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

me mercifully; the rather, gentle Princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard? Shall we not? What say’st thou, my fair flower-de-luce?

KATHERINE. I do not know dat.

KING HENRY. No: ‘tis hereafter to know, but now to promise; do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon tres cher et divin deesse?

KATHERINE. Your Majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de most sage damoiselle dat is en France.

KING HENRY. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate; by which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now beshrew my father’s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies I fright them.

But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that in layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face; thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand and say ‘Harry of England, I am thine.’ Which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud ‘England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine’; who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music-for thy voice is music and thy English broken; therefore, Queen of all, Katherine, break thy mind to me in broken English, wilt thou have me?

KATHERINE. Dat is as it shall please de roi mon pere.

KING HENRY. Nay, it will please him well, Kate-it shall please him, Kate.

KATHERINE. Den it sall also content me.

KING HENRY. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I can you my queen.

KATHERINE. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main d’une, notre seigneur, indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur.

KING HENRY. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

KATHERINE. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur noces, il n’est pas la coutume de France.

KING HENRY. Madame my interpreter, what says she?

ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour le ladies of France-I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.

KING HENRY. To kiss.

ALICE. Your Majestee entendre bettre que moi.

KING HENRY. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?

ALICE. Oui, vraiment.

KING HENRY. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confin’d within the weak list of a country’s fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults- as I will do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss; therefore, patiently and yielding. [Kissing her] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Henry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

 

Enter the FRENCH POWER and the ENGLISH LORDS

 

BURGUNDY. God save your Majesty! My royal cousin, Teach you our princess English?

KING HENRY. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

BURGUNDY. Is she not apt?

KING HENRY. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her that he will appear in his true likeness.

BURGUNDY. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet ros’d over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to.

KING HENRY. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

BURGUNDY. They are then excus’d, my lord, when they see not what they do.

KING HENRY. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

BURGUNDY. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning; for maids well summer’d and warm kept are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

KING HENRY. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.

BURGUNDY. As love is, my lord, before it loves.

KING HENRY. It is so; and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

FRENCH KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath never ent’red.

KING HENRY. Shall Kate be my wife?

FRENCH KING. So please you.

KING HENRY. I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her; so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will.

FRENCH KING. We have consented to all terms of reason.

KING HENRY. Is’t so, my lords of England?

WESTMORELAND. The king hath granted every article: His daughter first; and then in sequel, all, According to their firm proposed natures.

EXETER. Only he hath not yet subscribed this: Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre tres cher fils Henri, Roi d’Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et Haeres Franciae.

FRENCH KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied But our request shall make me let it pass.

KING HENRY. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance, Let that one article rank with the rest; And thereupon give me your daughter.

FRENCH KING. Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms Of France and England, whose very shores look pale With envy of each other’s happiness,

May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction Plant neighbourhood and Christianlike accord In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance His bleeding sword ‘twixt England and fair France.

LORDS. Amen!

KING HENRY. Now, welcome, Kate; and bear me witness all, That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen. [Floulish]

QUEEN ISABEL. God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!

As man and wife, being two, are one in love, So be there ‘twixt your kingdoms such a spousal That never may ill office or fell jealousy, Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage, Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms, To make divorce of their incorporate league; That English may as French, French Englishmen, Receive each other. God speak this Amen!

ALL. Amen!

KING HENRY. Prepare we for our marriage; on which day, My Lord of Burgundy, we’ll take your oath, And all the peers’, for surety of our leagues.

Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me, And may our oaths well kept and prosp’rous be!

Sennet. Exeunt EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE.

 

Enter CHORUS

 

CHORUS. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen, Our bending author hath pursu’d the story, In little room confining mighty men,

Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived This star of England. Fortune made his sword; By which the world’s best garden he achieved, And of it left his son imperial lord.

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown’d king Of France and England, did this king succeed; Whose state so many had the managing

That they lost France and made his England bleed; Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take. Exit THE END

 

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1592

 

THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

 

by William Shakespeare

 

Dramatis Personae

 

KING HENRY THE SIXTH

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, and afterwards CARDINAL

JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge, afterwards DUKE OF YORK

EARL OF WARWICK

EARL OF SALISBURY

EARL OF SUFFOLK

LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY

JOHN TALBOT, his son

EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH

SIR JOHN FASTOLFE

SIR WILLIAM LUCY

SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE

SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE

MAYOR of LONDON

WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower

VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction A LAWYER

GAOLERS, to Mortimer

CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples DUKE OF BURGUNDY

DUKE OF ALENCON

BASTARD OF ORLEANS

GOVERNOR OF PARIS

MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON

GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux A FRENCH SERGEANT

A PORTER

AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to King Henry

COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE

JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC

 

Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing to La Pucelle

 

<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM

SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS

PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE

WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE

DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS

PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED

COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY

SERVICE THAT