Read Ebook: King Edward III by Shakespeare Spurious And Doubtful Works

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Ebook has 476 lines and 22079 words, and 10 pages

DOUGLAS. I know it well, my liege, and therefore fly.

COUNTESS. My Lords of Scotland, will ye stay and drink?

KING DAVID. She mocks at us, Douglas; I cannot endure it.

COUNTESS. Say, good my Lord, which is he must have the Lady, And which her jewels? I am sure, my Lords, Ye will not hence, till you have shared the spoils.

KING DAVID. She heard the messenger, and heard our talk; And now that comfort makes her scorn at us.

MESSENGER. Arm, my good Lord! O, we are all surprised!

COUNTESS. After the French ambassador, my liege, And tell him, that you dare not ride to York; Excuse it that your bonny horse is lame.

KING DAVID. She heard that too; intolerable grief! Woman, farewell! Although I do not stay...

COUNTESS. Tis not for fear, and yet you run away.-- O happy comfort, welcome to our house! The confident and boisterous boasting Scot, That swore before my walls they would not back For all the armed power of this land, With faceless fear that ever turns his back, Turned hence against the blasting North-east wind Upon the bare report and name of Arms.

O Summer's day! See where my Cousin comes!

MOUNTAGUE. How fares my Aunt? We are not Scots; Why do you shut your gates against your friends?

COUNTESS. Well may I give a welcome, Cousin, to thee, For thou comst well to chase my foes from hence.

MOUNTAGUE. The king himself is come in person hither; Dear Aunt, descend, and gratulate his highness.

COUNTESS. How may I entertain his Majesty, To shew my duty and his dignity?

KING EDWARD. What, are the stealing Foxes fled and gone, Before we could uncouple at their heels?

WARWICK. They are, my liege; but, with a cheerful cry, Hot hounds and hardy chase them at the heels.

KING EDWARD. This is the Countess, Warwick, is it not?

WARWICK. Even she, my liege; whose beauty tyrants fear, As a May blossom with pernicious winds, Hath sullied, withered, overcast, and done.

KING EDWARD. Hath she been fairer, Warwick, than she is?

WARWICK. My gracious King, fair is she not at all, If that her self were by to stain her self, As I have scene her when she was her self.

KING EDWARD. What strange enchantment lurked in those her eyes, When they excelled this excellence they have, That now her dim decline hath power to draw My subject eyes from persing majesty, To gaze on her with doting admiration?

COUNTESS. In duty lower than the ground I kneel, And for my dull knees bow my feeling heart, To witness my obedience to your highness, With many millions of a subject's thanks For this your Royal presence, whose approach Hath driven war and danger from my gate.

KING EDWARD. Lady, stand up; I come to bring thee peace, How ever thereby I have purchased war.

COUNTESS. No war to you, my liege; the Scots are gone, And gallop home toward Scotland with their hate.

KING EDWARD. Least, yielding here, I pine in shameful love, Come, we'll pursue the Scots;--Artois, away!

COUNTESS. A little while, my gracious sovereign, stay, And let the power of a mighty king Honor our roof; my husband in the wars, When he shall hear it, will triumph for joy; Then, dear my liege, now niggard not thy state: Being at the wall, enter our homely gate.

KING EDWARD. Pardon me, countess, I will come no near; I dreamed to night of treason, and I fear.

COUNTESS. Far from this place let ugly treason lie!

KING EDWARD. No farther off, than her conspiring eye, Which shoots infected poison in my heart, Beyond repulse of wit or cure of Art. Now, in the Sun alone it doth not lie, With light to take light from a mortal eye; For here two day stars that mine eyes would see More than the Sun steals mine own light from me, Contemplative desire, desire to be In contemplation, that may master thee! Warwick, Artois, to horse and let's away!

COUNTESS. What might I speak to make my sovereign stay?

KING EDWARD. What needs a tongue to such a speaking eye, That more persuades than winning Oratory?

COUNTESS. Let not thy presence, like the April sun, Flatter our earth and suddenly be done. More happy do not make our outward wall Than thou wilt grace our inner house withal. Our house, my liege, is like a Country swain, Whose habit rude and manners blunt and plain Presageth nought, yet inly beautified With bounties, riches and faire hidden pride. For where the golden Ore doth buried lie, The ground, undecked with nature's tapestry, Seems barren, sere, unfertile, fructless, dry; And where the upper turf of earth doth boast His pied perfumes and party coloured coat, Delve there, and find this issue and their pride To spring from ordure and corruption's side. But, to make up my all too long compare, These ragged walls no testimony are, What is within; but, like a cloak, doth hide >From weather's Waste the under garnished pride. More gracious then my terms can let thee be, Intreat thy self to stay a while with me.

KING EDWARD. As wise, as fair; what fond fit can be heard, When wisdom keeps the gate as beauty's guard?-- It shall attend, while I attend on thee: Come on, my Lords; here will I host to night.

