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TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE. By Charles and Mary Lamb. Two volumes in one. i6mo. Cloth, gilt top, illustrated, price,

•A0V.(VAV1\ '\0 V.A^Vl^ '('A'A';\\K AVi'\

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

TALES FROM HAKSPEARE

By HARRISON S. 'MORRIS ¥ ¥

ILLUSTRATED

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

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PHILADELPHIA

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MDCCCXCIV

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Copyright, 1893 and 1894

BY

J. B. LippiNcoTT Company.

Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

PREFACE.

I^yi OTHING could better testify to the peren- 1 >l nial charm of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakspeare than the fact that during the eighty-six years between the issue of the first edition in 1807 and the present time there have been put forth more than fifty editions, and that each year brings a new contribution to the store.

In their sincere and simple preface the brother and sister, now grown so famous, said that their chief aim was to provide an introduction to the study of Shakspeare for the young reader ; but this purpose was carried out by them with such delicate art and critical insight that the group of plays intended for children have become the treas- ured resource of students, as well as an elevated pleasure for readers to whom books are an enjoy- ment pure and simple.

Owing perhaps to the wishes of their publisher, who desired to include an equal and limited num- ber of plays in each of the small original volumes, or from some other practical difficulty, or as a matter of personal taste, Charles and Mary Lamb treated only twenty of the thirty-six plays of Shak-

VI PREFACE.

speare, leaving sixteen others which have not until the present time been rendered into prose.

While of a necessity these sixteen additional plays, included in the present volume, must come into comparison with the inimitable tales of Elia and his gifted sister, yet the writer trusts that his purpose may not be misapprehended ; and he asks to be freed from the charge of inviting such a con- trast, or of deeming his imperfect continuation as in any wise worthy of a place beside the versions made by Charles and Mary Lamb. Far from de- siring to put himself in so unenviable a light, he hastens to forestall such an inference by avowing that the aim with which the continuation has been made is the same which inspired the first project, — a wish to provide the means for readers, old and young, to gain a knowledge of Shakspeare while from lack of time or training they are not able to find their way through the ''wild poetic garden" for themselves. Coupled with this was the desire to supplement the uncompleted work, not with tales the equal of the originals in grace, wisdom, or critical penetration, but with such as at least might be accepted as a help to that part of Shakspeare, and no unimportant part it is, left untouched by the earlier authors.

In undertaking such a task, the veneration felt for the well-loved brother and sister — and perhaps a sense of the humour of the situation, which none would have relished more quickly than they — was not the only deterring influence. With their

PREFACE. VU

wise foresight and sense of the fitness of things, having twenty plays of Shakspeare to abridge, they chose those in all respects adapted to their purpose, and omitted just such examples as were most difficult to turn into intelligible prose versions. Says Canon Ainger, the best and most sympathetic editor of Lamb, * ' The whole series of English his- tories is left unattempted, as well as the Roman plays ; and of the few that remain, ' Love's La- bour's Lost' is the only one the reason for whose omission is not quite obvious. ' '

This, then, will serve to show under what diffi- culties the additional tales, forming the present volume, have been turned into prose. To bring. Falstaff, the chartered libertine of Elizabethan slang, into juvenile phrase ; to weave the broken dramatic scenes of the Wars of the Roses into even-pacing narrative ; and to conquer the heroic periods of the unconquerable Romans, is a task beset with difficulties ; • and if the adventurer in this untried field has succeeded so far as to make acceptable reductions of these immortal dramas, he has but to reckon with the shades of Elia and of Bridget Elia, and with the mightier phantom of Shakspeare, to whose benign mercies he trusts his readers will consent to leave him.

H. S. M.

Philadelphia, 1892.

CONTENTS, VOLUME I.

PAGB

Love's Labour's Lost 7

Merry Wives of Windsor 31

Troilus and Cressida 53

King John 75

King Richard IL ^ . 99

King Henry IV. — Part 1 123

King Henry IV. — Part II 149

King Henry V. 177

IX

ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME L

PAGB

The Merry Wives of Windsor . . . Frontispiece.

y King John 75

^' King Henry IV. — Part 1 123

</king Henry V '77

XI

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

IT was the pleasant whim of the king of Navarre and his friends, the Lords Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, to vow one day that they would devote themselves to study for three years and see no woman during all that time. Their court, said the king, should be a little Academe, and Navarre the wonder of the world, for they would war against their affections and desires and live a contemplative life.

When the time came for subscribing their names to this agreement, Longaville and Dumain were ready to do it without delay; but Biron held out, being of a gallant nature and loving the company of ladies, as secretly did all the rest, and was for argument and amendment of the plan. He was willing, he said, to live secluded and study for three years; but there were other strict observ- ances, such as not to see a woman during that term; not to touch food on one day in each week; to take but one meal every day, and to sleep only three hours in the night, yet not be seen to wink through the morning. These things

7

8 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

he said he wished might not be enrolled in the bond, for they were barren tasks and too hard to keep.

The king made answer that Biron's oath was already passed, but the reluctant lord replied that he had sworn to no conditions, saving only to study and stay three years in the court.

Then the others in chorus vowed that he had sworn to all the conditions, but he held that it was only in jest. "What, after all, is the end of study ?' ' asked Biron. ' ' To know that which else you should not know," answered the king.

At this the gay Lord Biron turned the subject, which was growing serious, with a jest, and said he would study, then, the things he was forbidden to know, as where he might dine well when he was expressly bidden to fast; or where to meet some lady when he was denied her company; or, having sworn to a crabbed oath, study how to break it. * ' Swear me to this, ' ' quoth he, ' ' and I will never say no."

He would not listen to the chiding of the king, but railed on pleasantly, like the merry-hearted gentleman he was. * * Study, ' ' he said, * ' is like the heaven's glorious sun, that will not be searched by saucy glances; and, moreover, continual plodders have won little enough from their books saving base authority. The earthly godfathers that give the names to the stars have no more profit from their shining than common folk that do not know what they are. To know too much is to get

love's labour's lost. 9

nothing but fame, which is cheap enough, since every godfather can give it."

Hereupon the three others began to rally Biron for his show of the very knowledge he mocked at; but he held his own in the passage of wit, and at last the king was forced to cry, ' * Well, go home, then, Biron, if you will. Adieu !" and was for bowing him out of the compact. But here the true-heartedness of Biron showed itself through his gaiety, for he said, * ' No, my good lord ; I have sworn to stay with you, and, though I have spoken more for barbarism than you can say for the angel knowledge, yet I'll keep my oath and bide the penance." He took the paper and began to read it aloud:

''Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court, on pain of losing her tongue.

"Item, If any man be seen to walk with a woman within the term of three years he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court shall possibly devise."

Here, looking up, Biron said to the king, ** My liege, you must break this article yourself, for well you know that the French king's daughter comes here in embassy to speak with you about the surrender of Aquitain to her bed-ridden father."

Biron now enjoyed a merry triumph, for the king was in dismay. The visit of the princess had been forgotten, but her mission was of too much importance to be put aside. The king was for dispensing with his decree and entertaining her

%0 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

within his court on the plea of necessity; but Biron took advantage of his weakness, quickly signed the bond, and proclaimed, mockingly, that if he were ever forsworn it would be purely from necessity.

While all this was happening the princess ap- proached the court of Navarre and sent forward her courtier, Boyet, to tell the king of her arrival. She had in her train, besides this gallant gentle- man, the ladies Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine, — all light of heart and nimble of wit, — and with these and the other lords of her household she gossiped of the king of Navarre and his friends until Boyet' s return. He came back presently with the information that the king had received notice of her approach and was well addressed to meet her, but that he meant to lodge her in the fields rather than seek a dispensation of his oath.

As Boyet was telling this to his mistress, the king drew near and welcomed her warmly to his court of Navarre. She haughtily gave him back his fair words, and, as for welcome, she said she had yet found none, for the roof of the court of open air under which they stood was too high to be his, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be hers. This twinged the king shrewdly, and he hastened to offer her welcome to his proper court; upon which she asked him to conduct her thither. Then he told her of his oath, which she pretended to be ignorant of, and she fell to rallying him and was much vexed, asking that he suddenly give his decision in her suit and let her go.

LOVES LABOUR S LOST. JLi

While the king was reading the paper which the princess now gave him, his friends mingled with the ladies, and each found his match in wit; but when Navarre had finished the paper, he hushed their banter by some grave words to the princess. ''Madam," he said, "your father here intimates the payment of a hundred thousand crowns, which is but the one-half of an entire sum disbursed by my father in his wars. But say that we have received that amount, though we have not, there yet remains unpaid another hundred thousand, in surety of which one part of Aquitain is bound to us, although it is not valued at the money's worth. If, then, your father, the king, will restore a half of what is unsatisfied, we will give up our right in Aquitain, and hold fair friendship with him. But it seems he does not purpose even this, for here he demands to have a hundred thousand pounds repaid, and to leave Aquitain in our possession, which we had much rather give up and have back the money lent by our father. ' '

Following this, the king said some courtly words to the princess ; but she resented his words about her father and insisted that the sum he demanded had been paid. This Navarre professed never to have heard of, but he said if she could prove it he would pay it back or yield up Aquitain.

The princess quickly took him at his word and appealed to Boyet to produce acquittances from the king's father for such a sum. Boyet told her that the package wherein that and other specialties

12 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

were bound had not come, but that to-morrow she should have a sight of it. Hereupon the king said he would wait, and in the mean time offered such welcome as he could, without breach of honour, tender to her. ' ' You may not come within my gates, fair princess," said he, ''but here without you shall be so received as you shall deem your- self lodged in my heart." Then the king and his attendants bade the ladies farewell and parted for the court, but not without a passage of wit be- tween the ladies attendant on the princess and the gay courtiers of Navarre.

Now, there was one other who had taken the king's oath of a three years' studious life. He had been chosen because of his droll and fantastic humours. He was described by the king as a re- fined traveller from Spain, a man planted in the world's newest fashion, who had a mint of phrases in his brain. He was, in truth, one who was rav- ished by the music of his own vain tongue. This was Don Adriano de Armado, and he was wel- comed into the fellowship of study because, as the king said, he might relate the worth of many a knight from tawny Spain, and thus he with Cos- tard the swain could make them sport when they desired it in their solitude.

It happened that Armado had by the king's command placed Costard in durance because of his unlawful conduct with Jaquenetta, a country wench. But Don Armado, in his turn, had also become enamoured of Jaquenetta and he deter-

love's labour's lost. 13

mined to employ Costard to bear a letter to her. For this service he gave the swain his liberty and sent him on his way.

Before very long Costard was met by Lord Biron, who also employed him to deliver a sealed- up letter, which he explained was for Rosaline, who might be overtaken when she came to the park to hunt on that afternoon. Costard took his guerdon and went onward, but Biron lingered under the trees and reproached himself, — he that had been love's whip, a very beadle to a humor- ous sigh, a critic ; nay, a night-watch constable ; a domineering pedant over Cupid — he to be in love! "What," quoth he, " I love! I sue! I seek a wife! a woman like a German clock, still repair- ing, ever out of frame, and never going aright! Nay, but to be perjured is worst of all, and among three to love the worst of all!" Then he fell to reviling his lady-love in playful bitterness, but he was past cure, for Cupid had, in very truth, in return for his neglect, imposed a plague which there was no escaping.

At the time appointed by the king, who desired to entertain his guests as best he could while still remaining true to his oath, the princess and her retinue were led abroad by one of the royal for- esters to a hunt in the park; and, as Biron had directed. Costard followed the train and attempted to deliver Biron' s letter to the lady Rosaline. He asked the princess, with a loutish bow, which was the head lady; and, as she said she was, he an-

2

14 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

nounced that he had a letter from one Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline. Hereupon the prin- cess demanded the letter, and it was handed to Boyet, who, looking at the superscription, said, * * This letter is mistook. It importeth none here. It is writ to Jaquenetta ;' ' for the silly swain had delivered Don Armado's letter instead of Lord Biron' s. The princess commanded that the wax be broken; and the Spanish don's letter, full of hard words and bombastic phrases, was read amid peals of laughter.

Then the princess called Costard: **Thou fel- low, a word: Who gave thee this letter?" The swain answered that my lord had given it to him, and that it was from my lord to my lady. * * From which lord to which lady?" said the princess. ** From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, to a lady of France that he called Rosaline. " * * Thou hast mistaken his letter," said the princess, and she and her train rode gaily away.

Strolling through the park after them came Jaquenetta and Costard, who were overtaken by two men very learned in their own conceit, — namely, Holofernes, a schoolmaster, and Sir Na- thaniel, a curate, with whom was Dull, the con- stable, Jaquenetta interrupted the pompous dis- course of these two and asked the parson to be so good as to read her a letter which she held forth to him. It was given her by Costard, she said, and was sent her from Don Armatho, as she mis- called her Spanish suitor.

love's labour's lost. i$

Sir Nathaniel, urged by Holofernes, began to ,read the letter aloud, which was really that of Lord Biron to Rosaline. It was in verse, and breathed a great love to that lady, calling her by many endearing names. ' * But, damosella vir- gin," asked Holofernes, in his high-flown speech, ' * was this directed to you ?' ' Jaquenetta answered that it was; but upon looking at the superscription, Holofernes found the true address: "To the snow- white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline," and, turning to Jaquenetta, he bade her go deliver it into the hands of the king, for, seeing that Lord Biron had entered into compact with the king for three years' withdrawal from womankind, it might concern him much. Taking Costard with her, Jaquenetta thereupon hurried away, and the two pedants strolled on in fantastical converse.

After all these were gone, Biron came through the trees with a paper in his hand, much berating himself for having, in self-despite, fallen madly in love. "By the world," he muttered, "I would not care a pin if the other three were in," for this was his only hope of escape from his hard bargain. But at that moment he saw one of his vow-fellows coming forward, also with a paper in his hand. To conceal his own embarrassment, and secretly to learn, at the same time, what had happened to the king, for it was he who approached, Biron climbed into a tree and screened himself among its thick leaves. "Ah, me!" sighed the melan- choly king, and Lord Biron, in his high perchj

16 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

whispered to himself, with inward satisfaction, ''Shot, by Heaven!"

The king then began to read aloud a set of verses made to a lady whose beauty he placed above the sun and moon; but, alas! she would still make him weep. He was about to drop the paper, addressed to the princess, in the hope that she would find it, when he heard a footstep on the grass near to him, and stepped aside with his poem still in his hand.

Just as the king disappeared in the deep shade of the trees, Longaville came through the trunks, reading aloud to himself. Biron above, among the leaves, mocked at them both under his breath and was mightily pleased to find his forlorn hope thus coming true. As Longaville re- proached himself for his faithlessness to his fellows, Biron and the king, unknown to each other, in- terjected their comment between his words, each after his own mood, for the king was sad at the miscarriage of his plan, but Biron, as usual, ap- peared to take it in a merry spirit.

Longaville now read his verses aloud, which assured the fair lady that in addressing her he did not break his vow to forswear women, as she was a goddess. His vow was earthly, but she was a heavenly love. "What fool," he said, "is not wise enough to lose an oath in order to win a paradise ?"

As Longaville finished this plausible piece of logic, and was wondering how he should send the

love's labour's lost. 17

missive to the lady it celebrated, forward came Dumain, also with a paper in his hand and also in the musing mien of a lover. Longaville stepped hastily aside when he saw his fellow- courtier, and he also in turn became an eaves- dropper. Biron from his perch laughed in his sleeve at them and thought how like it was to the old infant play of ' * All hid, ' ' while he sat in the sky like a demi-god, knowing the secrets of all the wretched fools below him.

Dumain exclaimed, with a great sigh, *' O most divine Kate!" and Biron in his glee answered, aside, ''O most profound coxcomb!" Dumain continued to call his chosen lady by all sorts of fair names, as is the wont of lovers, and Biron mocked each sentence with some outlandish simile; but the others put in now and then a word of sym- pathy. At last Dumain began to read the ode he had been intent upon, and all were still, for it was one of the sweetest and archest of love-songs:

" On a day (alack the day !), Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom, passing fair, Playing in the wanton air. Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, 'gan passage find ; That the lover, sick to death, Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow ; Air, would I might triumph so ! But, alack ! my hand is sworn Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn. III. — b 2*

1 8 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

Vow, alack ! for youth unmeet ; Youth so apt to pluck a sweet. Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee : Thee for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were ; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love."

He ended with another sigh made up of satisfac- tion with his ode, of his hopeless suing, and of his pang for a broken vow ; then said he, "I will send this and something else more plain that shall ex- press my true love's ardour. O, would," he ex- claimed, "the king, Biron, and Longaville were lovers too!"

Longaville could stand the suspense no longer. He advanced from the shadow of the trees and roundly chided his friend. " Dumain," he said, ' ' your love is uncharitable that wants society in its grief You may look pale, but I should blush to be overheard and taken napping so."

At this the king stepped out and confronted Longaville, who was as much astonished to have been discovered as Dumain. ''Come, sir," said the king to Longaville, ' ' Blush yourself; your case is the same as his, and in chiding him you offend twice." Then he went mercilessly over the words of Longaville' s sonnet to Maria, and told at last how he had been closely shrouded in the bushes and had marked the actions of both and blushed for them. * ' What will Biron say, ' ' he continued, "when he hears of these broken pledges ? Think

LOVES LABOUR S LOST. IQ

how he will scorn you and spend his wit upon you! How he will triumph, and leap, and laugh at it! I would not have him know so much of me for all the wealth I ever saw!"

Biron now thought it was time to show himself. He descended from the tree where he had been in hiding, and straightway began to reproach the king. * ' Ah, good my liege, I pray pardon me, ' ' said he, with a dutiful bow; " but, good heart, what grace have you thus to reprove these worms for loving, who are yourself more in love than they ?' ' Then Biron, in turn, repeated all the conceits of the king's love-ditty, who was in dismay thus to be found out in the presence of those he had just condemned for committing his very fault.

