This matter to amend, all officers be I shall, Constable, bailiff, sergeant.

Thus will ye be turned with wagging of a feather.

R. Roister. On, sirs, keep your ray.

M. Merry. On forth, while this gear is hot. R. Roister. Soft, the Arms of Calais, I have

one thing forgot.

M. Merry. What lack we now?

R. Roister. Retire, or else we be all slain.

M. Merry. Back, for the passion of God!

back, sirs, back again!

What is the great matter?

R. Roister. This hasty forthgoing

Had almost brought us all to utter undoing:

It made me forget a thing most necessary.

M. Merry. Well remembered of a captain, by Saint Mary.

R. Roister. It is a thing must be had.

M. Merry. Let us have it then.

R. Roister. But I wot not where, nor how.

M. Merry. Then wot not I when.

But what is it?

ACT IV.- SCENE VIII.

M. MERRYGREEKE; C. CUSTANCE; R. ROISTER; TIBET TALK.; AN. ALYFACE; M. MUMBLECRUST; TRUEPENNY; DOBINET DOUGHTΙE; HARPAX.

Two drums with their Ensigns.

C. Custance. What caitiffs are those that shake my house wall?

M. Merry. Ah, sirrah, now Custance, if ye had so much wit,

I would see you ask pardon, and yourselves submit.

C. Custance. Have I still this ado with a couple of fools?

M. Merry. Here ye what she saith?

C. Custance. Maidens, come forth with your tools

And she gape and hiss at him, as she doth at me,

I durst jeopard my hand, she will make him flee.

C. Custance. On, forward.

R. Roister. They come.

M. Merry. Stand.

R. Roister. Hold.

M. Merry. Keep.

R. Roister. There.

M. Merry. Strike.

R. Roister. Take heed.

C. Custance. Well said, Truepenny.

Truepenny. Ah, whoresons!

C. Custance. Well done, indeed.

M. Merry. Hold thine own, Harpax: down

with them, Dobinet.

C. Custance. Now Madge, there Annot; now

stick them, Tibet.

Tib. Talk. All my chief quarrel is to this same little knave,

That beguiled me last day: nothing shall him

save.

D. Dough. Down with this little quean, that hath at me such spite:

For about this hour is the time, of likelihood, That Gavin Goodlucke, by the sayings of Suresby,

Save you from her, master, it is a very sprite. C. Custance. I myself will mounsire grand e.

captain undertake.

R. Roister. They win ground.

M. Merry. Save yourself, sir, for God's sake! R. Roister. Out, alas, I am slain! help!

M. Merry. Save yourself!

R. Roister. Alas!

M. Merry. Nay then, have at you, mistress.

R. Roister. Thou hittest me, alas.

M. Merry. I will strike at Custance here.

R. Roister. Thou hittest me.

M. Merry. So I will.

Nay, Mistress Custance.

R. Roister. Alas, thou hittest me still. Hold!

M. Merry. Save yourself, sir!

R. Roister. Help! Out alas, I am slain.
M. Merry. Truce, hold your hands!

How, how say you, Custance, for saving of your

life,

Will ye yield and grant to be this gentleman's

wife?

C. Custance. He told me he loved me: call ye this love?

M. Merry. He loved a while, even like a turtle-dove.

C. Custance. Gay love, God save it, so soon hot, so soon cold.

What, Gavin Goodlucke! the only hope of my Would be at home; and lo! yonder I see him I. life,

Welcome home, and kiss me, your true espoused wife.

G. Good. Nay, soft, Dame Custance; I must first, by your licence,

See whether all things be clear in your conscience.

I hear of your doings to me very strange.

C. Custance. What! fear ye that my faith towards you should change?

G. Good. I must needs mistrust ye be elsewhere entangled,

For I hear that certain men with you have

wrangled

About the promise of marriage by you to them made.

Sym Sure. If ye be honest, my words can hurt you nothing;

But what I heard and saw, I might not but report.

