Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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Sc. 17 Enter Edward Prince of Wales with his prisoners: jean King of France and the Dauphin, and all with ensigns spread. Retreat sounded

PRINCE OF WALES (to the King and then the Dauphin)

Now, Jean in France, and lately Jean of France,

Thy bloody ensigns are my captive colours—

And you, high-vaunting Charles of Normandy,

That once today sent me a horse to fly,

Are now the subjects of my clemency. 5

Fie, lords, is it not a shame that English boys,

Whose early days are yet not worth a beard,

Should in the bosom of your kingdom, thus,

One against twenty, beat you up together?

KING OF FRANCE

Thy fortune, not thy force, hath conquered us.

PRINCE OF WALES

An argument that heaven aids the right.

Enter the Comte d’Artois with Prince Philippe

See, see—Artois doth bring with him along

The late good counsel-giver to my soul.

Welcome, Artois, and welcome Philippe too!

Who now, of you or I, have need to pray?

Now is the proverb verified in you—

‘Too bright a morning breeds a louring day’.

Sound trumpets. Enter Lord Audley ⌈supported by⌉ the two Squires

But say, what grim discouragement comes here?

Alas, what thousand armèd men of France

Have writ that note of death in Audley’s face?

(To Audley) Speak thou, that woo‘st death with thy

careless smile,

And look’st so merrily upon thy grave

As if thou wert enamoured on thine end.

What hungry sword hath so bereaved thy face

And lopped a true friend from my loving soul?

AUDLEY

O, Prince, thy sweet bemoaning speech to me

Is as a mournful knell to one dead sick.

PRINCE OF WALES (embracing him)

Dear Audley, if my tongue ring out thy end

My arms shall be thy grave. What may I do

To win thy life or to revenge thy death?

If thou wilt drink the blood of captive kings,

Or that it were restorative, command

A health of king’s blood, and I’ll drink to thee.

If honour may dispense for thee with death,

The never-dying honour of this day

Share wholly, Audley, to thyself, and live.

AUDLEY

Victorious Prince—that thou art so, behold

A Caesar’s fame in kings’ captivity—

If I could hold dim death but at a bay

Till I did see my liege, thy royal father,

My soul should yield this castle of my flesh,

This mangled tribute, with all willingness,

To darkness, consummation, dust and worms.

PRINCE OF WALES

Cheerly, bold man. Thy soul is all too proud

To yield her city for one little breach.

⌈ ⌉

Should be divorced from her earthly spouse

By the soft temper of a Frenchman’s sword.

Lo, to repair thy life I give to thee

Three thousand marks a year in English land.

AUDLEY

I take thy gift to pay the debts I owe.

These two poor squires redeemed me from the French

With lusty and dear hazard of their lives.

What thou hast given me, I give to them,

And as thou lov’st me, Prince, lay thy consent

To this bequeath in my last testament.

PRINCE OF WALES

Renowned Audley, live, and have from me

This gift twice doubled to these squires and thee.

But live or die, what thou hast given away

To these and theirs shall lasting freedom stay.

(To the Squires) Come, gentlemen, I’ll see my friend bestowed

Within an easy litter. Then we’ll march

Proudly toward Calais with triumphant pace,

Unto my royal father, and there bring

The tribute of my wars: fair France his king.

Exeunt

Sc. 18 Enter fat one door⌉, as Supplicants, six citizens of Calais in their shirts, barefoot, with halters about their necks. Enter fat another door⌉ King Edward speaking with Queen Philippa. Enter with them the Earl of Derby and soldiers

KING EDWARD

No more, Queen Philip—pacify yourself.

Copland, except he can excuse his fault,

Shall find displeasure written in our looks.

And now, unto this proud, resisting town.

Soldiers, assault! I will no longer stay

To be deluded by their false delays.

Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.

ALL SIX SUPPLICANTS ⌈coming forward⌉

Mercy, King Edward! Mercy, gracious lord!

KING EDWARD

Contemptuous villains, call ye now for truce?

Mine ears are stopped against your bootless cries.

Sound drums alarum, draw threat’ning swords!

FIRST SUPPLICANT

Ah, noble prince, take pity on this town,

And hear us, mighty King.

We claim the promise that your highness made—

The two days’ respite is not yet expired,

And we are come with willingness to bear

What torturing death or punishment you please,

So that the trembling multitude be saved.

