The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

three sworn brothers to France. Let’t be so, good Corporal Nym.

NYM. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that’s the certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it.

BARDOLPH. It is certain, Corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, for you were troth-plight to her.

NYM. I cannot tell; things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say knives have edges. It must be as it may; though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell.

 

Enter PISTOL and HOSTESS

 

BARDOLPH. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be patient here.

NYM. How now, mine host Pistol!

PISTOL. Base tike, call’st thou me host?

Now by this hand, I swear I scorn the term; Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.

HOSTESS. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house straight. [Nym draws] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! Now we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.

BARDOLPH. Good Lieutenant, good Corporal, offer nothing here.

NYM. Pish!

PISTOL. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear’d cur of Iceland!

HOSTESS. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.

NYM. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.

PISTOL. ‘Solus,’ egregious dog? O viper vile!

The ‘solus’ in thy most mervailous face; The ‘solus’ in thy teeth, and in thy throat, And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy; And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!

I do retort the ‘solus’ in thy bowels; For I can take, and Pistol’s cock is up, And flashing fire will follow.

NYM. I am not Barbason: you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms; if you would walk off I would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may, and thaes the humour of it.

PISTOL. O braggart vile and damned furious wight!

The grave doth gape and doting death is near; Therefore exhale. [PISTOL draws]

BARDOLPH. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first stroke I’ll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.

[Draws]

PISTOL. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.

[PISTOL and Nym sheathe their swords]

Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give; Thy spirits are most tall.

NYM. I will cut thy throat one time or other, in fair terms; that is the humour of it.

PISTOL. ‘Couple a gorge!’

That is the word. I thee defy again.

O hound of Crete, think’st thou my spouse to get?

No; to the spital go,

And from the powd’ring tub of infamy

Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid’s kind, Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.

I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly For the only she; and-pauca, there’s enough.

Go to.

 

Enter the Boy

 

BOY. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master; and your hostess-he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.

Faith, he’s very ill.

BARDOLPH. Away, you rogue.

HOSTESS. By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding one of these days: the King has kill’d his heart. Good husband, come home presently. Exeunt HOSTESS and BOY

BARDOLPH. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another’s throats?

PISTOL. Let floods o’erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

NYM. You’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PISTOL. Base is the slave that pays.

NYM. That now I will have; that’s the humour of it.

PISTOL. As manhood shall compound: push home.

[PISTOL and Nym draw]

BARDOLPH. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust I’ll kill him; by this sword, I will.

PISTOL. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.

[Sheathes his sword]

BARDOLPH. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Prithee put up.

NYM. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PISTOL. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay; And liquor likewise will I give to thee, And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.

I’ll live by Nym and Nym shall live by me.

Is not this just? For I shall sutler be Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.

Give me thy hand.

NYM. [Sheathing his sword] I shall have my noble?

PISTOL. In cash most justly paid.

NYM. [Shaking hands] Well, then, that’s the humour of’t.

 

Re-enter HOSTESS

 

HOSTESS. As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.

Ah, poor heart! he is so shak’d of a burning quotidian tertian that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.

NYM. The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that’s the even of it.

PISTOL. Nym, thou hast spoke the right; His heart is fracted and corroborate.

NYM. The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes some humours and careers.

PISTOL. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.

Exeunt

SCENE II.

Southampton. A council-chamber

 

Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND

 

BEDFORD. Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.

EXETER. They shall be apprehended by and by.

WESTMORELAND. How smooth and even they do bear themselves, As if allegiance in their bosoms sat, Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!

BEDFORD. The King hath note of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

EXETER. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath dull’d and cloy’d with gracious favours-That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell His sovereign’s life to death and treachery!

 

Trumpets sound. Enter the KING, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and attendants KING HENRY. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.

My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham, And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.

Think you not that the pow’rs we bear with us Will cut their passage through the force of France, Doing the execution and the act

For which we have in head assembled them?

SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

KING HENRY. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded We carry not a heart with us from hence That grows not in a fair consent with ours; Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish Success and conquest to attend on us.

CAMBRIDGE. Never was monarch better fear’d and lov’d Than is your Majesty. There’s not, I think, a subject That sits in heart-grief and uneasines Under the sweet shade of your government.

GREY. True: those that were your father’s enemies Have steep’d their galls in honey, and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

KING HENRY. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness, And shall forget the office of our hand Sooner than quittance of desert and merit According to the weight and worthiness.

SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil, And labour shall refresh itself with hope, To do your Grace incessant services.

KING HENRY. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter, Enlarge the man committed yesterday

That rail’d against our person. We consider It was excess of wine that set him on; And on his more advice we pardon him.

SCROOP. That’s mercy, but too much security.

Let him be punish’d, sovereign, lest example Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.

KING HENRY. O, let us yet be merciful!

CAMBRIDGE. So may your Highness, and yet punish too.

GREY. Sir,

You show great mercy if you give him life, After the taste of much correction.

KING HENRY. Alas, your too much love and care of me Are heavy orisons ‘gainst this poor wretch!

If little faults proceeding on distemper Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d, and digested, Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man, Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care And tender preservation of our person, Would have him punish’d. And now to our French causes: Who are the late commissioners?

CAMBRIDGE. I one, my lord.

Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.

SCROOP. So did you me, my liege.

GREY. And I, my royal sovereign.

KING HENRY. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours; There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, Sir Knight, Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.

Read them, and know I know your worthiness.

My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter, We will aboard tonight. Why, how now, gentlemen?

What see you in those papers, that you lose So much complexion? Look ye how they change!

Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there That have so cowarded and chas’d your blood Out of appearance?

CAMBRIDGE. I do confess my fault,

And do submit me to your Highness’ mercy.

GREY, SCROOP. To which we all appeal.

KING HENRY. The mercy that was quick in us but late By your own counsel is suppress’d and kill’d.

You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy; For your own reasons turn into your bosoms As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

See you, my princes and my noble peers, These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here-You know how apt our love was to accord To furnish him with an appertinents

Belonging to his honour; and this man Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir’d, And sworn unto the practices of France To kill us here in Hampton; to the which This knight, no less for bounty bound to us Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O, What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel, Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?

Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, That knew’st the very bottom of my soul, That almost mightst have coin’d me into gold, Wouldst thou have practis’d on me for thy use-May it be possible that foreign hire

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil That might annoy my finger? ‘Tis so strange That, though the truth of it stands off as gross As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.

Treason and murder ever kept together, As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose, Working so grossly in a natural cause That admiration did not whoop at them; But thou, ‘gainst all proportion, didst bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder; And whatsoever cunning fiend it was

That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence; And other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch’d From glist’ring semblances of piety;

But he that temper’d thee bade thee stand up, Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason, Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

If that same demon that hath gull’d thee thus Should with his lion gait walk the whole world, He might return to vasty Tartar back, And tell the legions ‘I can never win A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.’

O, how hast thou with jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?

Why,