C. Custance. Why, Tristram Trusty, sir, your true and faithful friend,

Was privy both to the beginning and the end. Let him be the judge, and for me testify.

M. Merry. I am sorry for you: he could love you yet, so he could.

G. Good. I will the more credit that he shall verify:

R. Roister. Nay, she shall be none of mine.

M. Merry. Why so ?

R. Roister. Come away, by the mass, she is

miss.

mankine.

I durst adventure the loss of my right hand,

If she did not slay her other husband.

And see if she prepare not again to fight.

M. Merry. What then? Saint George to

borrow, our lady's knight.

R. Roister. Slay else whom she will, by Gog,

she shall not slay me.

M. Merry. How then?

R. Roister. Rather than to be slain, I will flee. C. Custance. To it again, my knightnesses:

down with them all!

R. Roister. Away, away, away! she will else kill us all.

1 That is, Monsieur grand Capitaine.

2 She is mankine, or of the male species. So Sicinius, in Coriolanus, Act iv. scene 2, asks Volumnia, 'Are you mankind?'-See the notes upon this passage.

ACT V.-SCENE IV.

GAVIN GOODLUCKE; TRISTRAM TRUSTY; C. CUSTANCE; SYM SURESBY.

G. Good. And was it none other than ye to me report?,

T. Trusty. No; and here were ye wished, to have seen the sport.

G. Good. Would I had, rather than half of that in my purse.

Sym Sure. And I do much rejoice the matter was no worse;

And like as to open it I was to you faithful,
So of Dame Custance honest truth I am joyful.
For, God forfend that I should hurt her by false

report.

G. Good. Well, I will no longer hold her in discomfort.

C. Custance. Now come they hitherward: I trust all shall be well.

G. Good. Sweet Custance, neither heart can think, nor tongue tell,

How much I joy in your constant fidelity. Come now, kiss me, the pearl of perfect honesty. C. Custance. God let me no longer to continue in life,

Than I shall towards you continue a true wife.

Vid. Even to Porrex, his younger son; Whose growing pride I do so sore suspect, That, being rais'd to equal rule with thee,

blame

The slow Aurore, that so for love or shame
Doth long delay to show her blushing face;
And now the day renews my grieful plaint.

Fer. My gracious lady, and my mother dear,
Pardon my grief for your so grieved mind
To ask what cause tormenteth so your heart.

Vid. So great a wrong, and so unjust despite, Without all cause against all course of kind! 1 Fer. Such causeless wrong, and so unjust despite,

May have redress, or, at the least, revenge, Vid. Neither, my son; such is the froward will,

The person such, such my mishap and thine. Fer. Mine! know I none, but grief for your distress.

Vid. Yes; mine for thine, my son. A father?
No:

In kind a father, not in kindliness.

Fer. My father? why, I know nothing at all, Wherein I have misdone unto his grace.

Vid. Therefore, the more unkind to thee and

me.

For, knowing well, my son, the tender love That I have ever borne, and bear to thee, He, grieved thereat, is not content alone To spoil thee of my sight, my chiefest joy, But thee, of thy birthright and heritage, Causeless, unkindly, and in wrongful wise, Against all law and right, he will bereave: Half of his kingdom he will give away. Fer. To whom?

Fill'd with disdain and with ambitious hope. Fer. Madam, leave care and careful plaint for me.

Just hath my father been to every wight:
His first injustice he will not extend
To me, I trust, that give no cause thereof;
My brother's pride shall hurt himself, not me.

Vid. So grant the gods! But yet, thy father

SO

Hath firmly fixed his unmoved mind,
That plaints and prayers can no whit avail;
For those have I essay'd; but even this day
He will endeavour to procure assent
Of all his council to his fond devise.

Fer. Their ancestors from race to race have borne

True faith to my forefathers and their seed :
I trust they eke will bear the like to me.