Biron, knowing the state of his own heart, re- joiced at the opportunity to cover his default by reproving it in the others. He rallied them and gave them good advice by turns. * * O, what a scene of foolery, ' ' he cried, ' * of sighs, groans, sorrow, and tears ! Where does your grief lie, tell me, good Dumain? Where is your pain, gentle Longaville ; and where is my liege' s ? All about the breast A caudle, ho!"

* ' Your fun is too bitter, ' ' said the indignant king; but Biron ran on with laughter and mockery, asking at last, ''When did you ever know me to write a thing in rhyme? When did you ever hear me praise a hand, a foot, a face, or an eye ?' ' Yet like all who carry a jest beyond bounds, for none of us are without our faults, Biron' s banter

20 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

at last brought him to shame. He was about to run away, still shaking his sides with laughter, when some one approached and he stopped an instant to learn who it was.

"God bless the king!" said Jaquenetta, for it was she and Costard, who had come to seek his majesty with Biron's verses, as Holofernes had recommended. Jaquenetta begged that the letter which she handed to the king should be in his presence read, for the parson misdoubted that it was treason. The king gave the paper to Biron and asked him to read it, meanwhile questioning where it had come from. Costard said he had had it from Don Armado, upon which the king noticed that Biron was destroying it. "How now ! what are you doing ? Why do you tear it ?' ' he asked abruptly. ' ' A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace need not be alarmed," was Biron's evasive reply ; but it stood him in little stead, for Longaville had noticed how the paper moved him to passion, and Dumain picked up one of the pieces with Biron's name written upon it. Then Biron fell to cursing Costard, who had been born, he said, to do him shame; and, fairly beaten, he cried, ' ' Guilty, my lord, guilty ; I confess, I con- fess!" "What?" asked the king. "That you three fools lacked me to make up the sum. We are all pick-purses in love, my liege, and deserve to die." Costard hereupon, with scorn for all traitors, passed on with Jaquenetta and left the nobles to their mutual explanations.

love's labour's lost. 21

Biron and the king vied with one another in praise of their lady-loves until finally all fell to jeering at the choice of Biron, who defended his Rosaline like the gallant lover and wit he was. When they had pleasantly bantered each other thus for a long time, the king and the rest called upon Biron, in recognition of his nimble mind, to prove their loving to be lawful and their faith unbroken. This, in some noble words which showed him to be as deep in thought as he was light in converse, Biron quickly did after a manner which all ap- proved. Then the four lovers ran off to prepare some sport for their mistresses, Biron gaily sing- ing a song as they passed away under the trees.

In the mean time the ladies had assembled in the Park, near the pavilion of the princess, and had read the verses sent them by their ardent wooers. As they stood under the shade, laughing lightly over these, Boyet approached in his gayest mood and asked eagerly for the princess. When she appeared he told her how he had lain down for rest half an hour under the cool shade of a syca- more, and there had overheard the king and his companions plotting to come thither disguised as Russians and make trial of the affections of their chosen mistresses. They had also planned to send forward in advance a pretty knavish page, whom they had well taught what he was to say.

The ladies soon resolved that they would have a counter-device with which to meet the gallants. They straightway masked and changed favors, so

22 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

that the king and his courtiers must each choose the wrong partner. They had hardly done this before the king's page came forward through the wood and hailed them as ' ' the richest beauties on the earth." This the ladies resented by turning their backs; but the page, who was quick in answers, made a happy retort, while Biron and the rest, who were behind him, urged him on to repeat the words they had taught him. Rosaline, disguised as the princess, and feigning not to know who these strangers were, asked Boyet to learn what they sought. They replied that they wanted nothing but peace and gentle visitation, upon which Rosa- line bade them to be gone. The king told her, sup- posing her to be her royal mistress, that they had measured many miles for the favour of a dance on the grass with her and her companions; but she would and she would not, and finally they separated into pairs, the king going aside with Rosaline, Biron with the princess, Dumain with Maria, and Lorigaville with Katharine, each sup- posing he had found his own choice, and each meeting with a merry defiance, which finally drove them all away.

The ladies fell then to telling what the gallants had said, and the mirth ran high as their mistaken confessions of love were repeated. At last the princess asked what they should do if the lovers returned in their own shapes. Rosaline was for mocking them still by telling them how a band of fools had come there disguised like Russians, and

LOVES LABOUR S LOSt. 23

that the princess and her ladles wondered what they were and to what end they had brought thither their shallow shows and vilely-penned pro- logue. Just as they had resolved on this course the gallants reappeared in their proper habits, and the ladies whipped into their tents to prepare to receive them anew.

When the princess and her attendants, led by Boyet, came forth to greet her royal guest, the king made her a fair all hail, but she returned a light answer. He told her that he and. his com- panions had come to lead her company to his court; but she appeared to resent his former dis- courtesy and refused to go with him. He took shame to himself for the coldness of her welcome, and said that he was distressed that she had lived thus in desolation, unseen and unvisited. ' * Not so, my lord, ' ' said the princess. ' ' We have had pastimes and pleasant games. A mess of Rus- sians left us but now." *'How, madam? Rus- sians?" said the king. "Yes, in truth, my lord. Trim gallants, full of state and courtship. ' ' Here- upon Rosaline spoke up. " It is not so, my lord," said she. * ' We four were indeed confronted by four men in Russian habit, who stayed here an hour, and talked apace, but in the whole hour they did not bless us with a single happy word. I dare not call them fools; but I will say that, when they are thirsty, fools would fain have a drink."

Thus rallying Navarre and his courtiers, the

24 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

ladies brought them at last to a confession of their trick ; but even then the gallants were ignorant of the deception that had previously been played upon them. When the king vowed that he had whispered a pledge of love into his lady's ear, the princess charged that if she should challenge him with this he would reject her. ''Upon my honour, no!" said he, warmly. ''Forbear," cried the princess. ' ' You have broken your oath once!" "Despise me, then," said he, "when I break this oath. " "I will : therefore you must keep it. Rosaline, what did the Russian whisper in your ear ?' '

Rosaline repeated the king's oath made to her when in disguise as the princess, and the princess feigned to take the king at his word and joyfully gave him Rosaline's hand. Navarre was vexed and put out of countenance by this, and only after a free explanation of the pleasant device of the ladies could he and his companions understand how they had been caught in a trap laid by themselves.

But Costard came in at this moment to announce a mummery which he and his companions had planned for the entertainment of the princess, and the embarrassment of the gallants was soon lost in the fun of the play. When this mock drama was about to end in a real combat between Costard and Armado, arrived a messenger from France to the princess, named Mercade, who brought tidings of her old father's death. Upon this news the

LOVE S LABOUR S LOST. 2$

company quickly dispersed, and the princess, in her sudden sorrow, gave orders for her departure on that same night. She thanked the king and his companions for all their fair endeavours, and en- treated them to excuse the liberties she and her companions had appeared to take. If they had borne themselves over-boldly, the king's gentleness was guilty of it. "Farewell, worthy lord!" said she. "A heavy heart does not bear a humble tongue. Excuse me for coming so short of thanks for my great suit so easily obtained."

But the king would not be put off. He was truly in love with the princess, and even her great grief could not prevent him from urging his suit. ' ' Since love' s argument was on foot first, ' ' said he, ' ' do not let sorrow justle it from its purpose. To wail for lost friends is not so wholesome as to rejoice at friends newly found."

The princess still feigned to misunderstand his declaration of love, so he spoke in honest, plain words which should best pierce the ears of grief. He told the ladies how, for their sakes, he and his gentlemen had neglected time, and played foul with their oaths. How beauty had deformed them, drawn them aside from their intents, and made them appear ridiculous, for love is wanton as a child, skipping, and vain, and formed by the eye, like which, it is full of stray shapes varying in subjects as the eye rolls to every varied ob- ject.

The princess replied that they had received the

26 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

letters of the king and his companions, with all their favours and messages of love; but had rated them as pleasant jests to while away the time, not as serious professions.

The king then made one last appeal that their vows might be accepted in very truth, but still the princess held out. The time was too short, she said, to make a world-without-end bargain in. Yet there was one condition on which she might at length accept his wooing. Still rallying him for his foolish pledge of retirement which he had so quickly broken, she said she would not accept his oath; but if he would go with speed to some forlorn and naked hermitage remote from the pleasures of the world, and stay there a year, then, if that austere and unsociable life should not change the state of his heart and make him regret an offer made in heat of blood, he might come and claim her hand, by the virgin palm of which, now held against his, she swore to be his wife. Until then she would shut herself up in a house of mourning and shed endless tears for the death of the old king, her father.

When Navarre had dutifully accepted these hard conditions, and said some ardent words of adieu, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville asked each in turn of his chosen lady what was to be his fate, and each had for answer that he must come a-wooing at the end of a twelvemonth and a day, when the king came to the princess. Then Biron, in the excess of his ardour, asked Rosaline to impose

LOVE S LABOUR S LOST. 27

some service on him that might fitly show his love.

'* I have often heard of you, my Lord Biron,'* returned Rosaline, who had a store of light wit, but who had withal much womanly wisdom and loved seriousness none the less. "The world's large tongue proclaims you to be a man full of mockeries and wounding jests. If, then, you would win me, and at the same time weed this wormwood from your brain, you must, for a twelvemonth to come, visit the sick from day to day and converse with groaning wretches, your task being to force them to smile at your witty sallies." *' But what jest could move laughter in the throat of death?" asked Biron, in dismay. "It is impossible. Mirth cannot move a soul that is in agony." He was beginning thus to realize how small a part of life lies in laughter, which to him had hitherto been the all in all.

"Why," said Rosaline, not a little pleased to find him so easily schooled, ' ' that is the way to choke a gibing spirit whose influence is begotten of the grace that shallow hearers give to fools. A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of the hearer, never in the tongue of the maker. So, if ears that are deaf with the noise of their own groans will listen to your idle mockeries, continue them, and I will have you and the fault together. But if they will not, throw away that spirit, and I will be right joyful at your reformation."

Biron was too deep in love to resist any condi-

28 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

tion that Rosaline might impose upon him. He gladly accepted her terms, and said he would, whatever befell, jest for the year long in a hospital.

Then the princess turned to depart, but the king offered to take her on her way, while Biron, jester to the last, remarked that their wooing had not ended like an old play. *' Jack has not got Jill," quoth he. ' ' The courtesy of these ladies might well have made our sport a comedy. " " Come, sir, ' ' said the king, ' ' it wants but a twelvemonth and it will end." "But that's too long for a play," ruefully said Biron.

Here broke in Don Armado, desiring to kiss the royal finger and crying that he had vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough three years for her sweet love. "But, most esteemed greatness," pleaded he, "will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men, Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, have made in praise of the owl and the cuckoo ?' ' The king bade him call them forth quickly, and out stepped the two pedants with Moth and Cos- tard, whereupon Ver, the Spring, sang a song of the cuckoo, and Hiems, or Winter, this ditty of the owl :

** When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who ; To-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

LOVE S LABOUR S LOST. 29

"When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw ; When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl.

To- who ; To-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

IN the pleasant town of Windsor lived Master Page and his wife, with their daughter Mis- tress Anne Page, who was both young and comely. It was plain that Mistress Anne had inherited her good looks from her mother, for Mrs. Page was, in spite of her matronhood, still winning enough to beget an elderly passion in Sir John Falstaff.

This knight was a freebooter of the town, who lived upon his wits and was followed by a band of cut-purses and knaves who throve on his remnant of respectability. He was fat, and unwieldy of gait, and his face was crimsoned by the potations of sack he was forever draining in Mine Host's tap-room of the Garter Inn, in which public-house he dwelt.

But Sir John's happy-go-lucky calling was not prosperous. His fellows were idle, and a great charge upon him, for they cost him ten pounds a week in wages, and his pockets were empty. He decided to turn some of them away; but this was not relished by those who were discharged. They were used to the careless life of dependents, and

31

32 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

liked little to have to shift for themselves. Bar- dolph, a withered serving-man, as his master called him, was engaged by the host of the Garter as a tapster; and Sir John was heartily glad to be rid of him, for his thefts were too open; but Nym and Pistol found no honest employment, nor in- deed did they want any, but preferred to take to the road as highwaymen on their own account.

Sir John now determined to make his suscep- tible heart do service to his empty purse. He had conceived a sudden love for the wife of one Master Ford, who was a neighbour of Master Page, and this new fancy he thought he could make of twofold benefit. Ford was a man well-to-do, and Mistress Ford had, quoth Sir John, the command of her husband's purse. He therefore wrote a gallant letter to her, as a final means of restoring his fortunes. In the wide reach of his affections he had also, as was before said, conceived a passion for the elder Mistress Page, and he now wrote her a love-letter as well. He asked Nym and Pistol, as they waited upon him in the tap-room of the Garter, each to deliver one of the letters to the lady addressed. This they disdainfully refused to do, both because of assumed honour, and because they knew that Falstaff meant soon to cast them off. Sir John, therefore, gave the letters to his page, Robin, and directed him to carry them to Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.

When Falstaff and Robin had gone out, Pistol began to curse the knight, and Nym swore to be

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 33

revenged. * * I will incense Ford to deal with poi- son, ' ' said he. ' * I will possess him with yellow- ness," meaning jealousy. *'Thou art the Mars of malcontents!" cried Pistol, and he in turn vowed to do the like by Page.

When Mistress Page received her letter she was much puzzled to remember what behaviour on her part had encouraged the amorous knight to think that she might return his sudden affections. As she was reading the letter once again in front of her house, and vowing to be revenged upon him for his impudence, Mistress Ford overtook her and asked her for some counsel, saying that were it not for one trifling respect she could come to much honour. ''Hang the trifle, woman," said Mistress Page ; ' ' take the honour. What is it ? dispense with trifles : what is it ?" * ' If I would but consent to be lost for an eternal moment or so I could be knighted," answered Mistress Ford. Then she showed the letter from Sir John which she had just received, and implored Mistress Page to advise her how to be revenged upon the rascal adventurer. When she saw the letter, Mistress Page was even more angry than before, because it was word for word like her own. ' ' I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters writ with blank space for different names, ' ' said she, ' ' and these are of the second edition."

The honest wives then planned a merry revenge upon the old knight, which should cure him for- ever of his lying flatteries and clumsy deceits.

III. — c

34 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

" Let US appoint him a meeting," said they; "give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead him on with a fine baited delay till he hath pawned his horses to Mine Host of the Garter." "Nay," quoth Mistress Ford, ' ' I will consent to any act of villany against him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty ; but if my husband saw this letter it would give eternal food to his jeal- ousy. ' '

Thus these good wives, feeling themselves in- jured in their reputations by the knight's presump- tion, and being the hearty dames of old England they were, set about a revenge which should show them some sport such as they loved, and at the same time punish the offender.

But as Mistress Page and Mistress Ford were about to go indoors, their husbands, accompanied by Pistol and Nym, came up, in earnest talk, for Pistol in the mean time had assured Mr. Ford that Sir John affected his wife, and, though Ford en- deavoured to conceal his anxiety at the news, yet it was evident that he was violently suspicious. Page, who had heard the same news about Mis- tress Page from Nym, was in no wise disturbed, but rather chose to believe in his wife than in so notable a rogue.

Ford had brooded jealously over the possibility of his wife's love for Falstaff, and would not be satisfied until he had put her truth to a test. He went, therefore, to Mine Host of the Garter, and, pretending some merriment, offered him a pottle

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 35

of burnt sack if he would give him admittance to Falstaff under the false name of Brook. It was, he said, only for a jest; and this quite fell in with Mine Host's mood, who was always eager for sport of any kind.

While Ford was putting on his disguise and preparing to visit Sir John, the knight received a call from Mistress Quickly, an elderly woman who was servant to Dr. Caius, the French physician of Windsor. She was a notable gossip and just the person to help Mistress Ford and Mistress Page in their plan of revenge. They had chosen her for her wit, which concealed a store of deceit beneath a show of humble ignorance. She came in to Sir John as he was chiding his surly follower Pistol, and, though she gave warning that her errand was secret, Falstaff, who was not a little guileless for all his bravado and boastfulness, assured her that nobody heard, saving his own people. ' ' Heaven bless them and make them his servants," ex- claimed Mistress Quickly, and then falteringly delivered her message.

It was from Mistress Ford, who, said the good dame, was much courted by the best nobility of the realm, yet heeded them not, but gave willing ear to Sir John's tender messages. He could come to her, she notified him, between ten and eleven o'clock, when her husband would be ab- sent from home. ' ' Alas ! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him," exclaimed Mistress Quickly; ** he's a very jealousy man; she leads a very fretful

36 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

life with him, good heart." ''Ten and eleven," mused Sir John, entirely deceived. ' ' Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her." "Why, you say well," answered the good dame; "but I have another message to your worship." Then she told him how Mistress Page had also sent him her hearty commendations. ' ' And let me tell you in your ear," continued she, "she is as virtuous a civil modest wife as any is in Windsor, yet I never knew a woman so dote upon a man; surely, I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth."

Thus wheedling and flattering, Mistress Quickly coaxed the knight into the trap laid for him by the good wives, and when he had, in the excess of his delight, given her his purse and sent with her his page Robin to be a messenger between him- self and Mistress Page, Dame Quickly retired and left him to his joy at having made so profitable a conquest.

While he was in the midst of his exclamations of delight, Bardolph entered his chamber with the news that one Master Brook was below and would fain speak with him. He then handed Sir John a draught of sack from the visitor. This was a bond of good-fellowship which the knight could never resist, so he commanded that Master Brook be called in. ' ' Such Brooks are welcome to me, that overflow with liquor," said he, and, as Bar- dolph hastened out to bring the guest, again the old knight fell into a cry of delight at having won Mistress Ford and Mistress Page to accept his suit.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 37

Mr. Ford, disguised as Mr. Brook, now followed Bardolph into Falstaff's chamber, and when the tapster had retired they fell at once to talk of Mr. Brook's business. He had come, he said, about a gentlewoman of the town whose name was Ford. * * I have long loved her, ' ' he frankly confessed (which was probable enough, seeing she was his own wife), " and, I protest to you, bestowed much upon her. But whatever I have merited, either in my mind or in my means, I have received no recompense except bitter experience. ' ' Then Mr. Brook enlarged on his grievances and frankly avowed his purpose, which was that Sir John should lay an amiable siege to the honesty of Ford's wife. *'Use your art of wooing, win her to consent to you ; if any man may, you may as soon as any." Thus appealing to the vanity of the aged gallant, and giving him money which he urged him to spend freely in the attempt. Ford, in the person of Brook, hoped to test the faith of his wife, for he. thought, as a warrant for his wish to undo her, that if he could come to her with any detection in his hand, his desires would have instance and argument to commend them.

