Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. Por. That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less : A substitute shines brightly as a king Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house. Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect: Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. 101 Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended, and I think No better a musician than the wren. Por. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo, By the bad voice. You swore to me, when I did give it you. That you would wear it till your hour of deat And that it should lie with you in your grav Though not for me, yet for your veheme oaths, [kept You should have been respective and hay Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judg The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face the had it. Gra. He will, an if he live to be a man. A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy, with you, To part so slightly with your wife's first gif tiano. You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief: An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it. Bass. Aside Why, I were best to cut my left hand off And swear I lost the ring defending it. Gra. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away Cnto the judge that begg'd it and indeed 180 Deserved it too; and then the boy, his clerk, That took some pains in writing, he Legg'd mine; And neither man nor master would take aught But the two rings. Por. What ring gave you, my lord? Not that, I hope, which you received of me. Boss. If I could add a lie unto a fault, I would deny it; but you see my finger Por. Even so void is your false heart of truth. By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed 190 Until I see the ring. Ner. Nor I in yours Till I again see mine. If you did know to whom I gave the ring, Por. If you had known the virtue of the I ring, Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, 200 What man is there so much unreasonable, And suffer'd him to go displeased away; Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady? I was enforced to send it after him; I was beset with shame and courtesy ; So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady; The ring of me to give the worthy doctor. Por. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house: Since he hath got the jewel that I loved, I will become as liberal as you; Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus: 230 If you do not, if I be left alone, Ner. And I his clerk; therefore be well advised How you do leave me to mine own protection. Gra. Well, do you so let not me take him, then ; For if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen. Ant. I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels. Por. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding. Bass. Portia, forgive me this enforced And, in the hearing of these many friends, I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes, Wherein I see myself Por. Mark you but that! In both my eyes he doubly sees himself; In each eye, one swear by your double self, And there's an oath of credit. Bass. Nay, but hear me ; Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear never more will break an oath with thee, Ant. I once did lend my body for his wealth; [ring, Which, but for him that had your husband's Had quite miscarried: I dare be bound again, My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord Will never more break faith advisedly. Por. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this And bid him keep it better than the other. this ring. Bass. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor! Por. I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio; For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me. 259 Ner. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano; For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk, In lieu of this last night did lie with me. Gra. Why, this is like the mending of highways In summer, where the ways are fair enough: What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserved way Of starved people. Por. Gra. Let it be so the first inter'gatory 300 That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is, Whether till the next night she had rather stay, Or go to bed now, being two hours to day. KING HENRY IV. PART I (WRITTEN ABOUT 1597-98.) INTRODUCTION. The two parts of King Henry IV. may be considered as one play in ten acts. It is probable that Shakespeare went on with little or no delay from the first part to its continuation in the second. Both were written before the entry of the first in the Stationers' register, Feb. 25, 1597-98; for the entry shows that the name of the fat knight, who originally appeared in both parts under the name of Odcastle, had been already altered to Falstaff. Meres makes mention of Henry IV.; and Ben Jenson, in Every Man Out of His Humour (1599), alludes to Justice Silence, one of the characters of the Second Part of Shakespeare's play. The materials upon which Shakespeare worked in Henry IV. and Heary V. were obtained from Holinshed, and from an old play, full of vulgar mirth, and acted before 1588, The Famous Victories of Henry V. Both parts of Henry IV. consist of a comedy and a history fused together. The hero of the one is the royal Bolingbroke, the hero of the other is Falstaff, while Prince Henry passes to and fro between the history and the comedy, serving as the lond which unites the two. Henry IV. is the same Bolingbroke who had been so greatly coneived in Richard II.; only he is no longer in the full force of his manhood. He is worn by care and oil, harassed by revolts and conspiracies, yet still resolved to hold firmly what he has forcibly attained. There is a pathetic power in the figure of this weary ambitious man, who can take no rest until the rest of death comes upon him. Hotspur, who, to bring him into contrast with the Prince, is made much younger than the Harry Percy of history, is as ardent in the pursuit of glory as the Prince seems to be indifferent to it. To his hot temper and quick sense of personal honor small matters Se great; he does not see things in their true proportions; he lacks self-control, he has no easiness f nature. Yet he is gallant, chivalrous, not devoid of generosity nor of quick affections, though never in a high sense disinterested. Prince Hal, whom Shakespeare admires and loves more than any other person in English history, afterwards to become Shakespeare's ideal king of England, cares little for mere reputation. He does not think much of himself and of his own honor; and le there is nothing to do, and his great father holds all power in his own right hand, he escapes from the cold proprieties of the court to the boisterous life and mirth of the tavern. He is, howerer, only waiting for a call to action, and Shakespeare declares that from the first he was conscious of his great destiny, and while seeming to sea ter his force in frivolity, was holding his true self, welguarded in reserve Falstaff is everything in little, or rather everything in much; for is he not a an of flesh? English literature knows no numorous creation to set beside Falstaff; and to find his equal-yet his opposite-we must turn to the gaunt figure of the romantic knight of La Mancha, whose person Ce antes smiled away pathetically the Chivalry of the Middle Ages from out our der world. Falstaff exercises upon the reader of these plays much the same fascination which exercised upon the Prince. We know him to be a gross-bodied, self-indulgent old sinner, devoid moral sense and of self-respect, and yet we cannot part with him. We cannot live in this world hot bumor, and Falstaff is humor maintaining its mastery against all antagonisms. We ad, however, the necessity of his utter banishment from lenry, when Henry enters upon the grave sponsibilities of kingship. Still we have a tender thought for Sir John in his exile from London averns. And at the last, when he fumbles with the sheets and plays with flowers, when "a' went an it had been any christom child," we bid him adieu with a tear that does not forbid a smile. The historical period represented by 1 Henry IV. dates from the battle of Holmedon Hill, Sept. 14 4, to the battle of Shrewsbury, July 21, 1403. 2 Henry IV, continues the history to the king' death and the accession of Henry V., 1413. 21 As far as to the sepulchre of Christ, To chase these pagans in those holy fields But this our purpose now is twelve month old, 31 West. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butchered; use, Such beastly shameless transformation, King. It seems then that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land. West. This match'd with other did, my gracions lord; For more uneven and unwelcome news 50 Came from the north and thus it did import: On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there, Young Harry Percy and brave Archibald, That ever-valiant and approved Scot, At Holmedon met, Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour, As by discharge of their artillery, And shape of likelihood, the news was told ; For he that brought them, in the very heat And pride of their contention did take horse. Uncertain of the issue any way. 61 King. Here is a dear, a true industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stain'd with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours: And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited: Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter se On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspu took Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. In envy that my Lord Northumberland |