, * Of Gallowglasses, and stout Kernes2, * Is marching hitherward in proud array; *And still proclaimeth, as he comes along, * His arms are only to remove from thee • The duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor. *K. Hen. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd;

* Like to a ship, that, having scap'd a tempest, *Is straightway calm'd3 and boarded with a pirate:

2 The Galloglasse useth a kind of pollax for his weapon. These men are grim of countenance, tall of stature, big of limme, lusty of body, wel and strongly timbered. The kerne is an ordinary foot-soldier, using for weapon his sword and target, and sometimes his piece, being commonly good markmen.'-Stanihurst's Descript. of Ireland, c. viii. f. 21.

3 The first folio reads calme; which may be right. The second folio printed by mistake claimed; and the third folio calm'd. This reading has been adopted as most perspicuous, and because in Othello we have :

By his state Henry means his realm, which had recently become

4

*But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd; *And now is York in arms to second him.—

*

I pray thee, Buckingham, go forth and meet him; * And ask him, what's the reason of these arms. * Tell him, I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower;* And, Somerset, we will commit thee thither, * Until his army be dismiss'd from him.

* Som. My lord,

* I'll yield myself to prison willingly,

* Or unto death, to do my country good.

*K. Hen. In any case, be not too rough in terms ; *For he is fierce, and cannot brook hard language.

* Buck. I will, my lord; and doubt not so to deal, * As all things shall redound unto your good.

*K. Hen. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;

*For yet may England curse my wretched reign.

[Exeunt.

SCENE X. Kent. Iden's Garden1.

Enter CADE.

*Cade. Fye on ambition! fye on myself; that * have a sword, and yet am ready to famish! These * five days have I hid me in these woods; and * durst not peep out, for all the country is lay'd for calm, i. e. quiet and peaceful, by the defeat of Cade and his rabble, when York appears in arms to raise fresh disturbances. Boarded with a pirate is boarded by one.

4 But is here not adversative. It was only just now (says Henry), that Cade and his followers were routed.' Thus in King Richard II. :—

'But now the blood of twenty thousand men

Did triumph in my face.'

1A gentleman of Kent, named Alexander Eden, awaited so his time, that he took the said Cade in a garden in Sussex, so that there he was slaine at Hothfield,' &c.-Holinshed, p. 635. This Iden was, in fact, the new sheriff of Kent, who had followed Cade from Rochester.'-William of Wyrcester, p. 472.

#

me: but now am I so hungry, that if I might have a lease of my life for a thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick-wall have * I climbed into this garden; to see if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet another while, which is not * amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather. * And, I think, this word sallet was born to do me good: for, many a time, but for a sallet, my * brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill; and, many a time, when I have been dry, and bravely marching, it hath served me instead of a quartpot to drink in; and now the word sallet must * serve me to feed on.

6

Enter IDEN, with Servants.

'Iden. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court, And may enjoy such quiet walks as these? This small inheritance, my father left me, • Contenteth me, and is worth a monarchy. I seek not to wax-great by others' waning; Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy; Sufficeth, that I have maintains my state, And sends the poor well pleased from my gate. • Cade. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get

me

2 A sallet is a helmet. Salade, Fr.; celata, Ital.; celada, Span. Etymologists differ in opinion on the origin of the word; some derive it from celare, Lat. to hide, or cover; others from the Low Latin, salattarius, which Isidore, in his Glossary, interprets portator armarium. The Teutonic schal, pointed out by Duchat, and adopted by Mr. Todd, is a less probable etymon. The word undoubtedly came to us from the French. Caxton, in his Chronicle, speaking of Cade, says, Anone he toke Sir Umfreyes salade and his briganteins smyten ful of gilte nailles, and also his gilt spores, and araied him like a lord and a captaine.' In the statute 4 5 Phil. and Mary, c. 2, we find twenty harquebuts and twenty morians or salets.'

6

a thousand crowns of the king for carrying my head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.

'Iden. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be, I know thee not; Why then should I betray thee? Is't not enough, to break into my garden,

And, like a thief, to come and rob my grounds, Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner, But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms? Cade. Brave thee? ay, by the best blood that ever was broached, and beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave all as dead as a door nail3, I pray God, I may

you

never eat grass more.

Iden. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England
stands,

That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,
Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.

Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine,

'See if thou canst outface me with thy looks. 'Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser; Thy hand is but a finger to my fist;

Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon;

My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast ;

And if mine arm be heaved in the air,

Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.

As for words, whose greatness answers words*, 'Let this my sword report what speech forbears.

3 See note on the Second Part of King Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 3. 4 Johnson explains this, 'As for words, whose pomp and rumour may answer words, and only words, I shall forbear them, and refer the rest to my sword.' Thus in the Third Part of King Henry VI.:

'I will not bandy with thee word for word,

But buckle with thee blows, twice two for one.'

6

*

Cade. By my valour, the most complete cham# pion that ever I heard.—' Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly-boned clown in 'chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech God on my knees, thou mayest be turned 'to hobnails. [They fight; CADE falls.] O, I am 'slain! famine, and no other, hath slain me: let • ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them 'all. Wither, garden; and be henceforth a burying-place to all that do dwell in this house, because 'the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.

6

Iden. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?

Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed, And hang thee o'er my tomb, when I am dead 6: * Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point; * But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat,

* To emblaze the honour that thy master got.

Cade. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory: Tell Kent from me, she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be cowards; for

5 In the folio I beseech Jove' was substituted to avoid the penalty of the statute, 3 Jac. I. c. 2, against profane swearing. Cade was very unlikely to swear by Jove.

6 This sentiment is much more correctly expressed in the quarto :

'Oh sword, I'll honour thee for this, and in my chamber
Shalt thou hang, as a monument to after age,

For this great service thou hast done to me.'

Shakspeare, in new moulding this speech, has used the same mode of expression that he has employed in The Winter's Tale:'If thou'lt see a thing to talk on, when thou art dead and rotten, come hither,' i. e. for people to talk of. So again, in a subsequent scene of this play:

And dead men's cries do fill the empty air.'

Which of the plays of Shakspeare do not furnish expressions equally bold with I will hang thee,' to express 'I will have thee hung?'