Falstaff first carefully secured the money, and next gave Brook his hand in witness of the bargain; lastly, he assured him that he should, if he would, have his wish. Brook was not a little shaken by this promise, and almost betrayed himself at the thought of his own shame, which he was thus bargaining for ; but he was a determined man

4

38 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

and very jealous, and he persisted in his cruel device.

Falstaff then assured Brook that, by appoint- ment, he would be with Ford's wife between ten and eleven: ''for at that time," said he, "the jealous rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me to-night ; you shall know how I speed." They then parted, and Ford resolved to overtake Sir John with his wife in his own house, between ten and eleven o'clock that same day.

Now, it happened that a certain Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh Evans had challenged each other to a duel which had been caused by their rivalry in wooing Anne Page, of whom each was a lover. That day they had gone forth in the fields beyond Windsor to meet in deadly combat with the sword. Mine Host, with Master Page, Shallow, a country justice, and Slender, another suitor of Anne Page, had heard of this, and had gone out to see the sport, which, as was well foreseen, ended in a mere torrent of words, for Mine Host took care that they kept their limbs whole and hacked nothing but the English tongue.

As all these came back to town they met Master Ford on his way to expose the villany of Falstaff, and were invited by him to his house, where he said he had much good cheer to regale them with, and, for their further entertainment, he would show them a monster.

Shallow and Slender and Mine Host excused

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 39

themselves from going, as they had other engage- ments; but the rest were bent upon any madness, and crying, ** Have with you to see the monster," started gaily off under Ford's guidance.

While all this was taking place, Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page had been preparing to receive Falstaif. They had directed the servants to bring into the room where Sir John was to visit Mrs. Ford, a great basket used for carrying soiled linen out to the laundry in Datchet meadow by the Thames River side. When this had been done, Mrs. Ford charged the men to stand ready hard by in the brew-house, and, when she suddenly called them, to come forth and, without any pause or stagger- ing, to take the basket on their shoulders, carry it to the laundry, and empty it into the muddy ditch by the river. As the men retired, Falstaff's page, little Robin, appeared with the news that his master was at the back door and requested Mrs. Ford's company.

Mrs. Page put up a warning finger and asked if the boy had been true to her. ''Ay, I'll be sworn," said he; "my master knows not of your being here, and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty if I tell you of it." "Thou'rt a good boy !' ' said she, and ran away to hide firom Sir John; whereupon Mrs. Ford called after her to remember her cue; and then told the page to go say to his master that she was alone.

Falstaff came puffing in anon, protesting his love for Mrs. Ford in a medley of words which

4b TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

she feigned well to believe, and vowing he wished that her husband were dead, for he would thus make her his own lady. He heaped a score of clumsy compliments on her beauty, and when she modestly protested he asked, ' ' What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there's some- thing extraordinary in thee. " As he was in the midst of his tender speeches, the page cried from within: "Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently." Falstaff was dismayed at this news. He ran and ensconced himself behind the arras which hung against the walls, just as Mrs. Page entered the room, crying, *' O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed, you're overthrown, you're undone forever." Mistress Page pretended, for the benefit of Sir John in hiding, to be very much agitated, but, to cap the climax, Mrs. Page told her that her husband was coming thither with all the officers of Windsor, to search for a gentleman that was now there in his house by his wife's consent. Mrs. Ford denied it with what show of gravity she could, and Mrs. Page went on to harrow the feelings of the knight by imploring her, if there were one hidden there, to convey him out at all hazards. Then Mrs. Ford made pretence of confiding in her friend and openly confessed her fault. She said there was a gentleman concealed in the arras, and she feared not her own shame so much as his peril. ' ' I had

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 4!

rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house," cried she, in apparent despair.

* ' For shame ; never stand saying, ' you had rather,'" repHed Mrs. Page; "your husband's here at hand; bethink you of some conveyance; you cannot hide him in the house. Look, here is a basket ; if he be of any reasonable stature he may creep in here ; and throw foul linen upon him."

Falstaff now appeared from behind the hang- ings in a great fright, and begged them to let him see the basket. As he squeezed his huge bulk in, Mrs. Page scornfully cried, ' ' What ! Sir John Falstaff ! Are these your letters ! ' ' But he did not heed her, pleading only to be taken away.

The two dames and the page then piled in the soiled linen on top of the perspiring knight, and Mistress Ford called to her men to bear him out, giving them careful directions anew where the clothes should be taken.

At this moment Master Ford and his compan- ions arrived at the door. He had been telling them his suspicions on the way, but they treated the tale as a jest. As they entered, the huge basket containing the redoubtable Flemish knight was brought forth. Ford stopped and asked the servants sharply whither they were bearing it, and was told, "To the laundress, forsooth." Mrs. Ford then spoke up. ' ' You were best meddle with the buck-washing," said she, and thus, while Ford went on lamenting over his troubles, the

4*

42 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

fancied source of them was carried away in the wash-basket under his very eyes.

After all the company had gone into the house, Ford gave them his keys, bidding them ascend to his chambers and seek out whoever was hidden there. Page pleaded with him to be content, and not to shame his wife; but he persisted, and car- ried all his visitors up to see Falstaif exposed. In the mean time Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford were with suppressed laughter enjoying the joke below, and wondering which pleased them most, the dis- comfiture of Sir John or of Mr. Ford. But Mrs. Ford had divined that her husband shrewdly sus- picioned Falstaff's presence there, and this not a little alarmed her. Mrs. Page said she would lay a plot to try that, and they might thus have still more tricks with the amorous knight. They resolved to send Mistress Quickly to him with apologies for throwing him in the water, and to give him another hope, only to betray him to another punishment. He was to be sent for on the morrow at eight o' clock, that they might feign to make him amends.

Ford and his companions came down disap- pointed of their prey. Page reproached his neigh- bour for his false suspicions, saying he would not have a distemper of this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle, and well he might feel so, for a jealous man breeds himself an endless torment, and does untold harm to his kind. Ford now affected to cast off his gloomy humours, and in-

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 43

vited all the company in to the dinner which he had promised them, including Mrs. Page and his wife. They went in to share the repast, but never- theless were resolved to make game of their host v/hen the chance came. Before they drew up to the table. Page asked them to come to his house to breakfast in the morning, and after, to go a-birding, for he had a fine hawk for the bush. They were in for any sport, said they, and would right gladly, whereupon they sat about the board and fell to with appetite upon Ford's plentiful viands.

Falstaff was in a great temper the next morning, and called for his sack to have a toast in it, that he should be warmed after his bath in the Thames, for his belly was as cold, said he, as if he had swal- lowed snowballs for pills. He vowed that if ever he were served such another trick he would have his brains taken out and buttered to give to some dog for a new year' s gift. ' ' The rogues, ' ' growled he to Bardolph, "tilted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a litter of puppies, and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking. I should have drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow, — a death that I abhor."

As he was railing on thus, Mistress Quickly arrived, saying she had come from Mrs. Ford. ' * I have had ford enough : I was thrown into the ford," said Falstaff, angrily. The good dame pleaded that it was not her mistress's fault. She

44 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

was in great grief over it. The men, she said, mistook the direction. Then she gave him her message, which was that Mrs. Ford's husband went that day a-birding, and she desired him to come to her between eight and nine. ' ' I must carry her an answer quickly, ' ' quoth she. * ' She' 11 make amends, I warrant you."

The knight could not resist such a flattering appeal. His vanity was touched, and he saw, too, in the achievement of his designs a remedy for his empty purse. Hence he said he would go. "And bid her think what a man is," he added; 'Met her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit."

As Quickly went out, Brook came in with a ** Bless you, sir!" He had come to learn what had passed between Sir John and Mrs. Ford, and the knight was not a little chagrined to have to tell him of his ill success — not to speak of the scandalous treatment he had received. But he laid all the blame on Ford's jealousy, and vowed he would be thrown into ^tna, as he had been thrown into Thames, before he would leave her thus. He then revealed to Mr. Brook that, as Mr. Ford had that morning gone a-birding, he had received another embassy of meeting from Mrs. Ford, between eight and nine ; and bid Brook come to him at his convenient leisure to know how he sped.

The knight then went out to keep his appoint- ment, and Ford, in the disguise of Brook, was dis-

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 45

mayed by the unexpected turn of affairs. He did not quite know whether he was asleep or awake. But he felt that he must overcome his astonish- ment and act promptly. Falstaff was even then on the way to his house, and he decided to go at once and take him in his villany.

As Ford, accompanied by Master Page, Shal- low, Dr. Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans, came up to the doorway of his house, Mrs, Ford, to tease him and to throw him off his guard, had the clothes- basket again carried out, which seeing, Ford raved against his wife and demanded to look into it. In the mean while Mrs. Page led forth a fat old woman whom she called mother Pratt. This was the aunt of Mrs. Ford's maid, and she lived in Brentford. Ford had a great hatred of her and had forbid her his house, and now, in the excess of his anger at not finding Falstaff where he had expected him to be, he beat the old woman unmercifully from his door, calling her witch, and hag, and baggage, and many more unsavory names. Mrs. Page re- proached him for his cruelty. "Are you not ashamed ?' ' said she ; ' * I think you have killed the poor woman. ' ' But Ford only muttered the more curses after her; and when she had hurried her unwieldy body, in ill-fitting clothes with a muffler about her head, out of the way, he prayed his companions to follow him up-stairs and discover the hidden rogue.

As they went up, Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page gave vent anew to their glee at this happy de-

46 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

vice for punishing the rascally old knight. He had come according to appointment, and again Mrs. Page had brought the news of Mr. Ford's approach. Then Sir John in craven fear had looked everywhere for a refuge, and had finally consented to put on the clothes of the old witch of Brentford, which happened to be up-stairs. Thus ingloriously disguised, he had taken a sound beating at the hands of the man he meant to wrong, and had retreated in cowardly haste.

Mrs. Page said she would have the cudgel hal- lowed and hung over the altar, so pleased was she that the culprit had got his deserts. ' * What think you ?' ' said Mrs. Ford. * ' May we, with warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good con- science, pursue him with any further revenge?" Mrs. Page thought that the spirit of wantonness was surely scared out of him; but she agreed that they should tell their husbands, and if Ford and Page desired to afflict him any further, it would be well.

Ford was very contrite when he heard his wife' s confession. He humbly asked her pardon, and vowed he would henceforth rather suspect the sun with cold than her with any wantonness. Then he and Page agreed that the good dames should make public sport with the old fat fellow once again, so that he might be taken in the act and disgraced for his offences.

It was planned that the merry wives should meet Sir John by appointment in the park at mid-

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 47

night. There was an old tale of Heme the hunter, who had been a keeper once in Windsor forest, and who, through all the winter time, at midnight, walked round about an oak, with great ragged horns, blasting the trees and taking the cattle, and shaking a chain in a most hideous and dreadful manner. Travellers feared mightily to walk at night by Heme's oak, as it was called, and thus after sundown it was a deserted place. This was the spot fixed upon for the meeting, and it was agreed that Falstaff should be asked to come thither dressed with huge horns on his head, like Heme the hunter.

''Then," quoth Mrs. Page, '' my daughter and my little son and three or four more of their growth shall be dressed like urchins, ouphes, and fairies in green and white, and shall carry lighted tapers on their heads and rattles in their hands ; and when Falstaff, Mrs. Ford, and I are newly met they shall come forth suddenly with some song. We two will feign cowardice and fly, while they shall encircle him about and pinch him, fairy-like, asking why he dares to profane their sacred paths at that hallowed hour. ' '

This being arranged, the plotters parted. Ford promising to go once again to the knight dis- guised as Brook and learn all his purpose, after Dame Quickly had invited him to the midnight meeting.

When Mistress Quickly, bent upon this mission, reached the Garter Inn, Sir John was in the tap-

48 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

room lamenting very bitterly over the cudgelling he had received from Ford. * * If it should come to the ear of the court, ' ' growled he, * ' how I had been transformed, they would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear." Dame Quickly coming suddenly upon him in this mood, he grew furious when she told her errand from the good ladies. ' ' I have suffered more for their sakes, ' ' quoth he, * * than the villa- nous inconstancy of man is able to bear. " " And have they not suffered?" asked Mistress Quickly, playing her part of injured innocence right well. ' ' Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue. " " What tell' st thou me of black and blue ?' ' roared the bruised and suffering knight ; and his troubles, moreover, had not ended with a beating, for he was like to be apprehended, he said, for the witch of Brentford, but that his admirable dexter- ity of wit and his counterfeiting the action of an old woman had delivered him from the knave constable. Thus he railed on, always boasting of his own good parts while he bemoaned the injuries that really resulted from their lack.

Dame Quickly soothed him as best she could, and, asking for more privacy that she might deliver her tidings, he invited her into his own chamber. There, at last, she prevailed with him to go to Heme's oak at midnight, promising to provide him a chain and a pair of horns. Then she

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 49

departed, well pleased with her success, and in- wardly full of mirth at the old rogue's simplicity.

And now came Mr. Brook to see Sir John and to learn how his venture of the day before had prospered. The knight was full of promises for the future, for he felt a crying need of some of Brook's gold; but he was in a mighty rage about what had happened him, and desired nothing so much as revenge upon Ford, whom he vowed he would undo that night, for he pledged himself to deliver Ford's wife into Mr. Brook's hand.

As the Windsor clock struck twelve through the thick foliage of the park, Sir John came stealthily under the trees to keep his appointment by Heme's oak. He was dressed like a hunter and had a great pair of buck's horns on his head, fastened in a close hood that covered his ears and met under his chin. He muttered encouraging words to himself as he stole forward, for he was sore afraid of the dark, in spite of his vain boasting and show of courage. As he neared the huge gnarled oak which was to be his trysting-place with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, the former came forth from her concealment in the trees and greeted him with well-feigned affection. He would have taken her in his huge arms, but that she re- treated from his embrace and told him that Mrs. Page had come with her. ' ' Divide me like a bribe-buck; each take a haunch," said he. ''As I am a true spirit, welcome !"

Just then there came a strange noise abroad, and in. — c d 5

50 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

the good wives pretended to be alarmed. ' ' What should this be ?' ' asked Falstaff, frightened in very- truth.

"Away, away!" cried the dames in a breath, running off as they called ; and, in an instant, Sir John was surrounded by a fairy throng, with Sir Hugh Evans as a satyr and Mrs. Quickly and Pistol as attendant sprites. They began to circle around him singing weird songs and twitching their tapers about on their swaying heads.

"They are fairies," quoth Sir John. " He that speaks to them shall die;" and he lay down upon his face in craven fear ; they meanwhile chanting in time to their tip-toe steps and pinching him or burning him now and again with their tapers.

When they had sufficiently worked their will with him, there was a sound of a hunter's horn, at which all vanished away, and the sorry old gal- lant slowly rose, took off his horns, and got upon his feet. He looked around in terror, and well he might, for at the instant came running forth Page and Ford, with their wives, who seized him just in time to prevent him from taking to his ungainly heels. They made game of his foolish pretensions to gallantry, and it slowly dawned upon him that he had really been the dupe of the honest wives whom he had tried so hard to injure. Then said he, " I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass," which was a truth most aptly expressed; and he continued : ' ' And these are not fairies ? I was three or four times in the thought they were not,

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 5 1

and yet the guiltiness of my mind and the sudden surprise of my powers drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief. See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment," for he still believed in his wit, and was willing to blame its miscarriage upon any cause saving the right one of its dulness. He did not feel so much remorse for his sins as shame for his little wit, and, seeing this, Mrs. Page said these honest words : ' ' Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, that ever any power could have made you our delight ?' '

* ' What, a hodge-pudding ? a bag of flax ?' ' said Ford, derisively; and Page, in his turn, called him "old, cold, and withered, and as poor as Job;" whereupon the crest-fallen knight acknowledged himself dejected, and gave himself up to them to work what punishment they would.

*' Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money," said Ford, still smarting from the old knight's deceptions ; but Page, with good-humoured for- getfulness of his evil designs, bid him come to his house and eat a posset, and thither all went the more merrily because suspicion and jealousy had been cured by good sport and fair humour.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

WHEN the Trojan war was at Its height, and neither the besieged nor the besiegers seemed to gain advantage in the daily combats before the city, there Hved in Troy a certain soothsayer and priest named Calchas, who had a daughter called Cressida. This maiden was, with but one exception, the fairest lady in Troy ; but she was of a coy and self-willed nature, and, though her beauty had won her many lovers, yet she had never chosen any of them for her husband.

The sole rival in loveliness to Cressida in the besieged town was Queen Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of the Grecian city of Sparta. This beautiful queen had been stolen from her husband by Paris, a prince of Troy, and the theft had given rise to the war now raging between Troy and Greece, for all the brother kings of Menelaus had combined to aid him in his expe- dition against the prince who had thus wronged him.

