Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath! (To Richmond.) I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid; But cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismay'd. Have mercy, Jesu!-Soft! I did but dream. 180 Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. 195 My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 201 That ever ent'red in a drowsy head Came to my tent, and cried on victory. His oration to his soldiers. More than I have said, loving countrymen, The leisure and enforcement of the time Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this, God and our good cause fight upon our side; The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls, Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces. Richard except, those whom we fight against Had rather have us win than him they fol low. For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen A bloody tyrant and a homicide; 246 One rais'd in blood, and one in blood estab lish'd; One that made means to come by what he hath, And slaughter'd those that were the means to help him; A base foul stone, made precious by the foil se 255 If you do fight in safeguard of your wives, Your wives shall welcome home the conquer In the main battle, whose puissance on either side Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse. This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou, Norfolk? Nor. A good direction, warlike sovereign. This found I on my tent this morning. 301 [He sheweth him a paper. [K. Rich. Reads.] Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold, For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." 305 Go, gentlemen, every man to his charge. March on, join bravely, let us to 't pell-mell; 325 They would restrain the one, distain the other. If we be conquered, let men conquer us, Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd, And on record, left them the heirs of shame. Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives? 336 [SCENE IV. Another part of the field.] Alarum. Excursions. Enter [NORFOLK and forces fighting; to him] CATESBY. Cate. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue! The King enacts more wonders than a man, K. Rich. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! Cate. Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse. K. Rich. Slave, I have set my life upon a [SCENE V. Another part of the field.] Alarum. Enter Richard and Richmond; they fight; Richard is slain. Retreat and flourish. Re-enter RICHMOND, DERBY, bearing the crown, with divers other Lords. Richm. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends; The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead. Lo, here, these long-usurped royalties Richm. Great God of heaven, say amen to all! But, tell me, is young George Stanley living? Der. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester 20 That in submission will return to us; The brother blindly shed the brother's blood, 95 O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth, 85 With smiling Plenty and fair prosperous days! Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, That would reduce these bloody days again, And make poor England weep in streams of blood! Let them not live to taste this land's increase That would with treason wound this fair land's peace! Now civil wounds are stopp'd, Peace lives again; That she may long live here, God say amen! #1 [Exeunt. THE LIFE OF HENRY THE EIGHTH A PLAY called Henry VIII or All is True was being played in the Globe Theatre on June 29, 1613, when the theatre caught fire and was burned down. Contemporary descriptions of this piece fit the present history so exactly that there remains little doubt that the Shakespearean drama is meant. We have here, then, a later limit for its composition. Wotton, writing of the burning of the Globe, calls All is True "a new play." The chief reason urged against taking this literally lies in the reference to Elizabeth in II. ii. 50-52, and in the eulogy in v. v. 18-39, 58-63, to which the praise of James may have been added later. But eulogies of the great queen did not cease with her death; and there is much in the treatment of her parents that could hardly have been pleasing to her. In the style and metre of the undoubted Shakespearean part of the drama we find nothing pointing to a date before 1603, but much to the latest years of his activity; and it is a fairly safe conclusion that in the parts of the present play written by him we have the last of his extant work. No edition of Henry VIII appeared till it was published in the First Folio, and on that version the present text is based. The chief historical basis for the play is Holinshed's Chronicles. Some details seem to have come direct from Halle; and the scenes presenting the attempt to crush Cranmer (v. i., ii., iii.) are taken from Foxe's Actes and Monuments, better known as The Book of Martyrs. These sources are followed at times almost slavishly, much of the actual diction being derived from the prose narratives. Yet with all this borrowing of detail, much freedom is used in the selection and arrangement of incident, historical time is disregarded, and even the identity of personages is confused. The characterization of Queen Katherine alone shows any great creative imagination. Though all her acts and much of her language are taken from the Chronicles, the dramatist has bestowed on her a pathetic dignity which elevates her to such a pitch that in spite of her passive rôle she stands out as the real heroine of the play. Wolsey's farewell speech (except m. ii. 455–457) is also invented; but his other important utterances and almost all his actions are based directly on Holinshed, who here drew from a variety of sources varying much in their estimate of the Cardinal. Some details seem to have been suggested by Samuel Rowley's When You See Me You Know Me (printed 1605). The low comedy scenes in the palace yard and Cranmer's closing prophecies are, of course, without historical basis. This drama is singularly lacking in unity. The material is simply translated into dialogue or pageant; and there results a succession of brilliant stage pictures, sketches of character, and fine speeches, entirely without dramatic coherence. Buckingham, Katherine, the King, Wolsey, and Cranmer hold in succession the centre of the stage, but no causal connection is apparent in the sequence; nor is there consistency in the demand for sympathy with men or factions. This fragmentary quality alone is sufficient to suggest a doubt as to unity of authorship; and examination of the technical qualities of style and metre has confirmed this suspicion. It is now fairly generally, though not universally, conceded that the greater number of scenes are to be credited to John Fletcher, and to Shakespeare only 1. i., ii.; II. iii., iv.; m. ii. 1-203; and with less assurance of purity, v. i. Attempts have been made to deny to Shakespeare any share in the authorship, and to assign it to other authors, especially to Massinger. But various internal reasons, besides the unchallenged appearance of the play in the First Folio, prevent the acceptance of this extreme view. No speculation on the method of collaboration has resulted in anything more than mere conjecture. The pronunciation of " Abergavenny" is indicated by the spelling found in the Folio, "Aburgany." |