KING EDWARD

My promise—well, I do confess as much.

But I require the chiefest citizens

And men of most account that should submit.

You, peradventure, are but servile grooms,

Or some felonious robbers on the sea,

Whom, apprehended, law would execute,

Albeit severity lay dead in us.

No, no—ye cannot overreach us thus.

SECOND SUPPLICANT

The sun, dread lord, that in the western fall

Beholds us now low-brought through misery,

Did, in the orient purple of the morn,

Salute our coming forth when we were known

⌉

Or may our portion be with damned fiends.

KING EDWARD

If it be so, then let our covenant stand.

We take possession of the town in peace,

But for yourselves, look you for no remorse.

But, as imperial justice hath decreed,

Your bodies shall be dragged about these walls,

And, after, feel the stroke of quartering steel.

This is your doom. (To the soldiers) Go, soldiers, see it

done.

QUEEN PHILIPPA A

Ah, be more mild unto these yielding men!

It is a glorious thing to stablish peace,

And kings approach the nearest unto God

By giving life and safety unto men.

As thou intendest to be king of France,

So let her people live to call thee king.

For what the sword cuts down, or fire hath spoiled,

Is held in reputation none of ours.

KING EDWARD

Although experience teach us this is true—

That peaceful quietness brings most delight

When most of all abuses are controlled—

Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we

As well can master our affections

As conquer other by the dint of sword,

Philip, prevail: we yield to thy request—

These men shall live to boast of clemency,

And, tyranny, strike terror to thyself.

SECOND SUPPLICANT

Long live your highness! Happy be your reign!

KING EDWARD (to the six Supplicants)

Go, get you hencel Return unto the town.

And if this kindness hath deserved your love,

Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.

Exeunt the six Supplicants

Now might we hear of our affairs abroad,

We would till gloomy winter were o’erspent

Dispose our men in garrison a while.

Enter Copland, with David King of Scotland as his prisoner

But who comes here?

EARL OF DERBY

Copland, my lord, and David King of Scots.

KING EDWARD

Is this the proud, presumptuous squire of the north

That would not yield his prisoner to my Queen?

COPLAND

I am, my liege, a northern squire indeed,

But neither proud nor insolent, I trust.

KING EDWARD

What moved thee, then, to be so obstinate

To contradict our royal Queen’s desire?

COPLAND

No wilful disobedience, mighty lord,

But my desert, and public law at arms.

I took the King, myself, in single fight,

And, like a soldier, would be loath to lose

The least pre-eminence that I had won.

And Copland, straight upon your highness’ charge,

Is come to France, and with a lowly mind

Doth vail the bonnet of his victory.

Receive, dread lord, the custom of my freight,

The wealthy tribute of my labouring hands,

Which should long since have been surrendered up,

Had but your gracious self been there in place.

QUEEN PHILIPPA

But, Copland, thou didst scorn the King’s command,

Neglecting our commission in his name.

COPLAND

His name I reverence, but his person more.

His name shall keep me in allegiance still,

But to his person I will bend my knee.

KING EDWARD (to the Queen)

I pray thee, Philip, let displeasure pass.

This man doth please me, and I like his words.

For what is he that will attempt great deeds

And lose the glory that ensues, the fame?

All rivers have recourse unto the sea,

And Copland’s faith, relation to his king.

(To Copland) Kneel therefore down.

He knights him

Now rise, King Edward’s knight.

And to maintain thy state, I freely give 96

Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine.

Enter the Earl of Salisbury, with a coronet

Welcome, Lord Salisbury! What news from Bretagne?

EARL OF SALISBURY

This, mighty King: the country we have won,

And Charles de Montfort, regent of that place,

Presents your highness with this coronet,

Protesting true allegiance to your grace.

KING EDWARD

We thank thee for thy service, valiant Earl.

Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.

EARL OF SALISBURY

But now, my lord, as this is joyful news,

So must my voice be tragical again,

And I must sing of doleful accidents.

KING EDWARD

What, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers,

Or is our son beset with too much odds?

EARL OF SALISBURY

He was, my lord, and as my worthless self,

With forty other serviceable knights,

Under safe conduct of the Dauphin’s seal,

Did travel that way, finding him distressed,

A troop of lances met us on the way,

Surprised and brought us prisoners to the King,

Who, proud of this and eager of revenge,

Commanded straight to cut off all our heads.