Among the sons of King Priam of Troy was a prince named Troilus, who was deeply in love

5* 53

54 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

with Cressida, but whose passion seemed in no wise returned by her. Cressida had, however, an aged uncle named Pandarus, who, being flattered that a prince of Troy should woo one of his family, as well as given by nature to meddling in the affairs of. others, was eager to marry them without delay, and used every device he could invent to make favour for the young prince in the eyes of his niece. To him Troilus would come with all the woes of his unsuccessful suit, and Pandarus would make bold promises of his niece's consent which he knew no means of fulfilling. Then would he go to Cressida with a tongue full of praises of Troilus, who, he said, was a better man in arms and courage than Hector, the hero of the Trojan cause, and he brought the name of Troilus with new commenda- tions into every sentence he uttered, thus hoping to win his niece's love for a wooer she was wont to flout and make game of

But the truth was, that in her secret heart Cressida loved Troilus, though she put on an affected air of mockery and indifference because her nature revolted at her uncle's persistent praises of him. Indeed, she saw a thousand-fold more in this young prince than was shown in the glass of Pandarus' s praise, yet she held off from giving her consent, because women, she said, are angels while they are being wooed; but being won they are little heeded. Men prize the thing ungained more than it is worth, and love is never so sweet as in the making, and for this reason she resolved

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 55

that, though love were kindling in her heart, yet no hint of it should appear through her eyes.

While the suit of Troilus stood in this unpros- perous state, the affairs of the opposing forces of Troy and Greece were equally without issue. So little prospect was there of a speedy termination of the war, that some of the greatest leaders of the Grecians were grown indifferent and slothful, and threatening jealousies had sprung up among them. The mightiest warrior of them all, Achilles, had long avoided the field of battle, and lay idly in his tent laughing at the mockeries which Pa- troclus, his lieutenant and friend, made against his brother generals.

This condition of affairs alarmed the Grecian leader Agamemnon, and he called a council of his generals, among whom were Nestor, the oldest of all, Ulysses, Menelaus, and others of less note. They met before Agamemnon's tent, and he ad- dressed them in a noble speech, saying that it was not a new matter to them that they had so far come short of their purposes, for after seven years' siege Troy's walls were still standing; but he bid them not to be abashed nor think the failure a thing to take shame for, because every action in the experience of men is biassed and thwarted, nor answers its aim. These things, he said, were but the trial by which great Jove tested the con- stancy of mankind, the fineness of whose metal is not found in fortune's love, but rather in the wind and tempest of her frown, where distinction, with

56 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

a broad and powerful fan, puffing at all men, winnows the light ones away; and what has mass or matter by itself lies rich in virtue and unmin- gled with anything more base.

To this wise utterance Nestor, and, after him, Ulysses, replied, and the latter said, boldly, that hollow factions and intrigues among themselves, and not the strength of Troy, had caused the failure of their conquest; and he accused the vain leaders who quarrelled over precedence in the field, and taxed foreseeing policy as cowardice, esteeming no act but that of the hand, so that the ram that batters down the wall was placed above the wisdom of him who made the engine.

But as he proceeded in his eloquent speech the sudden blast of a trumpet sounded, which an- nounced the arrival of ^Eneas, a Trojan prince, who came, he said, to seek Agamemnon. When he was brought into the presence of the Grecian general he quickly told his errand, which was that his brother Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors, having grown rusty in the dull and long- continued truce, had commanded him to take a trumpet, and bear to the Grecians a challenge against their fairest in valor, to appear in view of the two armies on the morrow, when Hector would make it good with his sword that he had a lady wiser, fairer, and truer than ever a Greek did clasp in his arms. To which he added that if any one stood forth to accept the challenge. Hector would honour him; if none did, when he retired to Troy,

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 57

he would proclaim that the Grecian dames were sunburnt and not worth the splinter of a lance.

King Agamemnon made a brave answer and said that there would be one to meet Hector on the morrow; and the aged Nestor, with his Grecian heart still young in courage, added that if there were none of Grecian mould that had the spark of fire to answer for his love, he himself would hide his silver beard in a gold helmet and meet the challenger.

'' Now Heavens forbid such scarcity of youth," replied the gracious ^neas, and he was then led away to Agamemnon's pavilion to be made wel- come and feasted before his return to Troy.

After the rest had retired, the wise Ulysses and Nestor, men of far-seeing judgment, advised to- gether of the state to which the Grecian arms had fallen, and Ulysses said that the pride which had grown up in Achilles and which threatened the fortunes of the Greeks must now be cropped or it would overthrow all. He saw well, he said, that the challenge which Hector had sent, however gen- erally it was proclaimed, related only to Achilles; and to this Nestor agreed, saying that Achilles would not fail to find Hector's purpose pointing to him. ' * And wake him to the answer, think you?" asked Ulysses. The venerable Greek thought that it would, and he continued: '*It is supposed that he who meets Hector is our choice, and that he deserves to represent us, and we should therefore guard against defeat by choosing our

58 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

mightiest." But Ulysses said that this was the very reason why Achilles should not meet Hector. It would be wiser to keep their best, like good merchants, in reserve, for if Achilles conquered Hector, they would better parch in Afric sun than suffer the pride and scorn of his eyes; but if he were overthrown, then they were defeated in the taint of their best man. To avoid this he craftily proposed that they make a lottery, and by a cer- tain device let the dull Ajax, next in strength to Achilles, draw the chance to fight with Hector. And among themselves, he said, they should allow him to be the worthier man of the two, for thus they might humiliate Achilles. And if Ajax came safe off from the combat, they were rid of a powerful enemy ; but if he failed, they still would have the better man to bring forth. Nestor rel- ished this advice and said he would reveal it at once to Agamemnon, and thus, that the Greeks might retrieve their fortunes, all was planned by these two wise generals, who fought with policy as well as swords.

Meanwhile, in Troy, Hector and his brother princes were preparing to make good their bold challenge, for, though the eldest and mightiest must wield the sword, yet the fortunes of all Troy were centred in the combat. Troilus therefore placed all his love upon a single cast, and deter- mined to win or lose Cressida once for all before the event of the morrow ; to which end he agreed with Pandarus that they should go to the latter' s

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 59

orchard on that same night, and that there Cres- sida should be brought to meet him.

This fell out as it was planned, though hours before the time appointed Troilus stalked, as he said, before the lady' s door, like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks, staying for waftage. But pres- ently Pandarus brought his niece to the orchard, blushing and fetching her wind as short as if she were frightened by a sprite, or like a newly-taken sparrow. ''Come, come," quoth he, as he drew her reluctantly along, ' ' what need you blush ? shame's a baby !" She broke away and would have fled back to the house, but he caught her again, and, drawing aside her veil, showed her pretty blushing face to the enraptured Troilus. This ardent lover, like all his kind, was bereft of words by the presence of his sweetheart, but old Pandarus kept up a ceaseless chatter, which helped the lovers over their embarrassment, so that when the lady asked Troilus to walk in, he regained his senses and in a moment was at her side.

Cressida confessed at last that she had loved the young prince Troilus night and day for many weary months, and yet as she spoke she chid herself for revealing her love to him, for, she asked, who should be true to women when they are so unsecret to themselves ? She feared that the utterance of her secret would give Troilus too great a power over her; and, as he let her run on in her pretty confessions, at last she asked him in very self-dread to stop her mouth. This he took

6o TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

to be an invitation to a kiss, which he promptly accepted, when, blushing for her seeming boldness, she begged for pardon. '' O Heavens! what have I done ?' ' said she, and tried to run away. But he detained her, and renewed his vows again and again, swearing he would be as true as truth's simplicity and simpler than the infancy of truth. To this she made answer that she would outdo him in constancy. So rejoiced was he at thus winning her faith that he made many fair speeches, and said that true swains in love should, in the world to come, approve their truths by Troilus. And Cressida, in her turn, vowed that if she were ever false or swerved a hair from the truth, when time was old and had forgot itself, and water-drops had worn the stones of Troy, yet memory should upbraid her falsehood ; or, if one in that far time should say : as false as air, as water, as sandy earth, as fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf, or stepdame to her son ; finally, to stick the very heart of falsehood, he might add, as false as Cressida.

Hereupon the eavesdropping Pandarus reap- peared, crying, ' ' Go to, a bargain made : seal it, seal it; I'll be the witness," with much more that showed his joy at the match; and Troilus was not slow to place the seal upon Cressida' s sweet lips, when each one cried ''Amen," and the troth was duly plighted.

Now in the camp of the Greeks, during this time, Calchas, the father of Cressida, who had

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 6l

become a traitor to his native land and gone over to the Grecian army, began to feel a deep longing to have his daughter with him ; and appearing before the Greek generals, he made claim upon them for recompense for his services to their cause.

There was, he said, among the lately taken prisoners a Trojan called Antenor, who was held very dear by the warriors of Troy, and he gave assurance that this Antenor was so important to the Trojan cause that King Priam would almost give up a prince of the blood rather than part with him. He asked, therefore, that this valuable prisoner be sent back to Troy to buy his daughter; which exchange accomplished, he said all debts due to him should be quite stricken off.

To this request Agamemnon readily assented, and he ordered that Diomedes should bear An- tenor to Troy, and bring back Cressida in his place. He bid Diomedes furnish himself fairly for the interchange, and to learn also if Hector would appear on the morrow to make good his challenge.

With these directions Diomedes immediately set out for Troy, where he arrived in the night, after Troilus and Cressida had made their vows in Pandarus's orchard. He was well greeted by the Trojan princes, for his courage was approved and he was of much fame; and when he overtook ^neas, though they were deadly foes on the field, yet the Trojan welcomed him frankly, as a man of equal valor with himself.

6

62 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

^neas had been commanded by King Priam to take Diomedes to Calchas's house, and there to render to him, in exchange for Antenor, the fair Cressida ; but Paris, his brother, who was of the company, secretly told ^neas that he thought Troilus would be found at the same house, for Pandarus had hinted as much to him in the morn- ing. Paris therefore bid ^neas run before and warn Troilus of their approach and of their errand, saying he feared they would find small welcome from their brother, for Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece than Cressida borne from Troy. But there was no help; for the bitter dispo- sition of the time would have it so, and, obeying the king's behest, they started forward, ^neas hurrying on before them to waken Troilus from his dream of happiness.

Pandarus answered the hasty knock at the door, and when ^neas asked if Troilus were within, the old gossip feigned not to know it. * ' What should he do here?" he asked ; but to .Eneas' s impatient request that Troilus should speak with him, Troilus himself made answer. In a few words ^neas told him his errand, and Troilus, submitting like a brave soldier, went forward to meet Diomedes and Antenor. Presently he returned with these and Paris, and, while the rest waited without, Troilus went in to bring forth Cressida. Pan- darus had been quick to tell her what threatened, and when she saw Troilus she fell into his arms, weeping. ''And is it true that I must go from

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 63

Troy?" cried she. "A hateful truth," he said. ' ' We two, that with so many thousand sighs did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves with the rude brevity of a single sigh," and he poured forth his heart in a storm of loving words, which pres- ently ^neas interrupted from without. '*Hark! you are called ! the Genius so cries * Come !' to him that instantly must die," said Troilus ; but to prolong the dear moment of parting he answered ^neas that she would come anon, and, with one last embrace, again bid her be true of heart. '* I true ! how now ?' ' she said, surprised at his little confidence; but he pleaded the bitter parting as his excuse, and said that he meant only, "Be thou true, and I will see thee." She trembled lest he should be exposed to dangers ; but he said he would grow friend with danger, and he gave her as a parting keepsake a sleeve to wear as a token of his love. In exchange, she gave him one of her gloves. ' ' When shall I see you ?' ' she asked. * ' I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels to pay you nightly visits; but yet, be true," said he. She drew back, vexed at his importunity. ' ' Hear why I speak it, love," he implored. ''The Grecian youths are so full of quality, flowing and swelling over with arts and exercise, that a kind of godly jealousy makes me afraid." She accused him of loving her not, so much she resented his false sus- picions ; but he said he should die a villain if he did not wholly love her ; yet he persisted that in each grace of the Greeks there lurked a still devil

64 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

that tempts most cunningly. *' But," he begged, ''be not tempted!" *'Do you think I will?" asked Cressida, half angry now at his doubts. He said no, at last ; but at the same moment, .^neas, growing impatient, called again, whereupon the lovers kissed and parted. At the door Cressida was delivered over to Diomedes ; but Troilus said he would not leave her until they had reached the gates of the city ; nor did he, but walked by her side, telling Diomedes what manner of maid she was. ' ' Entreat her fair, ' ' he said, ' ' and by my soul, fair Greek, if ever you stand at mercy of my sword, name Cressida and your life shall be as safe as Priam is in Ilion."

When, in the early morning, Diomedes with Cressida approached the Grecian camp, they saw the lists set out for the combat between Hector and Ajax, and all the generals assembled to behold the fight. But Hector had not yet appeared, and Ajax, clad in his massive armor, grew impatient. He bid his herald crack his lungs in a great blast on the trumpet; but no trumpet sounded in return. As they listened eagerly for some sign from Hec- tor, Diomedes and Cressida came into view in the dim morning light, and Agamemnon asked, "Is this the lady Cressida?" Diomedes told him that it was, and the king gave her a fair greeting on the lips, whereupon each lord in his turn saluted her in like manner. Cressida seemed not displeased at this ; but when Diomedes led her away to her father, the wise Ulysses, who knew that a woman's

TROILUS AND CRESSIdA. 65

sweetness lay in modesty and not in a bold scat- tering of her favours, cried out, fie upon her, and said there was a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, nay, that her very foot spoke wantonness.

But before Cressida had quite vanished among the tents, the great Hector and his train came into the lists, ^neas, his brother, greeted the Greeks with fair words and asked whether the fight should be to the edge of all extremity or should be limited by any conditions. Hector, he said, cared not, but would be pleased at either decision. Then Achilles, who had been, through the i\f;yi-ccs of Nestor and Ulysses, placed seocud to Ajax, and was therefore giid to p-einl out any affront to that warrior, answered that this was done like Hector, but done a little proudly and a great deal under- estimating the knight Oijposed to him. ^neas said that that which looked like pride in Hector was courtesy, a merited rebuke to the selfish Achilles ; and he further told him that as Ajax was half made of Hector's blood, being his near- related cousin, half of Hector, in love for him, stayed at home.

At this same moment Diomedes came back, and King Agamemnon bid him agree with ^neas upon the terms of the combat; and when all these preliminaries were settled the opponents entered the list, and the fight began. Each knight was cheered on by shouts from his own side, and mighty blows were rained down upon the ringing armor, till at last the judges cried enough, and the III. — e 6*

66 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

panting warriors separated. Ajax vowed he was not yet warm and was eager to begin again ; but Hector said he would have no more, for Ajax was his father's sister's son, and that obUgation of their blood forbid a gory emulation between them. He embraced Ajax, as the fashion then was, and bid him farewell ; upon which the bold Greek, though little schooled in courtesies, asked his famous cousin to come to the Grecian tents; and Dio- medes, seconding the request, said it was Aga- memnon's wish, and that the great Achilles did ionjr ^^ '^ee the valiant Hector unarmed. With this, the nuble T icj^.n bid Troilus go with him, and^ sending away his othei followers, went hand in hand with Ajax to see the Grecian knights.

Each general in turn greeted him, and lastly Achilles, with whom he exchanged many friendly threats, and whom he entreated to let the Trojans see him in the field. Achilles was stung by this request, and said that on the morrow he would meet Hector, fell as death ; but to-night all should be friends. They shook hands upon this match ; then all but Troilus and Ulysses entered Agamem- non's tent, there to feast and make merry; and as they sat about the board the tambourines beat loud and the trumpets blew a lusty welcome to the great soldier, their guest.

But Ulysses, who had been detained a moment from entering by Troilus, told the young Trojan, at his earnest entreaty, that he might find Calchas that night at the tent of Menelaus, where he feasted

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 67

with his daughter and Diomedes ; and, knowing not that he sent unutterable pangs to the heart of Troilus, he told him how, since Cressida had come to the camp, Diomedes looked neither to heaven nor to earth, but bent all his gaze upon her alone. Troilus did not betray his feelings; but only- begged Ulysses to bring him to Menelaus's tent after they had parted from Agamemnon ; and this Ulysses gladly consented to do.

At last the revelling in the leader's terit was over, and the Greek lords and their guests parted, some to retire and some to renew the feast at the tent of Achilles, who had invited Hector to visit him also. Old Nestor tarried for this, and Achilles asked Diomedes; but the young soldier said he could not stay, for he had important business then press- ing, and so went forth with his torch into the darkness. " Follow his torch, he goes to Calchas* tent," whispered Ulysses to Troilus, and offered to keep him company. These two went speedily after Diomedes, and presently found him hailing Calchas at his tent. The Greek asked for Calchas's daughter, and the soothsayer's voice from within said, " She comes to you." The two eavesdrop- pers stood close, where the torch would not dis- cover them, and in an instant they saw Cressida came forth. " How now, my charge ?" asked Dio- medes, tenderly. ' ' Now, my sweet guardian, a word with you, ' ' said she, and the two went apart whispering together. ' ' Will you remember ?' ' Troilus heard his rival ask. ** Remember? yes,"

68 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

quoth she ; ' ' but sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly." Then Diomedes pretended to go from her, and she detained him, crying, " Hark! one word in your ear !' '

This scene awoke all the bitterness of Troilus's soul. He could have fallen upon them then and there; but he nobly restrained himself and showed his pain only in broken exclamations. Ulysses saw that he was moved, and proposed that they should depart lest his displeasure grow beyond control. But Troilus would not go. ' ' See, she strokes his cheek!" he muttered, and then Cres- sida disappeared into the tent and brought forth a token for her new lover. *' Here, Diomed," said she, "keep this sleeve," and Troilus saw that it was the very sleeve he had given her as a token of love on the night of their parting. * ' O beauty ! where' s thy faith ?" he groaned; and again Ulysses warned him to be patient.

For one moment Cressida felt a twinge of con- science. She said to Diomedes, * ' You look upon that sleeve ; behold it well. He loved me — O false wench !" and then she snatched at it to have it back. ' ' Whose was it ?' ' asked the Greek. " No matter, now I have it again," said she, and the remembrance of her love for Troilus overcom- ing her present fancy, she told him she could not meet him to-morrow night, and bid him visit her no more. For the moment Troilus's hope was high; but instantly Diomedes snatched the sleeve, and a pretty encounter took place between him

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 69

and Cressida, who, when he pressed to know its owner, said, at last, '''Twas one that loved me better than you will; but now you have it, take it." Then the young Greek bound the token on his helmet, saying that on the morrow it should grieve the spirit of him who dared not challenge it. Troilus, almost leaping from his concealment, muttered, fiercely, ' ' Wert thou the devil, and wore it on thy horn, it should be challenged."