Vid. There resteth all. But if they fail thereof,

And if the end bring forth an ill success,
On them and theirs the mischief shall befall,
And so I pray the gods requite it them;
And so they will, for so is wont to be,
When lords and trusted rulers under kings,
To please the present fancy of the prince,
With wrong transpose the course of gover-

Gor. I take your faithful hearts in thankful part:

But since I see no cause to draw my mind,
To fear the nature of my loving sons,

Or to misdeem that envy or disdain

To you, my lord, and to his other son,
Lo, he resigns his realm and royalty;
Which never would so wise a prince have done,
If he had once misdeem'd that in your heart
There ever lodged so unkind a thought.

love;

In one self purpose do I still abide.

My love extendeth equally to both,
My land sufficeth for them both also.
Humber shall part the marches of their realms:
The southern part the elder shall possess,
The northern shall Porrex, the younger, rule.
In quiet I will pass mine aged days,

Free from the travail, and the painful cares,
That hasten age upon the worthiest kings.
But lest the fraud, that ye do seem to fear,
Of flattering tongues, corrupt their tender youth,
And writhe them to the ways of youthful lust,
To climbing pride, or to revenging hate,
Or to neglecting of their careful charge,
Lewdly to live in wanton recklessness,
Or to oppressing of the rightful cause,
Or not to wreak the wrongs done to the poor,
To tread down truth, or favour false deceit;
I mean to join to either of my sons

Some one of those, whose long approved faith
And wisdom tried, may well assure my heart,
That mining fraud shall find no way to creep
Into their fenced ears with grave advice.
This is the end; and so I pray you all
To bear my sons the love and loyalty

That I have found within your faithful breasts.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.-SCENE I.

FERREX; HERMON; DORDAN.

Fer. I marvel much what reason led the king, My father, thus, without all my desert, To reave me half the kingdom, which by course Of law and nature should remain to me.

Her. If you with stubborn and untamed pride Had stood against him in rebelling wise; Or if, with grudging mind, you had envied So slow a sliding of his aged years;

Or sought before your time to haste the course Of fatal death upon his royal head;

Or stain'd your stock with murder of your kin; Some face of reason might perhaps have seem'd To yield some likely cause to spoil ye thus.

Dor. Ne yet your father, O most noble prince,

Did ever think so foul a thing of you!
For he, with more than father's tender love,
While yet the fates do lend him life to rule
(Who long might live to see your ruling well),

Hermon, in a long insidious speech,
Attempt redress by arms, and wreak yourself
Upon his life that gaineth by your loss,
Who now to shame of you, and grief of us,
In your own kingdom triumphs over you.

But if you like not yet so hot device,

Of your good nature, and your noble mind,
Made him to place you thus in royal throne,
And now to give you half his realm to guide;
Yea, and that half which, in abounding store
Of things that serve to make a wealthy realm,
In stately cities, and in fruitful soil,
In temperate breathing of the milder heaven,
In things of needful use, which friendly sea
Transports by traffic from the foreign parts,
In flowing wealth, in honour, and in force,
Doth pass the double value of the part
That Porrex hath allotted to his reign.
Such is your case, such is your father's love.
Fer. Ah love, my friends! Love wrongs not
whom he loves.

Dor. Ne yet he wrongeth you, that giveth you

So large a reign, ere that the course of time Bring you to kingdom by descended right, Which time perhaps might end your time

before.

That of your brother you can think so ill?
I never saw him utter likely sign,
Whereby a man might see or once misdeem
Such hate of you, nor such unyielding pride.
Ill is their counsel, shameful be their end,
That raising such mistrustful fear in you,
Sowing the seed of such unkindly hate,
Travail by reason to destroy you both.
Wise is your brother, and of noble hope,
Worthy to wield a large and mighty realm.
So much a stronger friend have you thereby,
Whose strength is your strength if you 'gree in

one.

Ne list to take such vantage of the time,
But, though with peril of your own estate,
You will not be the first that shall invade;
Assemble yet your force for your defence,
And for your safety stand upon your guard.
Dor. O heaven! was there ever heard or
known

So wicked counsel to a noble prince?
Let me, my lord, disclose unto your grace