And surely we had died but that the Duke,

More full of honour than his angry sire,

Procured our quick deliverance from thence.

But ere we went, ‘Salute your King,’ quoth he,

‘Bid him provide a funeral for his son.

Today our sword shall cut his thread of life

And, sooner than he thinks, we’ll be with him

To quittance those displeasures he hath done.’

This said, we passed, not daring to reply.

Our hearts were dead, our looks diffused and wan.

Wand‘ring, at last we climbed unto a hill

From whence, although our grief were much before,

Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes

Did thrice so much increase our heaviness.

For there, my lord, O there we did descry

Down in a valley how both armies lay.

The French had cast their trenches like a ring,

And every barricado’s open front

Was thick embossed with brazen ordinance.

Here stood a battle of ten thousand horse,

There twice as many pikes in quadrant wise,

Here crossbows and there deadly wounding darts,

And in the midst, like to a slender point

Within the compass of the horizon,

As ’twere a rising bubble in the sea,

A hazel wand amidst a wood of pines,

Or as a bear fast-chained unto a stake,

Stood famous Edward, still expecting when

Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.

Anon, the death-procuring knell begins.

Off go the cannons that, with trembling noise,

Did shake the very mountain where they stood.

Then sound the trumpets’ clangour in the air.

The battles join, and when we could no more

Discern the difference ‘twixt the friend and foe,

So intricate the dark confusion was,

Away we turned our wat’ry eyes with sighs

As black as powder fuming into smoke.

And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told

The most untimely tale of Edward’s fall.

QUEEN PHILIPPA

Ah, me! Is this my welcome into France?

Is this the comfort that I looked to have

When I should meet with my beloved son?

Sweet Ned, I would thy mother, in the sea,

Had been prevented of this mortal grief.

KING EDWARD

Content thee, Philip. ’Tis not tears will serve

To call him back if he be taken hence.

Comfort thyself as I do, gentle Queen,

With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge!

He bids me to provide his funeral!

And so I will, but all the peers in France

Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears

Until their empty veins be dry and sere.

The pillars of his hearse shall be their bones;

The mould that covers him, their city ashes;

His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;

And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,

An hundred-fifty towers shall burning blaze

While we bewail our valiant son’s decease!

Flourish within. Enter a Herald

HERALD

Rejoice, my lord! Ascend the imperial throne!

The mighty and redoubted Prince of Wales,

Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,

The Frenchman’s terror and his country’s fame,

Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer,

And, lowly, at his stirrup, comes afoot

King Jean of France together with his son

In captive bonds, whose diadem he brings

To crown thee with, and to proclaim thee king.

KING EDWARD

Away with mourning, Philip! Wipe thine eyes!

Sound trumpets! Welcome in Plantagenet!

Enter Edward Prince of Wales with Jean King of France and Prince Philippe as his prisoners. Also enter Lord Audley ⌈in a litter borne by the two Squires⌉ and the Comte d’Artois

As things long lost when they are found again,

So doth my son rejoice his father’s heart,

For whom, even now, my soul was much perplexed.

QUEEN PHILIPPA

Be this a token to express my joy—

She kisses the Prince of Wales

For inward passions will not let me speak.

PRINCE OF WALES (to King Edward)

My gracious father, here receive thy gift,

This wreath of conquest and reward of war,

Got with as mickle peril of our lives

As e’er 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 (to the King of France)

So, Jean of France, I see you keep your word!

You promised 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 untouched

That now are turned to ragged heaps of stones?

How many people’s lives mightst thou have saved

That are untimely sunk into their graves?

KING OF FRANCE

Edward, recount not things irrevocable.

Tell me what ransom thou requir’st to have.

KING EDWARD

Thy ransom, Jean, 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 arrived in France.

KING OF FRANCE

Accursed man! Of this I was foretold,

But did misconstrue what the prophet told.

PRINCE OF WALES (to King Edward)

Now, father, this petition Edward makes

To thee, 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,

The weary nights that I have watched in field, 5

The dangerous conflicts I have often had,

The fearful menaces were proffered me,

The heat and cold, and what else might displease,

I wish were now redoubled twentyfold,

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 thy presence tremble and retire.

KING EDWARD

Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,

An intercession of our painful arms.

Sheathe up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,

Peruse your spoils, and after we have breathed

A day or two within this haven town,

God willing, then for England we’ll be shipped,

Where in a happy hour I trust we shall

Arrive: three kings, two princes, and a queen.

