Edward III, William Shakespeare [novels to read for beginners txt] 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
Book online «Edward III, William Shakespeare [novels to read for beginners txt] 📗». Author William Shakespeare
As if I were to fly to paradise. Going. Charles
Stay, my Villiers; thine honourable mind
Deserves to be eternally admir’d.
Thy suit shall be no longer thus deferr’d;
Give me the paper, I’ll subscribe to it: Signs, and gives it back.
And, wheretofore I lov’d thee as Villiers,
Hereafter I’ll embrace thee as myself;
Stay, and be still in favour with thy lord.
I humbly thank you grace, I must dispatch
And send this passport first unto the earl,
And then I will attend your highness’ pleasure.
Do so, Villiers;—and Charles, when he hath need,
Be such his soldiers, howsoe’er he speed! Exit Villiers.
Come, Charles, and arm thee; Edward is entrapp’d,
The Prince of Wales is fall’n into our hands,
And we have compass’d him, he cannot scape.
What else, my son? he’s scarce eight thousand strong,
And we are threescore thousand at the least.
I have a prophecy, my gracious lord,
Wherein is written what success is like
To happen us in this outrageous war;
It was deliver’d me at Cressy’s field
By one that is an aged Hermit there. Reads.
“When feather’d foul shall make thine army tremble,
And flint-stones rise, and break the battle ’ray,
Then think on him that doth not now dissemble,
For that shall be the hapless dreadful day:
Yet in the end thy foot thou shalt advance
As far in England as thy foe in France.”
By this it seems we shall be fortunate:
For as it is impossible that stones
Should ever rise and break the battle ’ray,
Or airy foul make men in arms to quake,
So is it like, we shall not be subdu’d:
Or, say this might be true, yet in the end,
Since he doth promise we shall drive him hence
And forage their country as they have done ours,
By this revenge that loss will seem the less.
But all are frivolous fancies, toys and dreams:
Once we are sure we have ensnar’d the son,
Catch we the father after how we can. Exeunt.
The same. The English camp.
Enter Prince Edward, Audley, and others. Prince EdwardAudley, the arms of death embrace us round,
And comfort have we none, save that to die
We pay sour earnest for a sweeter life.
At Cressy field out clouds of warlike smoke
Chok’d up those French mouths and dissever’d them:
But now their multitudes of millions hide,
Masking as ’twere, the beauteous-burning sun;
Leaving no hope to us but sullen dark
And eyeless terror of all-ending night.
This sudden, mighty and expedient head,
That they have made, fair prince, is wonderful.
Before us in the valley lies the king,
Vantag’d with all that heaven and earth can yield;
His party stronger battled than our whole:
His son, the braving Duke of Normandy,
Hath trimm’d the mountain on our right hand up
In shining plate, that now the aspiring hill
Shows like a silver quarry or an orb;
Aloft the which, the banners, bannarets,
And new-replenish’d pendants cuff the air,
And beat the winds, that for their gaudiness
Struggles to kiss them: on our left hand lies
Philip, the younger issue of the king,
Coting the other hill in such array
That all his guilded upright pikes do seem
Straight trees of gold, the pendant streamers7 leaves;
And their device of antique heraldry,
Quarter’d in colours seeming sundry fruits,
Makes it the orchard of the Hesperides:
Behind us too the hill doth bear his height,
For, like a half-moon, op’ning but one way,
It rounds us in; there at our backs are lodg’d
The fatal cross-bows, and the battle there
Is govern’d by the rough Chatillion.
Then thus it stands—the valley for our flight
The king binds in; the hills on either hand
Are proudly royalized by his sons;
And on the hill behind stands certain death,
In pay and service with Chatillion.
Death’s name is much more mighty than his deeds;—
Thy parcelling this power hath made it more.
As many sands as these my hands can hold
Are but my handful of so many sands;
Then, all the world—and call it but a power—
Easily ta’en up, and quickly thrown away:
But if I stand to count them sand by sand,
The number would confound my memory
And make a thousand millions of a task
Which, briefly, is no more, indeed, than one.
These quarters, squadrons, and these regiments,
Before, behind us, and on either hand,
Are but a power: when we name a man,
His hand, his foot, his head, hath several strengths;
And being all but one self instant strength,
Why, all this many, Audley, is but one,
And we can call it all but one man’s strength.
He, that hath far to go, tells it by miles;
If he should tell the steps, it kills his heart:
The drops are infinite that make a flood,
And yet, thou know’st, we call it but a rain.
There is but one France, one King of France,
That France hath no more kings; and that same king
Hath but the puissant legion of one king;
And we have one: then apprehend no odds,
For one to one is fair equality.—
The King of France, my sovereign lord and master,
Greets by me his foe the Prince of Wales.
If thou call forth a hundred men of name,
Of lords, knights, squires, and English gentlemen,
And with thyself and those kneel at his feet,
He straight will fold his bloody colours up
And ransom shall redeem lives forfeited:
If not, this day shall drink more English blood
Than e’er was buried in our British earth.
What is the answer to his proffer’d mercy?
This heaven that covers France contains the mercy
That draws from me submissive orisons;
That such base breath should vanish from my lips,
To urge the plea of mercy to a man,
The Lord forbid! Return, and tell the king,
My tongue is made of steel and it shall beg
My mercy on his coward burgonet;
Tell him, my colours are as red as his,
My men as bold, our English arms as strong,
Return him my defiance in his face.
The Duke of Normandy, my lord and master,
Pitying thy youth is so engirt with peril,
By me hath sent a
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