Edward III, William Shakespeare [novels to read for beginners txt] 📗

was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right:
And, herewithal, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife. King Edward

So, John of France, I see you keep your word.
You promis’d to be sooner with ourself
Than we did think for, and ’tis so indeed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouch’d
That now are turn’d to ragged heaps of stones?
How many people’s lives might’st thou have sav’d
That are untimely sunk into their graves?

King John

Edward, recount not things irrevocable;
Tell me what ransom thou requir’st to have.

King Edward

Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known.
But first to England thou must cross the seas
To see what entertainment it affords;
Howe’er it falls, it cannot be so bad
As ours hath been since we arriv’d in France.

King John

Accursed man! of this I was foretold,
But did misconster what the prophet told.

Prince Edward

Now, father, this petition Edward makes⁠—
To thee, kneels whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to show thy power,
So thou wilt grant, that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that little isle,
May still be famous for like victories!⁠—
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
And weary nights that I have watch’d in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffer’d me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease,
I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold;
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England’s ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire!

King Edward

Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An interceasing of our painful arms:
Sheath up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breath’d
A day or two within this haven-town,
God willing, then for England we’ll be shipp’d;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen. Flourish. Exeunt omnes.

Endnotes

Editors add “Why, aunt,” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “it” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “a” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “so” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Some modern editions combine scenes 4 and 5. See the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

The number of scenes in act 4 can differ from edition to edition. The Shakespeare Apocrypha’s edition, edited by C. F. Tucker Brooke contains as many as nine scenes. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “streamers” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “holy” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “he be” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add “with” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Editors add another “on” to correct the line’s meter. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩

Colophon

Edward III
was published anonymously in 1596 and partly written by
William Shakespeare.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1999 by the
P.G. Shakespeare Team and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
The King of Thule,
a painting completed in 1896 by
Pierre Jean Van der Ouderaa.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
August 12, 2021, 10:43 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
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