Exeunt

ADDITIONAL PASSAGE

In Q, the following lines, which are probably a misplaced addition, occur at the end of 8.108, between ‘foot’ and ‘Exeunt’, and fall between what may have been stints by two different authors. They may have been intended to go after either 8.93 or 8.98.

KING EDWARD

What picture’s this?

PRINCE OF WALES A pelican, my lord,

Wounding her bosom with her crooked beak

That so her nest of young ones might be fed

With drops of blood that issue from her heart.

The motto, ‘Sic et vos’—‘and so should you’.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

ON the night of 28 December 1594, the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn—one of London’s law schools—became so uproarious that one performance planned for the occasion had to be abandoned. Eventually ‘it was thought good not to offer anything of account saving dancing and revelling with gentlewomen; and after such sports a comedy of errors (like to Plautus his Menaechmus) was played by the players. So that night was begun, and continued to the end, in nothing but confusion and errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called “The Night of Errors”.’

This sounds like a reference to Shakespeare’s play, first printed in the 1623 Folio, which is certainly based in large part on the Roman dramatist Plautus’ comedy Menaechmi. As Shakespeare’s shortest play, it would have been especially suited to late-night performance. Exceptional in having no cues for music, it may have been written for the occasion, or at least have been new in 1594.

The comedy in Menaechmi derives from the embarrassment experienced by a man in search of his long-lost twin brother when various people intimately acquainted with that twin—including his wife, his mistress, and his father—mistake the one for the other. Shakespeare greatly increases the possibilities of comic confusion by giving the brothers (both called Antipholus) servants (both called Dromio) who themselves are long-separated twins. An added episode in which Antipholus of Ephesus’ wife, Adriana, bars him from his own house in which she is entertaining his brother is based on another play by Plautus, Amphitruo. Shakespeare sets the comic action within a more serious framework, opening with a scene in which the twin masters’ old father, Egeon, who has arrived at Ephesus in search of them, is shown under imminent sentence of death unless he finds someone to redeem him. This strand of the plot, as well as the surprising revelation that brings about the resolution of the action, is based on the story of Apollonius of Tyre which Shakespeare was to use again, many years later, in Pericles.

The Comedy of Errors is a kind of diploma piece, as if Shakespeare were displaying his ability to outshine both his classical progenitors and their English imitators. Along with The Tempest, it is his most classically constructed play: all the action takes place within a few hours and in a single place. Moreover, it seems to make use of the conventionalized arcade setting of academic drama, with three ‘houses’—the Phoenix, the Porcupine, and the Priory—represented by doors and signs on stage. The working out of the complexities inherent in the basic situation represents a considerable intellectual feat. But the comedy is humanized by the interweaving of romantic elements, such as Egeon’s initial plight, the love between the visiting Antipholus and his twin brother’s wife’s sister, Luciana, and the entirely serious portrayal of Egeon’s suffering when his own son fails to recognize him at the moment of his greatest need. From time to time the comic tension is relaxed by the presence of discursive set pieces, none more memorable than Dromio of Syracuse’s description of Nell, the kitchen wench who is ‘spherical, like a globe’.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

Solinus, DUKE of Ephesus

EGEON, a merchant of Syracuse, father of the Antipholus twins

ADRIANA, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus

LUCIANA, her sister

NELL, Adriana’s kitchen-maid

ANGELO, a goldsmith

BALTHASAR, a merchant

A COURTESAN

Doctor PINCH, a schoolmaster and exorcist

MERCHANT OF EPHESUS, a friend of Antipholus of Syracuse

SECOND MERCHANT, Angelo’s creditor

EMILIA, an abbess at Ephesus

Jailer, messenger, headsman, officers, and other attendants

The Comedy of Errors

1.1 Enter Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, with Egeon the Merchant of Syracuse, Jailer, and other attendants

EGEON

Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,

And by the doom of death end woes and all.

DUKE

Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more.

I am not partial to infringe our laws.

The enmity and discord which of late

Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your Duke

To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,

Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,

Have sealed his rigorous statutes with their bloods,

Excludes all pity from our threat‘ning looks.

For since the mortal and intestine jars

’Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,

It hath in solemn synods been decreed,

Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,

To admit no traffic to our adverse towns.

Nay more: if any born at Ephesus

Be seen at Syracusian marts and fairs;

Again, if any Syracusian born

Come to the bay of Ephesus—he dies,

His goods confiscate to the Duke’s dispose,

Unless a thousand marks be levied

To quit the penalty and ransom him.

Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,

Cannot amount unto a hundred marks.

Therefore by law thou art condemned to die.

EGEON

Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,

My woes end likewise with the evening sun.

DUKE

Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause

Why thou departed‘st from thy native home,

And for what cause thou cam’st to Ephesus.

EGEON

A heavier task could not have been imposed

Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable.

Yet, that the world may witness that my end

Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,

I’ll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.

In Syracusa was I born, and wed

Unto a woman happy but for me,

And by me happy, had not our hap been bad.

With her I lived in joy, our wealth increased

By prosperous voyages I often made

To Epidamnum, till my factor’s death,

And the great care of goods at random left,

Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse,

From whom my absence was not six months old

Before herself—almost at fainting under

The pleasing punishment that women bear-

Had made provision for her following me,

And soon and safe arrived where I was.

There had she not been long but she became

A joyful mother of two goodly sons;

And, which was strange, the one so like the other

As could not be distinguished but by names.

That very hour, and in the selfsame inn,

A mean-born woman was delivered

Of such a burden male, twins both alike.

Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,

I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.

My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,

Made daily motions for our home return.

Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! Too soon

We came aboard.

A league from Epidamnum had we sailed

Before the always-wind-obeying deep

Gave any tragic instance of our harm.

But longer did we not retain much hope,

For what obscured light the heavens did grant

Did but convey unto our fearful minds

A doubtful warrant of immediate death,

Which though myself would gladly have embraced,

Yet the incessant weepings of my wife—

Weeping before for what she saw must come—

And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,

That mourned for fashion, ignorant what to fear,

Forced me to seek delays for them and me.

And this it was—for other means was none:

The sailors sought for safety by our boat,

And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us.

My wife, more careful for the latter-born,

Had fastened him unto a small spare mast

Such as seafaring men provide for storms.

To him one of the other twins was bound,

Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.

The children thus disposed, my wife and I,

Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fixed,

Fastened ourselves at either end the mast,

And floating straight, obedient to the stream,

Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.

At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,

Dispersed those vapours that offended us,

And by the benefit of his wished light

The seas waxed calm, and we discovered

Two ships from far, making amain to us:

Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.

But ere they came—O let me say no more!

Gather the sequel by that went before.

DUKE

Nay, forward, old man; do not break off so,

For we may pity though not pardon thee.

EGEON

O, had the gods done so, I had not now

Worthily termed them merciless to us.

For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,

We were encountered by a mighty rock,

Which being violently borne upon,

Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst,

So that in this unjust divorce of us

Fortune had left to both of us alike

What to delight in, what to sorrow for.

Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened

With lesser weight but not with lesser woe,

Was carried with more speed before the wind,

And in our sight they three were taken up

By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.

At length another ship had seized on us,

And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,

Gave healthful welcome to their shipwrecked guests,

And would have reft the fishers of their prey

Had not their barque been very slow of sail;

And therefore homeward did they bend their course.

Thus have you heard me severed from my bliss,

That by misfortunes was my life prolonged

To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.

DUKE

And for the sake of them thou sorrow’st for,

Do me the favour to dilate at full

What have befall’n of them and thee till now.

EGEON

My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,

At eighteen years became inquisitive

After his brother, and importuned me

That his attendant—so his case was like,

Reft of his brother, but retained his name—

Might bear him company in the quest of him;

Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,

I hazarded the loss of whom I loved.

Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,

Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,

And coasting homeward came to Ephesus,

Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought

Or that or any place that harbours men.

But here must end the story of my life,

And happy were I in my timely death

Could all my travels warrant me they live.

DUKE

Hapless Egeon, whom the fates have marked

To bear the extremity of dire mishap,

Now trust me, were it not against our laws—

Which princes, would they, may not disannul—

Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,

My soul should sue as advocate for thee.

But though thou art adjudged to the death,

And passed sentence may not be recalled

But to our honour’s great disparagement,

Yet will I favour thee in what I can.

Therefore, merchant, I’ll limit thee this day

To seek thy health by beneficial help.

Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus:

Beg thou or borrow to make up the sum,

And live. If no, then thou art doomed to die.

Jailer, take him to thy custody.

JAILER I will, my lord.

EGEON

Hopeless and helpless doth Egeon wend,

But to procrastinate his lifeless end.

Exeunt