When Diomedes had finally parted from her, Cressida lingered in the darkness, and Troilus could hear her murmur, ' ' Troilus, farewell ! one eye yet looks on thee; but the other eye perceives where my heart is." ''All's done, my lord," Ulysses said anon, and slowly they departed, Troilus scarcely believing that what he had heard and seen could be true.

As they paced onward they encountered ^neas, who had, he said, been seeking his brother this hour. He told them that Hector was even then arming in Troy and that Ajax stayed to conduct them home. Troilus gratefully thanked Ulysses and bid him adieu, and then, groaning a farewell to his fair one and uttering a threat against Diomedes, he started away with ^neas.

When they reached Troy, Hector was in arms and was about to set out for the battle-field; but he was restrained by his wife Andromache and his sister Cassandra, the prophetess, for they had both dreamed ominous dreams and feared the day por- tended ill to him. They clung about his great

70 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

armoured form and pleaded with him not to go, but he told them that, though every man holds life dear, yet the true man holds honour far more precious than life, and that he stood engaged to many Greeks to appear that morning against them. Even his father, the venerable King Priam, prayed him not to go ; but Hector was firm, for his oath was passed, and, rebuking them for their vain forebodings, he. set bravely forth. *'0 farewell, dear Hector," wailed Cassandra after him. " Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale ! Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents. Hark, how Troy roars ! how Hec- uba cries out! How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth ! Behold ! distraction, frenzy, and amazement, like witless antics, meeting one an- other, and all cry, Hector ! Hector's dead ! O Hector!" Thus pitifully foreteUing the woe that was to be, she threw a cloud of grief over the great soldier's setting out; but his heart was too bold to be stayed by such womanly fears, and he went valiantly on against the foe.

Troilus was not long in following Hector; and when he reached the field his first encounter was with Diomedes, who by some mischance captured his horse and instantly sent it ofi" to Cressida as signifying that he had conquered the amorous Trojan. But this was in no wise the truth, and Troilus sought out a later opportunity for taking his revenge.

Hector fought with a matchless valour that day,

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 7I

and exceeded all he had ever done before in mighty blows. There seemed, as old Nestor said, a thou- sand Hectors in the field, for now here he fought on Galathe his horse, and anon he would be there on foot; and again there the Greeks flew before him like shoals of fish before the belching whale ; and in another instant he would be yonder where they fell down before him like a mower's swath. Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, was slain, among others, and the Greeks, in despair of hold- ing the field against Hector, sent his body to Achilles, for they knew that, if anything could arouse the proud and indolent soldier, the sight of his dear companion's body would do it. And presently Ulysses, who had carefully watched for some sign of Achilles' s wrath, came joyously forth with the news that the mightiest of the Greeks was arming, weeping, cursing, and vowing ven- geance. Ajax, also, who had grown surly through the prolonged peace, was arming because of Pa- troclus's death. He foamed at the mouth and was at it, roaring for Troilus, who had that day done mad and fantastic execution on his friends.

It was not long before Achilles was a-field. ' * Where is this Hector ?' ' he shouted. * * Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face; know what it is to meet Achilles angry;" and, as if to answer his boastful threat. Hector was at hand on the in- stant. The huge Greek plunged at him without warning, but Hector out of courtesy bid him pause. Achilles cried out against courtesy, but

72 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

said that the proud Trojan, as he called him, might be happy that his arms were out of practice, for that his long rest and negligence would now be- friend him. But he accepted the heroic Hector's truce, and retired, threatening that the Trojan should hear of him again. "Fare you well," said Hector, ' ' I would have been a fresher man had I expected you," and he turned to meet Troilus, who just then came up, crying that Ajax had taken ^neas, and vowing that he would be taken too or bring him off.

But Achilles, notwithstanding his great fame and marvellous strength, felt it needful to resort to stratagem to conquer Hector. He called about him his Myrmidons and bid them attend where he wheeled, but to strike not a stroke until he had found the bloody Hector. Then, he commanded, they must empale him round about with their weapons and execute their arms in the most deadly manner, for it was decreed that Hector the great must die.

Thus instructed, the band followed their leader through the field until the Trojan was overtaken, and when they met, Achilles cried, ''Look, Hec- tor, how the sun begins to set, and how ugly night comes breathing at his heels ; even so does the day of Hector's life draw to a close." But the noble Trojan had slung his shield behind him and put up his sword, because the sun was low and the twilight at hand, and he showed Achilles that he was unarmed, and begged him, as he himself

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 73

had already done, to forego his advantage. But Achilles steeled his heart against honour and knightly courtesy, and he commanded his fellows to strike without mercy, for here was the man he sought. This they did with deadly aim, Achilles crying the while : ' ' So, Ilion, fall thou ! now, Troy, sink down ! here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone!" Then he bid his soldiers to shout aloud that Achilles had slain the mighty Hector ; and as they raised their voices the cry was an- swered by the signal of retreat which sounded through the Grecian ranks, followed in turn by the Trojan trumpets ; for the night had fallen and the bloody day was over.

At Achilles' s command his Myrmidons tied the great Hector's body to his horse's tail, and he drew him, clanking in his steel, along the field. Great shouts went up among the Greeks at the news of Hector's death ; but when Troilus reached the Trojan camp with the fatal tidings, there was a grief so deep that hope of revenge alone bore the warriors up for the march back to Troy. "Who shall tell Priam and Hecuba?" groaned Troilus. ' ' The word will turn him to stone, make Niobes of maids and wives, and cold statues out of youth. Hector is dead ! There is no more to say." And then, stretching his arm aloft in defiance towards the Grecian tents, he uttered a curse against them and the great-sized coward Achilles, and passed with his heavy-hearted forces onward to Troy.

D 7

KfNG JOHN

'AWOy V>7A'A

KING JOHN.

WHEN Richard the Lion Heart was killed by a French arrow at Chaluz, his domin- ions fell by inheritance to his nephew Arthur, son of Geffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Brittany. But Arthur was not allowed to take his own, for his uncle, John, usurped the throne of England and laid clairn,!, as well, to Arthur's dukedom of Brit- tany. Philip, the French king, for some hidden purpose, espoused the cause of Constance, the mother of Arthur, and of the young duke himself, and this led to an invasion of France by the English King John.

The two armies met before a town in France called Anglers, which acknowledged allegiance to the English throne; but would not open its gates to the usurping English king until he had done battle with the French, and made good his unlaw- ful claim to kingship.

It was a brilliant company of kings, princes, and warriors in the apparel of war which was gathered at the great gates of the town, and

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76 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

with them came the noble ladies of either realm. Queen Elinor, the mother of King John and grand- mother of Duke Arthur, with Blanch of Spain, the usurper's niece, were with the English; and Constance, the mother of Arthur, was in the train of Philip of France.

King John had met the French king with a peaceful greeting, notwithstanding the battalions of dauntless English spirits who followed him, wearing upon their backs their entire fortunes turned into the gear of war. But there was a menace beneath his courtesy, and if Philip refused him entrance upon what he boldly called his own, then should France bleed and peace be broken.

King Philip was equally forbearing in his an- swer ; but he insisted on the claims of Duke Arthur, of whom he was rightful guardian, and condemned the usurpation of his throne. Eng- land, Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, he said, were Arthur's realms, and he demanded them from King John, and bid him lay down his arms and surrender them.

But John proudly defied King Philip, and com- manded Arthur of Brittany to yield to him, prom- ising him more than the coward hand of France could ever win.

" Come to thy grandame, child," coaxed Queen Elinor; and Constance, his mother, mocked the queen with babyish words ; but Arthur himself, who was a manly little prince, and hated all the coil that was being made for him, bid them to be

KING JOHN. 77

at peace. In despair, he said he would rather be laid low in his grave than be the cause of the contention he had aroused. Hereupon, Queen Elinor and Constance fell to scolding at each other with tongues made the bitterer by the im- minent war, until King John cried out in anger, ''Have done!" Just at this same moment the citizens of Anglers appeared above upon the walls, and made answer that they would prove loyal to him who proved himself king by gage of battle.

Thus urged on to the fight, King John com- manded his warriors to ride up higher to the plain and there set forth their regiments to the best advantage ; while King Philip rode forward to occupy an opposite hill.

Then there arose a great noise of clashing arms and the shouts of onset and neighing of horses, mingled with the groans of the wounded. The fight was fierce enough, as the men of Anglers could see from their walls, but neither side had the advantage, so that when the opposing heralds of King John and King Philip appeared at the city gate and demanded allegiance for either side, the citizens refused to open until the battle had been fought out and one side was proclaimed the victor. For, repeated they, they would acknowledge the king of England only when they knew him.

Then the Bastard, as he was called, a natural son of Richard the Lion Heart, proposed a new method of settling the warfare, which would, at the same time, punish Anglers for its obstinacy.

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5r8 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

The town flouted the kings, he said ; her citizens, standing securely on the battlements, gaped and pointed at their acts of death. He urged them, therefore, to be friends a while, and to join in bending their sharpest malice against Angiers. France should go to the east, and England to the west, and mount their battering cannon over against each other till their soul-fearing clamors should brawl down the flinty ribs of the city. That done, they should dissever their united strengths and turn face to face in a new battle for supremacy.

This counsel pleased the kings well, and they began forthwith to plan for the assault. England chose the western position, and France and Aus- tria, the ally of France, purposed to be opposite at the north and south, which much beguiled the Bastard, for, quoth he, with secret rejoicing, '' Aus- tria and France shoot in each other's mouth. I'll stir them to it. ' '

But now the citizens of Angiers began to be mightily alarmed, and appealed to the kings to hear them before they proceeded to the bombard- ment. This was granted them all the more readily because the aim of the new plan was to bring them to hear reason and not actually to destroy so costly and fair a city. ' ' Speak on with favour, ' ' said King John ; and the spokesman of the town made this proposal : ' ' That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch," said he, "is niece to England. Look upon the years of Lewis the

KING JOHN. 79

dauphin of France, and that lovely maid. If love should go in quest of beauty, or virtue, or birth, where should he find them fairer than in Blanch ? and the young dauphin is her equal in all things. A union between these two shall do more than a battery against our fast-closed gates, for at this match they shall be flung open wide and give you entrance; but without this match the sea itself is ilot half so deaf, nor death half so peremptory as are we to keep this city."

Urged by the crafty Queen Elinor, and ques- tioned by King Philip, John replied that if the dauphin could find it in his heart to love the princess, her dowry should weigh equal with a queen's, for he should receive with her Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Poictiers, and all that England owned on that side the sea, excepting only the city now besieged. "What say'st thou, boy?" cried King Philip; and the dauphin, who was gazing with eyes full of a new-born love upon the Lady Blanch, was quick to protest that he never half so much loved even himself as now when he found himself drawn in the flattering table of her eye. He led her aside, and they whispered to- gether the warm words of an instantaneous pas- sion, until presently King John bade them declare aloud their love. This done, their hands were joined by King Philip, while the Duke of Austria called upon them to join their lips as well. Then the king of France cried aloud to the citizens of Anglers to open their gates and let in the amity

8o TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

which they had made, for at St. Mary's chapel the rites of marriage should forthwith be solemnized.

The Lady Constance had before the battle re- tired to the French camp, and was not present during this last turn of affairs. She was sad and passionate at King Philip's tent ; but had she known of the new league formed with her foes, her sadness would have found Httle cure in the unhappy news. The kings, therefore, set about healing the wound they had inflicted upon her by planning that young Arthur should be created Earl of Richmond, and that he should be lord of the rich fair town of Angiers. * ' Call the Lady Con- stance to our solemnity," commanded King John, and he passed onward into Angiers with his long array of followers clanking their arms and flying the banners of England at his back.

When Constance heard that Lewis was pledged to marry Blanch she refused to believe it, for this was a baseness in the French king which she could not credit. She had his oath to the contrary; and she threatened the messenger with punishment for frightening her: a woman sick and capable of fears, a widow, oppressed with wrongs. * ' Lewis marry Blanch!" she cried. "Oh, boy, then where art thou ? France friend with England ! Then what becomes of me !" and wailing thus, she seated herself upon the ground in very despair and re- fused to obey the command of the king. * * I will not go with thee. I will instruct my sorrows to be proud. Let kings assemble to me, for my grief is

KING JOHN. 8l

SO great that no supporter but the huge firm earth can hold it up. Here sit I and sorrow. Here is my throne, and kings shall come and bow to it. ' '

As she leaned over and lamented aloud in the excess of her suffering, the whole warlike company of kings and nobles approached where she sat. King Philip soothed her with words which feigned to overlook her sorrow in the joy of France ; but, made more stately by grief, she rose to her feet, and heaped upon him the bitterness of her soul. The Duke of Austria especially did she reproach for his duplicity, for he had sworn upon his stars, his fortune, and his strength to be her soldier, and now he had fallen over to her foes. ' ' Thou wear a lion's skin !" she cried, scornfully. " Doff it in shame, and hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs!" And Austria, who was at heart a brag- gart, answered : " O that a man should speak those words!" Whereupon the Bastard, who was nimble of wit as well as brave, repeated them again and again, but took no harm from the duke.

But now came hastening up the papal legate, Pandulph, hailing the kings with much reverence and announcing his errand: " In the name of Pope Innocent," quoth he, turning then to King John, " I do demand why thou against the church, our mother, so wilfully dost spurn, and keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop of Canterbury, from that holy see?" King John answered with slight regard for the pope, and bade his messenger reply to him that no Italian priest should tithe and toll in.-/

82 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

in his dominions. But this was blasphemy in the ears of King Philip, and he remonstrated with his irreverent brother, but to no avail, for John was a bold heart and feared nothing in the achievement of his dark purposes, which were all the more dangerous because in lacking conscience he kept a mighty courage.

' ' Then, ' ' pronounced Pandulph, * ' by the lawful power that is given me, thou shalt stand accursed and excommunicated, and he shall be blessed who doth revolt from his allegiance to an heretic, and that hand shall be called meritorious which takes away, by any secret course, thy hateful life." The legate, seeing that the papal curse alarmed the King of France, bade him let go the hand of King John, while Queen Elinor and Constance pleaded each as her cause swayed her. But Lewis, the dauphin, urged his father rather to risk the light loss of the friendship of England than purchase a heavy curse from Rome, and Blanch, now his wife, foreseeing the approaching trial to her loy- alty, begged it be the curse of Rome. * ' O Lewis, stand fast !' ' said Constance ; * ' the devil tempts thee in likeness of a new-made bride."

King Philip, whose nature was not a firm one, wavered between this opposing counsel, and finally threw himself upon the legate for direction. Should he make war against a friend whose amity he had just won through holy wedlock ? Should he thus play fast and loose with faith? Pandulph was unswerving in his enemity to England so long as

KING JOHN. 83

King John refused obedience to the pope, and he therefore urged King PhiHp to take up arms and be the champion of the church, otherwise he too would fall under the papal curses and die beneath their black weight. The dauphin cried to arms, in spite of his bride's sad pleading, even upon her knees, while Constance, also kneeling, prayed him not to alter the doom of Heaven.

At last King Philip, under threat of an imme- diate curse from Pandulph, gave way and boldly broke his bond with England. King John swore that he should rue the hour within the hour, and set about his preparations for another onset. But the lot of the Princess Blanch, newly married to the dauphin, was the unhappiest of all, for she must make choice between a lover and a loving kinsman, and whichever side won, on that side she would lose. She went dutifully with her hus- band, but where her fortune lived, said she, there died her life.

The fight raged long and hotly. The lusty Bastard sought and found revenge upon the Aus- trian duke and carried away his craven head as a trophy. There was advance and retreat upon both sides, but step by step the English won the day. The young Duke Arthur, the coveted prize of England, fell into King John's cruel hands, giving him hope at last of security on his English throne.

As King John and his attendant lords drew to- gether on the victorious field, near Anglers, he spoke gently to his nephew and strove to soften

84 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

his grief, but Arthur was not grieving for himself, and nothing could stanch the pitiful tears which flowed for his mother.

But the sympathy of King John was not deep, for he turned away from the grieving lad to make hasty uses of his conquest. He commanded that his mother, Queen Elinor, should stay behind in France, while the Bastard should hie away for England before his own coming to shake revenue out of the bags of hoarding abbots : for the fat ribs of peace must now be fed upon by the hungry warriors.

Then the king drew Hubert, his trusty cham- berlain, aside and unburdened his heart of a pur- pose which had long lain there like a smouldering ember ready when time was ripe to leap into flame. In an endearing and familiar tone he called Hubert close to his side and thanked him over- well for his long love, as one will remember to do when he desires some favour more difficult than usual to be done. ' ' Give me thine hand, ' ' said the king, gravely. '^ I had a thing to say, — but I will fit it to some better time. By Heaven, Hubert, I am almost ashamed to say what good respect I have of thee." Hubert answered that he was much bounden to his majesty, and humbly awaited what was to be revealed. ' ' Good friend, ' ' the king began anew, ' * thou hast no cause to say so yet ; but thou shalt have. I had a thing to say, — but let it go. The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day is all too wanton to give me audience.

KING JOHN. 85

If the midnight bell did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth sound on into the drowsy race of night, if this same were a churchyard and thou wert possessed with a thousand wrongs, or if that surly spirit, melancholy, had baked thy blood and made it heavy-thick, or if that thou couldst see me without eyes, hear me without ears, and make reply without a tongue, using conceit alone, then, in despite of watchful day, I would pour my thoughts into thy bosom. But, ah, I will not! — yet I love thee well ; and, by my troth, I think thou lovest me well." "So well," said Hubert, ''that what you bid me undertake, though death were its adjunct, by Heaven, I would do it!"