LODOWICK. I might perceive his eye in her eye lost, His ear to drink her sweet tongue's utterance, And changing passion, like inconstant clouds That rack upon the carriage of the winds, Increase and die in his disturbed cheeks. Lo, when she blushed, even then did he look pale, As if her cheeks by some enchanted power Attracted had the cherry blood from his: Anon, with reverent fear when she grew pale, His cheeks put on their scarlet ornaments; But no more like her oriental red, Than Brick to Coral or live things to dead. Why did he then thus counterfeit her looks? If she did blush, twas tender modest shame, Being in the sacred presence of a King; If he did blush, twas red immodest shame, To veil his eyes amiss, being a king; If she looked pale, twas silly woman's fear, To bear her self in presence of a king; If he looked pale, it was with guilty fear, To dote amiss, being a mighty king. Then, Scottish wars, farewell; I fear twill prove A lingering English siege of peevish love. Here comes his highness, walking all alone.

KING EDWARD. She is grown more fairer far since I came hither, Her voice more silver every word than other, Her wit more fluent. What a strange discourse Unfolded she of David and his Scots! 'Even thus', quoth she, 'he spake', and then spoke broad, With epithites and accents of the Scot, But somewhat better than the Scot could speak: 'And thus', quoth she, and answered then her self-- For who could speak like her but she her self-- Breathes from the wall an Angel's note from Heaven Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes. When she would talk of peace, me thinks, her tongue Commanded war to prison; when of war, It wakened Caesar from his Roman grave, To hear war beautified by her discourse. Wisdom is foolishness but in her tongue, Beauty a slander but in her fair face, There is no summer but in her cheerful looks, Nor frosty winter but in her disdain. I cannot blame the Scots that did besiege her, For she is all the Treasure of our land; But call them cowards, that they ran away, Having so rich and fair a cause to stay.-- Art thou there, Lodowick? Give me ink and paper.

LODOWICK. I will, my liege.

KING EDWARD. And bid the Lords hold on their play at Chess, For we will walk and meditate alone.

LODOWICK. I will, my sovereign.

KING EDWARD. This fellow is well read in poetry, And hath a lusty and persuasive spirit; I will acquaint him with my passion, Which he shall shadow with a veil of lawn, Through which the Queen of beauties Queen shall see Her self the ground of my infirmity.

KING EDWARD. hast thou pen, ink, and paper ready, Lodowick?

LODOWICK. Ready, my liege.

KING EDWARD. Then in the summer arbor sit by me, Make it our counsel house or cabinet: Since green our thoughts, green be the conventicle, Where we will ease us by disburdening them. Now, Lodowick, invocate some golden Muse, To bring thee hither an enchanted pen, That may for sighs set down true sighs indeed, Talking of grief, to make thee ready groan; And when thou writest of tears, encouch the word Before and after with such sweet laments, That it may raise drops in a Tartar's eye, And make a flintheart Scythian pitiful; For so much moving hath a Poet's pen: Then, if thou be a Poet, move thou so, And be enriched by thy sovereign's love. For, if the touch of sweet concordant strings Could force attendance in the ears of hell, How much more shall the strains of poets' wit Beguile and ravish soft and humane minds?

LODOWICK. To whom, my Lord, shall I direct my stile?

KING EDWARD. To one that shames the fair and sots the wise; Whose bod is an abstract or a brief, Contains each general virtue in the world. Better than beautiful thou must begin, Devise for fair a fairer word than fair, And every ornament that thou wouldest praise, Fly it a pitch above the soar of praise. For flattery fear thou not to be convicted; For, were thy admiration ten times more, Ten times ten thousand more the worth exceeds Of that thou art to praise, thy praises worth. Begin; I will to contemplate the while: Forget not to set down, how passionate, How heart sick, and how full of languishment, Her beauty makes me.

LODOWICK. Write I to a woman?

KING EDWARD. What beauty else could triumph over me, Or who but women do our love lays greet? What, thinkest thou I did bid thee praise a horse?

LODOWICK. Of what condition or estate she is, Twere requisite that I should know, my Lord.

LODOWICK. I have not to a period brought her praise.

KING EDWARD. Her praise is as my love, both infinite, Which apprehend such violent extremes, That they disdain an ending period. Her beauty hath no match but my affection; Hers more than most, mine most and more than more: Hers more to praise than tell the sea by drops, Nay, more than drop the massy earth by sands, And sand by sand print them in memory: Then wherefore talkest thou of a period To that which craves unended admiration? Read, let us hear.

LODOWICK. 'More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades,'--

KING EDWARD. That line hath two faults, gross and palpable: Comparest thou her to the pale queen of night, Who, being set in dark, seems therefore light? What is she, when the sun lifts up his head, But like a fading taper, dim and dead? My love shall brave the eye of heaven at noon, And, being unmasked, outshine the golden sun.

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