You are always my good friend; if your will pass, Gar. Good master secretary, I cry your honour mercy; you may, worst Crom. Why, my lord? Gar. Do not I know you for a favourer Of this new sect? ye are not sound. Forbear, for shame, my lords. Gar. Do. This is too much; I have done. Crom. And I. Chan. Then thus for you, my lord,-It stands I take it, by all voices, that forthwith [agreed, You be conveyed to the Tower a prisoner ; There to remain, till the king's further pleasure, Be known unto us: Are you all agreed, lords? All. We are, Cran. Is there no other way of mercy, But I must needs to the Tower, my lords? Gar. What other Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome: Let some o'the guard be ready there. Cran. Stay, good my lords; I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords; By virtue of that ring, I take my cause Out of the gripes of cruel men, and give it To a most noble judge, the king my master. Cham. This is the king's ring. Sur. 'Tis no counterfeit. Suf. 'Tis the right ring, by heaven: I told ye all, When we first put this dangerous stone a rolling, "Twould fall upon ourselves. Nor. Do you think, my lords, The king will suffer but the little finger (If this man to be vex'd? Cham. How much more is his life in value with him? 'Would I were fairly out on't. And his disciples only envy at,) Ye blew the fire that burns ye: Now have at ye. Enter KING, frowning on them; takes his seat. Gar. Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince; [heaven Not only good and wise, but most religious: One that, in all obedience, makes the church The chief aim of his honour; and, to strengthen That holy duty, out of dear respect, His royal self in judgment comes to hear, The cause betwixt her and this great offender. K. Hen. You were ever good at sudden commenda- He, that dares most, but wag his finger at thee: K. Hen. No, sir, it does not please me. I had thought, I had had men of some understanding And wisdom, of my council; but I find none. Was it discretion, lords, to let this man, This good man, (few of you deserve that title,) This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy At chamber door? and one as great as you are? Why, what a shame was this? Did my commission Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye Power as he was a counsellor to try him, Not as a groom; There's some of ye, I see, More out of malice than integrity, Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean; Which ye shall never have, while I live. Chan. Thus far, My most dread sovereign, may it like your grace To let my tongue excuse all. What was purpos'd Concerning his imprisonment, was rather (If there be faith in men,) meant for his trial, And fair purgation to the world, than malice; I am sure, in me. K. Hen. Well, well, my lords, respect him, Am, for his love and service, so to him. And brother-love, I do it. Cran. With a true heart, And let heaven Witness, how dear I hold this confirmation. 'Tis now too certain : My mind gave me, In seeking tales, and informations, The common voice, I see, is verified Crom. K. Hen. Good man, those joyful tears shew thy true [heart. Of thee, which says thus, Do my lord of Canterbury | Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to endure. A shrewd turn, and he is your friend for ever.- So I grow stronger, you more honour gain. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The Palace Yard. 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. [larder. [Within.] Good master porter, I belong to the Port. Belong to the gallows, and be hanged, you rogue: Is this a place to roar in ?-Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves, and strong ones; these are but switches to them.-I'll scratch your heads: You must be seeing christenings? Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals? [sible Man. Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impos(Unless we sweep them from the door with cannons,) To scatter them, as 'tis to make them sleep On May-day morning; which will never be : We may as well push against Paul's, as stir them. 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, I made no spare, sir. Port. You did nothing, sir. Man. I am not Samson, nor sir Guy, nor Colbrand, to mow them 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 never 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 them 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 besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication 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 pink'd porringer fell off her head, for kindling such a combustion in the state. I miss'd the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out, clubs! when I might see from far some forty truncheoneers draw to her succour, which were the hope of the Strand, where she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place; at length they came to the broomstaff with me, I defied them still; when suddenly a file of boys behind them, loose shot, delivered such a shower of pebbles, that I was fain to draw mine honour in, and let them win the work: The devil was amongst them, 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 I have some of them 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. Cham. Mercy o'me, what a multitude are here! They grow still too, from all parts they are coming, As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters, These lazy knaves? Ye have made a fine hand, felThere's a trim rabble let in: Are all these [lows. Your faithful friends o' the suburbs? We shall have Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies, When they pass back from the christening. Port. An't please your honour If the king blame me for't, I'll lay ye all A Marshalsea, shall hold you play these two months. Man. You great fellow, stand close up, or I'll make your head ake. Port. You i'the camblet, get up o'the rail; I'll pick you o'er the pales else. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-The Palace. Enter trumpets, sounding; then Two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, DUKE OF NORFOLK, with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK, Two Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls 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, &c. 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! Cran. Flourish. Enter KING and Train. [Kneeling.] And to your royal grace, and My noble partners, and myself, thus pray;- Thank you, good lord archbishop, Stand up, lord.— K. Hen. My noble gossips, ye have been too prothank ye heartily; so shall this lady, [digal, When she has so much English. I Cran. Let me speak, sır. For heaven now bids me; and the words utter Let none think flattery, for they'll find them truth. This royal infant, (heaven still move about her!) Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, So shall she leave her blessedness to one, The play of Henry the Eighth is one of those which still keeps possession of the stage by the splendour of its pageantry. The coronation, about forty years ago, drew the people together in multitudes for the great part of the winter. Yet pomp is not the only merit of this play. The meek sorrows and virtuous distress of Katharine have furnished some scenes, which may be justly numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But the genius of Shakspeare comes in and goes out with Katharine. Every other part may be easily conceived and easily written. JOHNSON. Chetwood says that, during one season, it was exhibited seventy-five times. There are, I believe,very few readers who will coincide with Dr. Johnson in their opinion of this play; or who K. Hen. Thou speakest wonders] Cran. She shall be, to the 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 mourn her. Thou hast made me now a inan; never, before EPILOGUE. ye, '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 are like to hear For this play at this time, is only in The merciful construction of good women; For such a one we shew'd them; 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 them clap. will not discover the traces of Shakspeare's genius as powerfully marked in the delineation of Wolsey and King Henry, as in the exquisite portrait of Queen Katharine herself. It has been supposed, that the epilogue and prologue, and a few incidental passages, were added by Ben Jonson, on the revival of this play, 1613. This opinion was entertained by Steevens, Malone, Dr. Farmer, and Dr. Johnson, partly on the grounds of Shakspeare's absence from London, and partly on an imaginary detection of Jonson's style and manner. To demonstrate the vanity of all such actual speculations, it is now certain, that they were most probably from the pen of Shakspeare, who was still in London; and that, at all events, they could not have been written by Ben Jonson, for he was not even in England. THIS play was entered at Stationers' Hall, Feb. 1602-3, under the title of The Booke of Troilus and Cressida; and was therefore probably written in 1602. It was not printed till 1609; when it was preceded by an advertisement of the editor, stating that "it had never been staled with the stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar." Yet, as the tragedy was entered in 1602-3, as acted by my lord Chamberlain's men; we must suppose that the editor's words do not mean that it had never been presented at all, but only at court, and not on the public stage. There was a play upon this subject written by Decker and Chettle, in 1599; the original story of Troilus and Cressida was the work of Lollius, a historiographer of Urbino, in Italy. It was, according to Dryden, written in Latin verse, and translated by Chaucer. Shakspeare received the greater part of his ma terials from the Troy Booke of Lydgate; and the romance of The Three Destructions of Troy. In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are; ACT I. SCENE I.-Troy. Before Priam's Palace. Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS. Tro. Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again : Why should I war without the walls of Troy, That find such cruel battle here within? Each Trojan, that is master of his heart, Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none. Pan. Will this geer ne'er be mended? [strength, Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant; But I am weaker than a woman's tear, Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance; Less valiant than the virgin in the night, And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy. 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 tarry the grinding. Tro. Have I not tarried? Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word-hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the 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, And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,- Tro. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart, But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, 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 Čassandra's wit; but Tro. O, Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,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 Pan. I speak no more than truth. 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 travel; 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 is 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 blacka-moor; tis all one to me. Tro. Say I, she is not fair? Par. 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 in the matter. Tro. 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! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, It is too starv'd a subject for my sword. But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me! Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? Tro. Because not there; This woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Æneas, from the field to-day? Ene. That Paris is return'd home, and hurt. Tro. By whom, Æneas? Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus. Tro. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. Ene. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day! Tro. Better at home, if would I might, were may.But, to the sport abroad ;-Are you bound thither? Eng. In all swift haste. Tro. Come, go we then together. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. A Street. Queen Hecuba, and Helen. Cres. And whither go they? Aler. Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd: He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer; And, like as there were husbandry in war, Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light, And to the field goes he; where every flower, Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw In Hector's wrath. Cres. What was his cause of anger? Alex. The noise goes, this: There is among the A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; [Greeks They call him, Ajax. Cres. 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, sick, or have no legs. Aler. 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 crouded 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. Enter PANDARUS. Cres. Who comes here? Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus. Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium? Cres. This morning uncle. Pan. What were you talking of, when I came? Was Hector armed and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she? Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up. Cres. So he says here. Pan. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there is Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too. Cres. What is he angry too? Pan. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man 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? |