Then the king looked watchfully around till his stealthy eyes alit upon the young duke, his pris- oner, where he stood in talk with the queen. ' ' Good Hubert, Hubert, ' ' he said, repeating the name as his averted gaze watched the boy, — * ' Hubert, throw thine eye on yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend, he is a very serpent in my way ; wheresoever my foot treads he lies before me. Dost thou understand me? Thou art his keeper."

Hubert made promise that he should not further offend his majesty. * ' Death, ' ' hissed King John, in a prolonged whisper. Hubert was startled. * ' My lord?" he questioned. ''A grave," whispered the king. Then Hubert understood. ' ' He shall not live," he said; and the king said, shifting his black mood to a gay one, ' ' Enough. I could be

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86 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

merry now. Hubert, I love thee. Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee. Remember !" and he strode with fair words up to his mother and the young duke, to whom he turned at last and bid him depart for Calais forthwith, at the same time appointing Hubert to be his man to attend on him and do him all true duty.

When the trusty Hubert had finally reached England with the little prisoner and secured him in his own castle, he set about executing the evil wishes of the king with a heart not so base as it was loyal to its master. The king's commands had now been conveyed to the chamberlain in a letter which decreed that Arthur's eyes must be burned out with hot irons. Two attendants of the castle were engaged by Hubert for the cruel work, but he himself felt in duty bound to see it performed. He agreed with his henchmen that when, after entering Arthur's cell, he should stamp his foot as a signal, they should rush forth and bind the boy fast to the chair. One of the men was fearful of the consequences of such a deed, but Hubert frowned upon his uncleanly scruples and bade him fear not. Then the attendants with- drew into concealment among the arras' folds, and the chamberlain called to the young lad to come forth.

Fair was the greeting which passed between them, for Arthur suspected no wrong from one whom he had learned to love. He noticed that Hubert was sad, who answered, "Indeed, I have

KING JOHN. 3^

been merrier." Then the little prince, whom suf- fering had taught to be over- wise, prattled on in his childish mood. " By my Christendom," quoth he, ' ' so I were out of prison and kept sheep, I should be as merry as the day is long;" and so he might have been, even where he was, but that he doubted his uncle, the king, practised more harm against him. At last he said, with a sweet touch of pathos, that it was not his fault that he was Geffrey's son, and, ending with a sigh, exclaimed, ' * I would to Heaven I were your son, Hubert. ' ' This appeal almost overcame the grim chamber- lain's sense of duty. He hardly dared to listen to the boy's innocent prate, for he knew it would awaken a mercy which now lay dormant. But Arthur noticed the struggle pictured in his grim face, and asked if he were sick. *' In sooth, I wish you were a little sick," he said; "that I might sit up all night and watch with you. I warrant, Hubert, I love you more than you do me. ' ' The stern man felt that he must act at once if he would do the deed at all. He thrust forth the king's letter into Arthur's hand, commanding him to read it.

' ' And will you do this ?' ' asked Arthur. * ' Will you put out mine eyes, these eyes that never did so much as frown on you?" Hubert said, dog- gedly, that he had sworn it. Then he called forth the rough attendants, who came with cords and irons to do their foul work.

Arthur, brave little soul that he was, and heir to

88 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

the Lion Heart's courage as well as his realms, said that he would not struggle, so he were not bound. He would stand stock-still if only these bloody men were sent away. Hubert ordered them to go within, for he would be alone with the boy, and they retired, one of them murmur- ing aloud his satisfaction at being released from such a deed. Hearing his words, Arthur lamented that he had chid away a friend, and asked to have him back. But Hubert was impatient to be done with the hateful work, and roughly bade Arthur prepare himself; replying to his pitiful appeals that there was no remedy, none. * ' Oh, spare mine eyes, ' ' pleaded the little prince, "if it is only to look upon you, Hubert !" And he made so grievous a moan and touched so deeply the heart of the stern chamberlain, with whom duty had become the supreme purpose, that at last he re- lented and vowed he would not touch the boy's eyes for all the treasure that his uncle owned. But he cautioned Arthur that the king must not know that he still lived, to which end he said the spies that dogged his heels should be filled with false reports. Then, at last, his own manlier feel- ings overcoming his mistaken steadfastness to the king's commands, he leaned down to the little prince and bade him sleep securely and without doubt of Hubert, for he would not offend him for all the wealth of the world, no matter how much danger he might undergo for his sake.

The people of England had begun to murmur

KING JOHN. 89

against the imprisonment of the youth whom they held to be their lawful sovereign, and the great nobles, the earls of Salisbury and Pembroke, remonstrated with King John and requested Ar- thur's release. The king, knowing within him- self what he had commanded Hubert to do, and believing Arthur to be dead, feigned to grant their request ; then turning to Hubert, who had just entered the royal presence, he asked, "Hubert, what news with you?" The nobles whispered apart, for they secretly knew of Hubert's com- mission to kill Arthur, while the chamberlain falsely told the king that Arthur had died that very night. Then King John, with a satisfaction which he could ill conceal, turned to the whis- pering earls and said that the suit which they demanded was dead, for Arthur was deceased. They pretended to believe that the prince was carried off by a rumoured sickness, but the self- accused king thought he detected suspicion in the solemn brow of Pembroke, upon which he burst forth into a virtuous rage. Salisbury boldly charged that it was apparent foul play, and avowed it was a shame that greatness should so grossly commit murder. Then he and Earl Pembroke left the king's presence in hot indignation, secretly bent on discovering the prince's body, and the king awoke at last to the futility of his deed. * ' For, ' ' mused he, ' ' there is no sure foundation set on blood, and no certain life achieved by another's death."

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Just at this same moment came panting in a messenger with the news that;, an invading army from France, led by the dauphin, had landed in England. He also brought the unwelcome tidings of Queen Elinor's death, and told that the Lady Constance had died in a frenzy but three days before. This accumulation of woes made the king giddy, as he said; but presently the Bastard came in and gave report that the people were wavering in their loyalty and listening eagerly to prophecies that the king would deliver up his crown before the next Ascension-day. King John was stunned, but not broken in spirit. He made quick preparations for defending his realm, and sent forth the Bastard to thrust himself into the company of his deserting nobles who were going to seek Arthur's grave, for, said he, I have a way to win their love again.

When the Bastard had hastened out, Hubert came suddenly back bringing reports of dreadful portents in the sky, which, he said, old men and beldams in the street prophesied dangerously upon. Young Arthur's death was common in the mouths of all, and one would whisper another, griping his wrist as he made fearful action with wrinkled brows and rolling eyes. The smith stood idle, with open mouth, at his anvil, while the tailor, with hasty slippers thrust on contrary feet, told of the French army that was embattled in Kent.

The king grew angry with excess of grief, and

KING JOHN. 91

finding in Hubert a ready victim on whom to heap the overflow of his despair, accused him of murdering young Arthur. ' ' I had a mighty cause to wish him dead, ' ' said he, ' ' but you had no cause to kill him." Such is the ingratitude between accomplices in evil. The king pretended that Hubert had mistaken his meaning ; but the chamberlain drew forth the royal letter and showed the king's hand and seal. Then, in the bitterness of his soul, King John broke into open abuse of his too-willing instrument. Had not Hubert been by, he said, a fellow marked by the hand of nature to do a shameful deed, the murder would never have come into his mind. To be endeared to a king, Hubert had destroyed a prince. If he had but turned an eye of doubt on the king's face as he spoke darkly, deep shame would have struck him dumb. But this he did not do, and the king blamed him as the cause of all his woes, bidding him to flee from his sight and never more to see him.

Hubert felt now that there would be no danger in revealing his disobedience to the king's com- mands, and he acknowledged that he had not killed Arthur, but that the boy was still alive.

King John was rejoiced to hear such welcome tidings, and he forgot Hubert's unfaithfulness to his commands in his joy at the discovery. He even begged the chamberlain to forgive the com- ment which, in a moment of passion, he had made upon his features, for he said his rage was blind

92 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

and the foul eyes of blood presented Hubert to him as more hideous than he really was. They parted anon in haste, Hubert going forth to find the angry lords and bring them to the palace; and the king to his closet.

When Hubert had consented to spare young Ar- thur's life he had dressed him in the clothes of a ship-boy, and thus thought to keep his existence a secret. But on the same night when the nobles went to search for his dead body, the little prince climbed to the walls of the castle where he was kept a prisoner, and, looking fearfully over at the great height he must leap to gain his freedom, felt afraid to venture. Yet, thought he, it is as good to die and go as die and stay, and with this to strengthen his resolution he leaped down on the hard stones beneath him and was instantly killed.

Just as the unhappy young prince thus expired, the lords Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot, who had been in search of his slain body, reached the spot where he had fallen. They were overtaken there by the Bastard, who urged them to return to their allegiance to King John. This they refused to do. They would not, they said, attend the foot that left a print of blood wherever it walked, and they bade the Bastard to go back and give the king their defiant answer. Looking up at the walls before them, they then saw that they were standing be- side the prison; and almost at their feet they sud- denly discovered the body, made even more beau- tiful by death, of their young prince and king. A

KING JOHN. 93

burst of indignation and grief went up from them as they knelt about him. Each great noble gave vent to his abhorrence of the king's deeds, for they justly thought King John was chargeable with this crime, and each uttered his love for the sweet and royal youth so slain. ' ' All murders of the past," cried Pembroke, "do stand excused in this;" while Salisbury boldly accused Hubert of the shameful work, under the king's commands. Then they vowed, kneeling before the ruin of that sweet life, never to taste the pleasures of the world, nor be infected with delight, nor be conversant with ease and idleness, until they had set a glory to the young head by giving it the worship of revenge.

At this moment Hubert approached in haste with the royal message, crying, ' ' Arthur doth live and the king hath sent for you." Instead of heeding him, they drew their swords and bid him avaunt for a hated villain. They heaped foul epithets Upon him, and would have slain him but for the interference of the Bastard. ' ' What wilt thou do," asked Bigot of Hubert's champion, ''second a villain and a murderer ?" " Lord Bigot, I am none," said Hubert. "Who killed this prince?" asked Lord Bigot. Hubert said that not an hour since he had left him well. " I honoured him and loved him, and I will weep my date of life out for his loss," he groaned. But Salisbury would neither trust his words nor his tears, for villany is not without such rheum; and flourishing his sword,

94 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

he cried, * ' Away, with me, all who abhor the un- cleanly savours of a slaughter-house," and, with- out more parley, they sped away towards Bury, to join the dauphin, leaving the Bastard and Hu- bert beside young Arthur's corpse. When they were out of sight the Bastard questioned Hubert if he had done this fair work, this deed of death, for if he had he were damned as black as Prince Lucifer ; nay, there was not yet so ugly a fiend in hell as he, if he had killed that child. Hubert made solemn protest of his innocence, but all his most earnest words were weak to dispel suspicion, for the circumstances had conspired against him with an evil look. But as he took up the frail form in his arms the Bastard was moved by his tenderness. *'I am amazed," he said, ''and lose myself among the thorns and dangers of the world." Then, he added, aiding Hubert with a sad heart, ' ' How easy dost thou take all England up ;' * and they passed on to the palace.

There they found that the king, bold-hearted though he was in war, and crafty in policy, had, through fear for his crown, entered into an in- glorious alliance with Pandulph, the pope's legate, whose ban of excommunication had brought about the war with France after the marriage of the Princess Blanch with the dauphin. In token of his obedience to the pope, King John had sur- rendered up his crown to Pandulph and then had received it back, thus becoming a vassal of the church. As all this happened upon Ascension-

KING JOHN. 95

day before noon, the king bethought him of the prophecy reported to him by the Bastard, but he rejoiced at so easy a fulfilment of the prophecy, for he had thought to be constrained by force to deliver up his crown, and he now thanked Heaven, forgetful of his humiliation, that it was but a voluntary act. But in return for that act he had bargained to be relieved of his French foes, for Pandulph, to requite him, had promised to dismiss the powers led by the dauphin and to rid England of their presence. This cowardly agreement did not please the Bastard. His fiery nature, English to the heart, was for revenge and war. ' * Shall a beardless boy brave our fields and find no check ?' ' he cried. * ' Let us, my liege, to arms." Perchance the cardinal, he suggested, could not do all he had promised; or, if he could, England should show at least a purpose of defence. The king left all to him as he should decide, and, with a flourish of his sword, the Bastard said, ** Away, then, with good courage," and was gone to gather a force to oppose France.

Pandulph quickly appeared in the dauphin's camp and announced King John's reconciliation with the church of Rome. He commanded, there- fore, that the French should wind up their threat- ening colours, and tame the savage spirit of war which animated them. But the dauphin's pride, and his ambition to rule in England through his wife's claim to the throne, which first had been aroused by the legate himself, together with the

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great expense he was under in the equipment of his expedition, all conspired to make him reject the legate's commands. He refused to retire from the field, and the wily Pandulph could find no reasoning to change his purpose. As they thus stood in argument there was a flourish of trumpets, and the Bastard approached. He had come, he said, to learn how the legate sped in his negotia- tions, and when he was told, he cried aloud, in his most boisterous mood, that the young dauphin had judged well. Thereupon he spoke for the English king, who, he said, was prepared to re- ceive the French in a warlike fashion, and to whip their pigmy arms from his territories. He then addressed the disloyal lords who had fled to the dauphin's ranks, merrily bidding them beware lest their own ladies and pale-visaged maids should come tripping forth against them, their thimbles turned into gauntlets, and their needles to lances, while their gentle hearts took on a fierce and bloody inclination. The dauphin strove to stem the torrent of his boasting, and bade him farewell; but the brave Bastard rattled on till the drums drowned his words. The fight was about to begin, and he retired in haste to his own forces.

King John was ill with a fever, and did not take part in the battle. Accompanied by Hubert, he was carried in his litter, for safety and so that he might be near at hand, to Swinstead Abbey. The battle waged hotly, with varying advantage to the French and to the English, and at its end

KING JOHN. 97

neither side could wholly claim the day. During its course, upon the report of a certain French lord named Melun, the Lords Salisbury and Pem- broke were led to return to their allegiance. Lord Melun told them, as he lay dying, that the dauphin had resolved to behead them if he won the field, and they chose rather to brave the anger of King John than to suffer at the hands of Lewis. Hence it was that they, as well as the Bastard, hastened towards Swinstead Abbey, where lay the sick king. The offending lords, who brought Prince Henry, the king's son, in their company, were, at his request, pardoned by King John ; and when the Bastard arrived, with the ill news that half the English army had been overwhelmed with the tide of the Lincoln Washes, he found them about the king's couch in the abbey. As the lords and Prince Henry spoke together in the orchard, the king was carried forth in a chair. " Ay, marry," said he, as he felt the leaves above him, * ' now my soul has elbow-room. It would not out at windows or doors. ' ' He complained of a heat in his bosom that crumbled all his bowels to dust. He was, he said, like a scribbled form on a parch- ment which shrank up against a fire.

In truth, a monk had poisoned the king, and he was consumed with an unbearable inward heat. None, he groaned, would relieve him by sticking icy fingers in his throat, nor would they let the rivers of his kingdom take their course through his burning bosom. Such were the agonized

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words forced into his poor mouth by suffering. Prince Henry bent over him, weeping-. * ' Would, ' ' said the young prince, ' ' there were some virtue in my tears that might reheve you ;' ' but nothing could now relieve the dying king, and in the midst of his nobles and warriors, where they stood about him under the shadows of the orchard-trees, he died, leaving his realm to his heir. Prince Henry. When the Bastard was able to recover a moment from his grief, for he loved the king in spite of his many sins, he learned that Pandulph had lately arrived at the abbey Avith offers of peace from the dauphin, who desired to retire from the war. Thus the pope's legate, who had stirred the kings to war, became, for his own ends, the instrument of peace between them. King John's body was interred at Worcester, as he had willed it to be, and Prince Henry, relieved from the claims of the invading dauphin, was permitted to ascend the throne in peace

KING RICHARD II.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Here- ford, and Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, whom Bolingbroke suspected of disloyalty to King Richard the Second, quarrelled on that account and appeared before the king with bitter re- proaches and accusations against each other, which at last came to a defiance to mortal com- bat. The king, who was Bolingbroke' s kinsman, but who was, nevertheless, secretly jealous of him for his popularity with his subjects, seemed loath to grant the appeal to arms, but so hot were the disputants and so deep-rooted was their hatred that at last he consented and appointed Coventry as the place and Saint Lambert's day as the time for the meeting.

On that day the lists were set out upon the open ground near Coventry, and a throne for the king and seats for his nobles and courtiers were ranged around them. There was a throng of heralds and trumpeters in attendance, and the whole company glittered in holiday apparel, for the champions were famous knights and the fight was to be a

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valorous one. When the king was seated, and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster ; his nephew, Duke of Aumerle; the lord marshal, and other noblemen had entered, there was a flourish of trumpets, answered in turn by a second blast, and the Duke of Norfolk in armour came into the lists preceded by a herald. King Richard bid the marshal to demand of yonder champion the cause of his arrival there in arms, to learn his name, and to swear him in the justice of his cause.

This being done in due order, and the duke having announced that he came under oath to defend his loyalty and truth to God, his king, and his succeeding issue against the Duke of Hereford, he took his seat, and awaited his opponent. An- other trumpet sounded, and Bolingbroke, also in armour and preceded by a herald, came into the lists and was greeted by the same questions. He made fitting answer, and the marshal cried aloud the conditions of the combat, whereupon Boling- broke craved to kiss the hand of the king, who, in his generous affection, descended from the throne and folded his cousin in his arms. Bolingbroke bid an affectionate adieu to his father, to Lord Aumerle, and to the lord marshal, after which he was ready to set his lance at rest, and begin the combat.

The Duke of Norfolk also took a solemn fare- well of his friends, whereupon the marshal sent to each champion his respective lance. A herald then cried, "Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby

KING RICHARD II. lOI

stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself, on pain to be found false and recreant, to prove the Duke of Norfolk a traitor to his God, his king, and him, and dares him to set forward to the fight." An opposing herald performed the same office for the Duke of Norfolk, and at last the knights stood over against each other awaiting the final signal. '* Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants," cried the marshal. A charge was blown and the knights started. But they came to a sudden halt, for the king threw down his warder and all was stopped. '' Let them lay by their helmets and spears and return to their chairs again," was the king's command. Then he withdrew, bidding the champions follow him that he might deliver to them his royal decree. This was that both of the con- tending nobles should quit the country and be ban- ished: Hereford for ten years and Norfolk forever; and they were compelled to take an oath upon the royal sword that they would be obedient to the de- cree and make no attempt to embrace each other's love while they were in banishment; nor look upon each other's face, nor write, contrive, nor plot against England's throne.

The aged Gaunt showed visibly his grief at his son's harsh sentence, and the king, because he loved the old duke, said that his sad aspect had already plucked away four of the banished years, leaving but six. But Gaunt said he should reap little advantage from this leniency, for ere the six years could change their moons and bring their

9*

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times about, his inch of taper would be burnt and done. The king tried to cheer him by telling him that he had many years to live, but the old duke was broken-hearted for his son and would not be comforted. Yet the king was obdurate, and the banished dukes immediately departed from Eng- land.

Not long after this, as the king was on the point of setting out to quell a rebellion in Ireland, John of Gaunt was taken sick and prayed him to come to his bedside that he might listen to the sage advice of a dying man. King Richard was not displeased at the news of the duke's sickness, for he was in the last extremity to obtain money for his expedition to Ireland, and if Gaunt, his uncle, died while his direct heir, the Duke of Hereford, was banished, the king could claim all the duke's wealth for his own, using the lining of his uncle's coffers, as he said, to make coats for his soldiers.

Gaunt uttered words of wholesome counsel when the king came; but, as might have been expected, they were little relished by the wilful Richard. He grew angry at the old duke's presumption, which all the more incensed him because the words or warning were well deserved. The royal cheek turned pale under admonishment, and at last, when the prudent attendants removed the dying nobleman from the room, the king burst forth into a passion. '' Let those," he cried, "that have age and the suUens die, for both become the grave. ' '

The duke did not long survive this encounter,

KING RICHARD II. IO3

and at his death his possessions were, with un- seemly haste, forfeited to the crown by order of the king, thus depriving the banished BoHngbroke of all his inheritance saving his noble title of Duke of Lancaster.

When his hasty preparations were finished, thus aided by the unlawfully taken wealth of the house of Gaunt, King Richard set out for Ireland, leaving his uncle, the Duke of York, lord gov- ernor of England during his absence. The nobles and people of England were much dissatisfied with the king's conduct. He was basely led by flatterers, whose word he would take in preference to that of honest men ; and through the malice and cunning of his favourites he was brought to do injustice against the lives of his subjects, their children, and their heirs. He had burdened the common people with grievous taxes, and quite lost their hearts; he had fined the nobles for an- cient quarrels, and they also had fallen from him. In short, that which his ancestors had achieved with blows he had basely yielded in compromise, and had grown bankrupt like a broken man.

Talking in secrecy of these things with his fellow-sufferers the Lords Ross and Willoughby, the Earl of Northumberland revealed to them that intelligence had reached him from a bay in Brit- tany, called Port le Blanc, that Harry, Duke of Hereford, as he still called him, with a gallant company of gentlemen well furnished by the Duke of Bretagne, was, with eight tall ships, making for

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England with all due expedition, and meant shortly to touch the northern shore. * ' Perhaps, ' ' said he, ' ' they would have arrived ere this, but that they awaited the departure of the king for Ire- land." He then appealed to his friends to shake off their slavish yoke and redeem the blemished crown from pawn, and urged them to post away with him to Ravenspurg. At this Lord Ross cried, joyfully, *'To horse, to horse!" and with little delay they were in motion.

Bolingbroke had landed before these lords ar- rived at the north, and they joined him as he travelled through the wilds of Glostershire seek- ing the castle of Berkley, whither his uncle the Duke of York had retired to be in readiness to defend England against his invasion. On the road thither Bolingbroke overtook the duke, to whom he made humble obeisance. * ' Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee," said the aged York; and when his nephew would have pleaded his honesty, **Tut, tut!" said the duke, ' * Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle. I am no traitor's uncle. Why have those banished legs dared to touch the dust of English ground? Why, why have they dared to march so far upon her peaceful bosom, frighting her villages with war?" The young duke pleaded his cause stoutly but temperately. When he was banished, he said, he was banished as Duke of Hereford; but as he came, he came as Duke of Lancaster. He told his wrongs in manly words: how, his father being

KING RICHARD II. IO5

dead, his rights and royalties were plucked from his arms perforce and given away to upstart spend- thrifts. He was a subject, and challenged the law, yet attorneys were denied him. Therefore he personally laid claim to his inheritance of free descent.

The Duke of York was compelled to admit the justice of his nephew's claims, and, as he was pow- erless to take up arms against him, he remained neutral. Things past redress were, with him, past care. He invited Bolingbroke and his fol- lowers to his castle for the night, and the invi- tation was gladly accepted by the young duke, who in turn asked his uncle to go with him to Bristol Castle, which was held by Bushy, Bagot, and their accomplices, the caterpillars, as he said, of the commonwealth whom he had sworn to weed and pluck away. This in due time he did, for he captured them at Bristol and put them to death; after which he led his army into Wales in search of Glendower, an adherent of King Richard.

In the mean while the king, who had heard of the invasion of his realms, hastened back from Ireland and landed with a few attendants and sol- diers on the coast of Wales near Barkloughly Castle. He was rejoiced to set foot again upon his native soil, and saluted the dear earth as if it had been able to understand his caresses. But he was much alarmed at the ill news which had reached him, though his courage and his deter- mination to crush the rebellion were firm. He

I06 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

said that not all the water in the rough rude sea could wash the balm from an anointed king, and that for every man Bolingbroke had pressed to lift shrewd steel against his crown, he had a glori- ous angel in pay. But such boastful statements could not conceal the king's anxiety, and when the Earl of Salisbury, who had come to meet him, arrived, he asked eagerly for tidings that might allay his fears. * ' How far off do your forces lie ?' ' was the king' s first question ; but the earl had little comfort to give, for his forces, upon a rumour that the king was dead, had deserted him the day before, and gone over to Bolingbroke. The king was deeply saddened by the news; but when the Duke of Aumerle bade him take comfort and remember who he was, he said truly he had forgot himself, and cried, "Am I not king?" for he thought his uncle the Duke of York still had power enough to serve his turn.

But at this moment Sir Stephen Scroop came hastening up with a salutation that betided no good news. The king bore this latest alarm with all the more fortitude that he had already suffered the previous reverses. Scroop's tidings were of new calamities. White beards had armed their thin and hairless scalps, he said, and boys with women's voices strove to speak big and clap their female joints in arms, while the very beadsmen bent bows against his state. The king asked where were his favourites, and the knight told him how they had all perished at the hand of Boling-

KING RICHARD II. IO7

broke. Hereupon Richard's pent-up feelings over- whelmed him, and he broke forth into lamentations. *' For heaven's sake," said he, in his despair, *' let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings, for within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king death keeps his court, and there sits scoffing at his state, infusing him with vain conceit, as if the flesh that walls our life about were impregnable brass. And at last he comes with a little pin, and bores through his castle walls and — farewell king!" In this vein Richard mourned his fallen fortunes, and would take little comfort ; but at last the inspiring as- surance of Aumerle that the Duke of York, his father, had yet a force at his command, awoke in the king his native courage, and his grief turned to defiance. But it was too brief a hope, for Scroop dashed it with the bitter news that his uncle York was joined with Bolingbroke. Then the king again bewailed his evil fate. He would hate him everlastingly, he said, who would bid him be of comfort any more; and he ordered his friends to go with him to Flint Castle, where, he said, he would pine away, obeying kingly woe.

It was not long after the retirement of King Richard to Flint Castle that BoHngbroke's forces came in sight and held a council beneath its walls. They found the castle, much to their surprise, fly- ing the royal colours, which denoted that the king was there. Bolingbroke, when he had learned this, immediately sent Northumberland forward with a

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message of loyalty to the king, saying he had come to lay his arms and power at Richard's feet provided his banishment were repealed and his lands restored. If this were not done he would use the advantage of his power, and lay the sum- mer's dust with showers of blood. As the noble messenger advanced with his trumpet toward^ the castle, Bolingbroke's force, to show their fair appointments, began to march upon the grassy plain, but without the sound of threatening drums, which might seem a menace.

Northumberland blew a blast upon his trumpet, and was answered by another from within the castle, whereupon King Richard, surrounded by his little band of friends, came forth upon the walls for parley. When the message was delivered, the king made answer that his noble cousin Bolingbroke was right welcome, and that all his fair demands should be granted. But when Northumberland turned to go, the king's wonted strength came back to him, and he would have sent defiance to the traitor and died. But Aumerle counselled gentle words until time should send friends, and thus the deed was done which brought the king at last to ruin. ' * O God! O God!" he cried, in the bitterness of his impotency, ''that ever this tongue of mine, that laid the sentence of dread banishment on yon proud man, should take it off again with gentle words! O that I were as great as my grief is, or lesser than my name!"

As he mourned thus, Northumberland came

KING RICHARD II. 109

back from Bolingbroke, at sight of whom Richard was stricken with a new grief. He would give up all, he said, in his fantastic woe, for a little grave; or be buried in the king's highway, where subjects' feet might hourly trample on their sovereign's head, as now whilst he lived they trod upon his heart. Northumberland approached within ear- shot, and the king turned to him, asking, ' ' What says King Bolingbroke ? Will his majesty give Richard leave to live till Richard die ?' ' The earl said that Bolingbroke attended the king below in the base court, and Richard, with many bitter jests upon his descent, went down to meet him. ' * Sor- row and grief of heart make him speak fondly, like a frantic man," said Northumberland as the king approached.

Bolingbroke commanded all to kneel, and bent the knee himself " Fair cousin," quoth the king, ' * you debase your princely knee. Your heart is up, I know, thus high," and he pointed to his head. Bolingbroke rose and made no claim but for his own ; and the king granted his prayer with mock bountifulness, saying, ' * They well deserve to have that know the strongest way to get. ' ' Then turn- ing to his uncle of York, who was in the train of Bolingbroke, he gave him his hand. ' ' Nay, dry your eyes," he said, softly, to the old duke, who wept for his king; and to his cousin of Hereford he surrendered himself up, for force, he said, would have him do what it would: which was to set on towards London. ' * Cousin, is it so ?' ' he asked;

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and Bolingbroke, as if he implored rather than commanded, said, "Yes, my good lord;" where- upon they set out across the land.

When they came at last to London the streets were thronged with people, who had crowded forth to see the spectacle of a king led captive by his nobles. The duke, mounted on a fiery steed which seemed to know its aspiring rider, kept on his course with a slow and stately pace, while all tongues cried, * ' God save thee, Bolingbroke !' ' So many were the greedy looks of young and old darting through the casements upon the great duke's visage, that the very windows seemed to speak. It was indeed as if all the walls had said, with painted imagery, " J esu preserve thee! Welcome!" while he, turn- ing from one side to the other, with his bare head bent lower than his proud steed's neck, answered at every step, "I thank you, countrymen." The poor king rode after Bolingbroke as one who comes upon the stage when a famous actor has left it. The populace scowled upon him and gave him not a single welcome home, but threw dust upon his sacred head instead, which he shook off with a gentle sorrow, his face changing all the while from tears to smiles. God seemed to have steeled the hearts of men for some strong purpose or they must perforce have melted at the sight.

When all this was over, and the king well secured in prison by Bolingbroke, the latter made haste to appear in Westminster Hall before the Parliament, where presently arrived the Duke of

KING RICHARD II. Ill

York to meet him. The duke brought the news that King Richard's willing soul adopted Boling- broke as heir to the throne, and that he yielded up his sceptre to the possession of his cousin's royal hand. * ' Ascend his throne, descending now from him," said the old duke; then, in a loud voice, he cried, " Long live Henry the Fourth!"

Bolingbroke said he would ascend the throne in God's name; but the Bishop of Carlisle put forth a plea against it: ''What subject can give sen- tence upon his king ? and who sits here that is not Richard's subject?" The nobles were amazed at the Bishop's audacity, but he continued: ' ' Shall the figure of God's majesty, anointed and crowned, be judged and himself not present ?" Then the bold prelate called Bolingbroke traitor to his king, and prophesied wars and disorders in the state should he be crowned in Richard's stead. Such free speech as this could not go long unpunished, for all men's hearts were not yet fully affected to Bolingbroke, and might still be won over to their rightful ruler. The bishop was therefore arrested for treason; and, in order to give a semblance of legality to his usurpation, Bolingbroke ordered that King Richard be brought thither that he might himself surrender up his crown in the presence of the parliament.

King Richard came in anon, followed by officers bearing the crown. He asked why he had thus been sent for before he had shaken oif the regal thoughts with which he reigned. He had not yet learnt, he said, to insinuate, flatter, and bend the

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knee, and, with a voice unused to pleading, he prayed Bolingbroke to give sorrow leave to tutor him to proper submission. Then he turned to his sometime courtiers who stood about him and sadly- said he well remembered them. ' ' Were they not mine? did they not cry, All hail! to me?" It was a pitiful and a shameful sight thus to see a great king deserted in his time of necessity by those who had lived upon his bounty; but it is the sad fate of those who reach such great places to have few real friends, for the hearts of men are little steadfast, and will turn remorselessly away from a fallen ruler. At last the king desired to know what service he had been summoned thither upon; and the Duke of York told him it was to do that which he had offered of his own good will, — namely, to resign his state and crown to Henry Boling- broke. ** Give me the crown," said Richard; and, taking it in his hands, he asked Bolingbroke to seize it on the other side. When he had done so, the king pathetically said that the crown was like a deep well with two buckets filling one another. His was now the downward bucket, while Boling- broke' s was in the ascendant. * * I thought you had been willing to resign," said Bolingbroke, for he grew impatient at the king' s prolonged sorrow. Richard, as he said, was willing to give up his crown, but his griefs were his own, which Boling- broke might not depose; he was still king of them. ''You give me part of your cares," said Boling- broke; but the king's woeful answer was, "Your

KING RICHARD II. II3

cares set up do not pluck mine down;" and speak- ing thus in everything like a royal king who still had a right to human griefs, Richard was more noble in his downfall than in his glory. He gave, he said, the heavy weight from his head, mean- ing his crown, his unwieldy sceptre from his hand, the pride of kingly sway from his heart; he washed away his balm with his own tears, gave his crown up with his own hands, with his own tongue denied his sacred state, and with his own breath released all duteous oaths; then finally he cried to Bolingbroke, in the bitterness of his despair, * ' Long may you live to sit in Richard's seat, and soon may Richard lie in an earthy pit. ' '

Northumberland now handed the fallen king a paper which contained a confession of crimes against the state alleged to have been committed by himself and his followers, and the grim earl said that, by thus confessing, the souls of all men might know that he was worthily deposed.

'' Must I do so?" asked Richard; then, turning to the earl, with veiled reproach, he said, ' ' Gentle Northumberland, if your offences were upon record, would it not shame you to read them before so fair a troop ? But if you should, you would find there one heinous article containing the deposing of a king and the breaking of an oath, marked with a blot in the book of heaven. Nay, all of you," he said, gazing around upon his accusers, ' * you who watch me while my wretchedness baits myself, though some of you wash your hands as Pilate III. — h 10*

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did, showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates have here delivered me to my sour cross, and water cannot wash away your sin." The nobles quailed beneath his reproaches, and Northumber- land harshly bid him to make haste.

"Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see," quoth the king; and, again chided by the earl, who menacingly said, ' ' My lord, ' ' he replied, with some of his kingly spirit, ' * No lord of thine, thou haughty, insulting man." But relapsing into his woeful state, he sighed, '*Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title. Alack the heavy day, that I have worn so many winters out and do not know now what to call myself" Then he asked for a mirror, that he might see his face since it was bankrupted in majesty. Again the earl bid him read the paper while he waited for the glass; but Richard cried out so haughtily against him that Bolingbroke commanded Northumberland to urge it no more.

When the glass was brought and put into the king's hands, he looked intently in it for a little space, then pathetically said, seeing his counte- nance unchanged, * ' Has sorrow struck so many blows upon my face and made no deeper wounds ? O, flattering glass, you are like my followers in prosperity, and do beguile me!" Then in his ex- cess of woe he dashed the glass upon the ground and broke it, the moral of which was, he said, that sorrow had destroyed his face. At last he asked his cousin Bolingbroke to grant him one boon,

KING RICHARD II. II 5

which was that he might go out of the sight of him and his nobles. Bolingbroke granted his request by commanding that he be conveyed to the Tower, and thus the once great king came to his final humiliation.

When Richard was gone Bolingbroke set down the next Wednesday as the time for his corona- tion; whereupon he also retired, leaving a few of his followers to express in whispers their sym- pathy for Richard, which ripened at last into a plot against the new king.

In this conspiracy the Duke of Aumerle, who had always been a friend of King Richard, secretly took part, and one day when he went into the palace of his father the Duke of York and found his mother and father conversing about the fallen king, the duchess asked him who were now the favourites at court. " Madam," he said, ** I care not;" and when the duke inquired if he would be at Oxford to take part in the coming justs and triumphs, he made a like indifferent answer, saying that he would. Then, seeing a seal that hung out from his bosom, the old duke asked what it was. His son looked pale at its discovery, and was for putting it out of sight; but the elder man insisted on seeing its writing. "My lord, 'tis nothing," said Aumerle; but his father answered that it was, then, no matter who saw it, and he reached eagerly forward, crying, " I will be satisfied; let me see the writing." Aumerle asked his pardon, and said it was a matter of small consequence, which for some

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reasons he would not have seen; but the old duke was all the more intent on seeing it because of this,

and quoth he, suspiciously, ' ' I fear, I fear ' '

' ' What should you fear ?' ' asked the duchess, like a true mother, taking her son's part. She said it was but some bond he had entered into for gay apparel against the triumph day. * ' Bound to himself? What does he with a bond?" cried the old duke. And again he commanded Aumerle to show him the writing. "I do beseech you, pardon me, I may not show it," said Aumerle; whereupon his father snatched at the cord and drew it from him. With one look he read its contents, and called out, ' ' Treason ! foul treason ! villain, slave!" then strode away to the door sum- moning his servants. *' Ho! who's within there? Saddle my horse. Heaven for his mercy! What treachery is here!" When the duchess asked what it was, he only cried the louder, * ' Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse. Now, by my honour, I will accuse him of treason to the king." The duchess, in her rage, bid Aumerle to strike the servant who brought the boots, but the young man stood as if stunned, and did not move. Then the duchess turned her wrath against the servant, and bid him get hence and never more come into her sight; the duke, meanwhile, crying again and again: "Give me my boots," like one beside himself. ' ' Have we more sons ?' ' asked the duchess. ' ' Will you pluck my fair boy from my age and rob me of a happy mother's name ?" But

KING RICHARD II. II7

the duke was bent only upon the discovery of the treason against the new king, and duty made him sacrifice his family ties. "A dozen of them," he said, meaning the companions of his son and fol- lowers of Richard, * ' have taken oath to kill the king at Oxford." The duchess, with a woman's ready wit, said that Aumerle should not take part in the plot, for they could keep him at home. *'Away, fond woman!" said York; "were he twenty times my son, I would impeach him!" and he strode out and mounted his horse and cantered away with his retinue towards Windsor, where the king was then staying. Then the duchess turned to Aumerle and bid him also mount and spur post to the king to ask for pardon before his father had accused him. She would not be long behind, she said, and never would she rise from the ground till Bolingbroke had granted her son pardon.

The king was talking with his lords about his own unruly son, who spent his days with loose companions in London, when Aumerle entered, crying, *' Where is the king?" He craved to be heard alone, and the lords withdrew. Then Aumerle knelt at the king's feet and besought him for pardon for a fault the king knew not of. Bolingbroke asked if it were intended or com- mitted, for if only the first, however grave it might he, he said he would pardon it to win his cousin's after-love. Aumerle asked leave to turn the key in the door, that no one might enter until his tale was done. The king assented ; but just

Il8 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

as the door was made fast the Duke of York arrived at the threshold, crying, ' ' My Hege, be- ware; look to yourself; you have a traitor in your presence." The king now thought the young duke meant treachery, and drawing his sword would have attacked him; but Aumerle bid him stay his hand, and assured him he had no cause for fear. The old duke was still clamorous at the door, shaking it, and threatening to break it down. Bolingbroke at last opened it, and York entered out of breath and full of fear for the king's life. In explanation of his sudden appearance he gave the king the paper he had snatched from his son and asked him to read it, Aumerle saying the while, ' ' Remember, as you read, your past promise. I repent. Do not read my name there. My heart is not confederate with my hand." His father roared out, "It was, villain, before your hand set it down;" and he explained to the king how he had found the paper in his son's bosom. Bolingbroke was dismayed at the sudden tidings of so dark a conspiracy against his life. * ' O loyal father of a treacherous son," he began; but he remembered his promise and was willing to excuse the deadly blot in the digressing son be- cause of the abundant goodness of the father.

Just at this same moment the duchess arrived behind the closed doors, crying aloud for en- trance. Bolingbroke asked what suppliant this might be, and she replied, ' ' A woman, your aunt, great king; speak with me, pity me!" When the

KING RICHARD II. II9

duchess was admitted she straightway knelt, and beside her knelt Aumerle supplicating for par- don ; but York bent the knee opposite to them and prayed against their petition. ' ' Good aunt, stand up," said Bolingbroke; but she would not till pardon were granted ; and at last the king, won by her constancy and great love for her son, said, " I pardon him as Heaven shall pardon me." But, for the rest of the conspirators he decreed death, and bid his uncle help to order several powers to Oxford to execute his sentence.

These things and the fears that ever beset a usurping king made Bolingbroke wish for the death of Richard ; and though he said no direct word, yet his courtiers and followers might easily see the drift of his thoughts. Some had over- heard him say, * ' Have I no friend who will rid me of this living fear?" and such a hint from royal lips was equal to a command.

Sir Pierce of Exton, one of Bolingbroke' s crea- tures, therefore undertook to relieve his majesty of his enemy. King Richard had been carried to Pomfret Castle and was there imprisoned in the dungeon. One day as he paced deep in thought about his dark cell, the keeper who came daily with his food broke roughly in upon his medita- tions and asked him if it would please him to fall to upon his meal. Richard commanded him to taste the food first, as was his wont ; but the keeper said he dared not, for Sir Pierce of Ex- ton, who lately came from the king, had ordered

120 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

the contrary. Hereupon Richard, angered by the many indignities he had suffered, and divining a plot to poison him, fell upon the keeper and beat him roundly. " Help, help, help!" cried the man, and Sir Pierce, followed by his armed servants, came running in. ' ' How now ?' ' said King Rich- ard. * ' What means death in this rude assault ?' ' and snatching a weapon from one of the servants, he cried, ' ' Villain, your own hand yields the instrument of your death;" upon which he de- spatched him, and turned to attack another. This one he also killed. But he had scarcely adjusted his sword for a new attack, when Sir Pierce struck him down. "Exton," he said piteously, as his life ebbed away, "your fierce hand has stained the king's own soil with his blood; that hand shall burn in never-quenching fire;" and as the fallen king died, admiration of his valor and remorse for the deed touched the cruel heart of Exton so that he was shaken with grief ; but he took up the body of the dead king to bear it away to the living king at Windsor.

When, in a brief time after, Sir Pierce Exton, followed by his servants bearing Richard's cofiin, came solemnly into the chamber where Boling- broke held court, he was confident of pleasing the king, however much his conscience smote him for his misdeed. ' ' Great king, ' ' he said, ' ' within this coffin I present thy buried fear ; for herein lies the mightiest of thy great enemies, Richard of Bordeaux. ' ' But Sir Pierce had not considered

KING RICHARD II. 121

well the difference between a wish expressed and a wish fulfilled; and how the wrong we desire be- comes odious when it covers us with suspicion. Bolingbroke had longed for Richard's death, but he wanted to appear innocent of his taking off. When, therefore, he heard the deed laid thus at his door, he was quick to tell the murderer that he thanked him not, and so, feigning well to be stricken with sorrow, he bade Sir Pierce of Exton to wander forth with Cain through the shade of night and nevermore to show his head.

But to wash the blood from his guilty hands, the king vowed a voyage to the Holy Land; then, marching sadly among his mournful nobles, he followed the untimely bier of Richard to the grave.

II

KING HENRY IV.— PART I.

\ '\9iK*\— :U iT^'A'S.W \yfXK

KING HENRY IV.— PART I.

WHEN King- Henry the Fourth was about to prepare for his crusade to the Holy Land, the long-cherished purpose was suddenly inter- rupted by the news that the noble Mortimer, Earl of March, had been taken by Glendower and his rude Welshmen, and a thousand of his people butchered. This news was surely enough to delay the king, but speedily upon it came tidings that young Harry Percy, called the gallant Hotspur, had met Archibald, the Earl of E^ouglas, in battle and had defeated him with a great slaughter of his men, capturing, at the same time, Mordake, Earl of Fife, eldest son of Douglas, and the Earls of Athol, Murray, Angus, and Monteith.

In this victory of his subjects the king was entitled to share, and he claimed the noble prisoners of war for his own; but Hotspur, feeling a contempt for the king's foppish messenger, who was, he said, more like a waiting gentlewoman than a lord, and desiring to have from the king, in return for his prisoners, the ransom of his brother-in-law, Mor- timer, who was the prisoner of Glendower, evaded

123

124 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

the king's command and did not deliver the cap- tured earls. This vexed the king, who sent for the young warrior and bade him surrender them without delay or suffer his displeasure. But Hot- spur would not do this without the promise of Mortimer's release. This the king refused, and desired never again to hear Mortimer's name, for he said he was a traitor who had betrayed his forces into Glendower's hands, for that he had married the Welsh leader' s daughter and had gone over to his side. Hotspur denied this charge with all the passion of his nature, and told the king that Mor- timer had fought long in deadly single combat with Glendower on the banks of the Severn before he had been overcome. The king said that this was not true, and he was angered deeply by the words of his subject lord, so that he dismissed Hot- spur and his father the Earl of Northumberland from his presence, as he had previously dismissed the Earl of Worcester, the young man's uncle; then, followed by his train, he went indignantly away. But Worcester again joined his brother and nephew, to whom he offered to reveal a plot which was aimed against the throne. The young Hotspur strode all the while up and down the chamber, venting an ungovernable fury upon the king, threatening vengeance for Mortimer's fate, and vowing again and again that he would not give up a single Scot if a Scot would save the king's soul. So much did he interrupt Worcester's secret deliverance that the earl was affronted and would

KING HENRY IV. — PART I. 1 25

have withheld it ; but Northumberland used a father's persuasion to quiet the furious youth, and the plot was finally spoken. It was thus agreed that Hotspur should set free all his Scottish prison- ers without ransom, and so win the gratitude of Earl Douglas, who in return should be brought to join with the conspirators, and with Scroop, the Archbishop of York, whose brother had been exe- cuted by the king at Bristol; and that these, in turn, should unite with Mortimer. Worcester then said he would steal on to Glendower and Lord Mor- timer, in Wales, where the others, with Douglas and their combined forces, should meet him.

Though the king was resolved to have the pris- oners and to make young Hotspur respect his royal power, yet he could not but admire the noble courage and warlike skill of the young lord; and these qualities were all the more marked in the king's mind by contrast with the character of his own son, the Prince of Wales. This young prince was given over to low companions and a life of riot among the thieves and rascals of London. He was a handsome youth, fit for the offices of his father's court in manner and education; but report spake ill of his behaviour in the town, and the king was saddened by his evil ways.

The constant associate of the prince was an old knight named Falstaff, who was fat-witted with drinking sack and sleeping upon benches after noon. He had a huge paunch and was most unwieldy in his gait. His speech was sprinkled

II*

126 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

thick with oaths and he boasted a vast courage, which ever failed him in time of need.

This Sir John, with Poins, Gadshill, Peto, and Bardolph, gained a dangerous liveHhood by robbing travellers on the king's highway as they went to and from London. In such expeditions the prince was sometimes led to take part, from a love of adventure or because, as is the habit with young people who like to indulge their inclinations, he thought that some day he would amend his ways and make all right. I know you all, he would think to himself, and will uphold for a while the unyoked humour of your idleness; but when the time comes I will throw off such loose behaviour, and my reformation shall be all the more goodly because of my faults. But this is a dangerous argu- ment, for few can resist temptation at will, and evil doing is not so easily cast aside as the prince believed.

But there was a highway robbery afoot just at this time, and one day Poins came into the prince's room in the palace, where Prince Hal sat banter- ing the fat old knight, to ask them to join in the escapade. Good-morrows passed between the gay comrades, and then Poins unfolded to the others his plans for the next morning. There were pil- grims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, he said, and traders riding to London with fat purses. He had provided visors, so that all might conceal their faces, but they could use their own horses. Gadshill would lie in Rochester that night ; and

KING HENRY IV. — PART I. I27

Prince Hal, Falstaff, and the rest should sup on the morrow, after the booty had been taken, in Eastcheap. ''If you will go," said he, ''I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged."

Falstaff was eager for the work in a minute ; but Prince Hal, while he did not discountenance it, was more cautious. * ' Hal, wilt thou make one?" cried the fat knight; but the prince said, ''What, I rob? la thief? not I, by my faith." The knight answered, ' ' There is neither honesty, manhood, nor good-fellowship in thee, nor camest thou of royal blood, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings." But Poins, who had a fine jest in hand, to be played by Prince Hal and himself upon the rest when they had taken the booty, asked Sir John to leave the prince and him alone, for he would lay down such reasons for the adventure that he should surely go with them.

When Falstaff was well out of hearing, Poins drew the prince aside and unfolded his merry plans. He said he had a jest to execute that he could not manage alone, which was that Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill should rob the men that had been waylaid, but the prince and he would not be there when it was done; then, when these four had the booty. Prince Hal and he should in turn rob them. ' ' But how shall we part with them in setting forth?" asked the prince, begin- ning to scent the fun. Poins told him that they should set forth before or after the others, appoint

128 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

them a place of meeting and fail them. The four would then adventure upon the exploit by them- selves, which they would no sooner have achieved than the two conspirators should set upon them. ' ' Aye, but it is likely that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appoint- ment," said the prince. **Tut!" answered Poins; * ' they shall not see our horses, our visors we will change after we leave them, and I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to mask our outward gar- ments. ' ' The prince said he doubted they might be too powerful for them; but Poins had well-consid- ered that, and said that, for two of them, he knew them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he should fight longer than he saw reason, Poins said he would forswear arms. The virtue of the jest would be, said the merry pick-purse, the incomprehensible lies the fat rogue of a knight would tell when they all met at supper. This determined the prince, who loved such mad pranks beyond even reputation, and he told Poins he would go with him. They then bid each other farewell until they should meet the next morning at the appointed place on the road. All was done on the morrow as Poins had planned. Under cover of the dim light they re- moved Falstaff's horse, so that he should not have means for retreat, and then they drew aside from the rest and stood close to watch the event. Falstaff was furious when he discovered that his horse had been taken. He called out, ' ' Poins i

KING HENRY IV.— PART I, 1 29

Hal! a plague upon you both!" and said he would starve before he would rob a foot farther. He made such a tumult with his curses and short breath that the others grew alarmed, lest the travellers should overhear him, and Poins gave a low whistle of warning. This only enraged him the more, and the prince came forth from hiding and bade him lay his ear close to the ground and listen if he could hear the tread of travellers. * ' Have you any levers to lift me up again ?' ' asked Sir John. He threatened and cajoled and pleaded for his horse until presently Gadshill arrived, warning them to put on their visors, for there was money of the king's coming down the hill. The prince hurriedly directed that the four should front the carriers in the narrow lane, while he and Poins would walk lower, and, if the carriers es- caped from the first encounter they would then light upon them. Gadshill said there were some eight or ten in the party ; and Falstaff, whose courage was least active in time of danger, cried, ' ' Zounds ! will they not rob us ?" " What, a coward. Sir John Paunch?" laughed Prince Hal, while Poins told the fat knight where he might find his horse behind the hedge, bidding him farewell, and urging him to stand fast. The prince and Poins then withdrew down the lane, putting on their buckram disguises as they went.

The travellers came forward in the gray morn- ing light without suspecting danger, when sud- denly they were bidden to "Stand!" and the four III. — i

130 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

thieves leaped out upon them. Falstaif, seeing that they made no attempt to defend themselves, was for striking them down without mercy. ' ' Cut the villains' throats," he cried; "they hate us youth; down with them, fleece them!" and never until the terror-stricken wayfarers were quite re- lieved of their treasure did he cease to pour upon them a stream of curses and evil names. When they had got all that was to be had, the thieves drove the travellers away and then came back to their rendezvous to make a division of the spoils. Sir John was outspoken in his contempt for the courage of the prince and Poins. ' * An they be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stir- ring," said he, with fine bravado; but just then a voice cried out at his elbow, "Your money!" and the prince and Poins, in their buckram dis- guises, rushed forth upon the other four. On the instant all were upon their feet and Falstaff, after a blow or two, took to his fat legs with the rest. In their terror they left their booty behind them, and the two conspirators, taking it up, got merrily to horse and bore it away to London.

In the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap, that same night. Prince Hal and Poins sat idling with the tapster, when Falstaff and his three compan- ions came in, as had been appointed.

"Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?" said the Prince. "A plague of all cowards," sullenly replied Falstaff, and he called for a cup of sack, which he drank off, exclaiming again and

KING HENRY IV.— PART I. I3I

again, ' * A plague of all cowards. ' ' Then he fell to muttering of villains and cowards and how there lived not three good men unhung in Eng- land, and one of them was fat and was grown old. "How now, woolsack? What do you mutter?" asked the prince. But Sir John made no direct answer. ''A king's son," murmured he, with a sneer. " If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects before thee like a flock of geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. Vou Prince of Wales!" The Prince greeted this sally with a great oath, and wanted to know what was the matter. ' ' Are you not a coward? answer me that; and Poins there?" asked the disgusted knight. The prince said if Sir John called him a coward he would stab him; but the knight, with careless bravado, ordered more sack, still muttering, ' ' A plague of all cowards. ' ' At last, pressed by Prince Hal, he told what was the matter, which was that he and his three compan- ions had taken a thousand pounds that morning. "Where is it, Jack ? Where is it ?" eagerly asked Prince Hal. "Taken from us," said the knight. Then he told how a hundred had fallen upon the four; how he himself was at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together; how he had escaped by a miracle, and was eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, his buckler was cut through and through, and his sword hacked like a hand-saw. He ended with his denunciation of all cowards, and called upon Gadshill and the

132 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

rest to bear witness that he spoke the truth. With much questioning they told the story anew. The four had set upon a dozen, Sir John said siX" teen at least, and bound them, and, as they were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon them and unbound the travellers they had robbed, who also attacked them. The prince feigned surprise, and asked if they had fought with them all. ' 'All ?' ' said Sir John. *' I know not what you call all; but if I fought not with fifty of them I am a bunch of radish." The prince said he prayed Heaven the knight had not murdered some of them; but Fal- staff replied that that was past praying for; he had peppered two of them, he was sure: two rogues in buckram suits. " Hal," quoth he, " if I tell thee a lie, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward; here I lay, and thus I bore my point," and he went through the movements with his sword. ' ' Four rogues in buckram let drive at me." The prince interrupted him. "What, four?" he asked; ** you said but two, even now. " " Four, Hal ; I told thee four, ' ' insisted the knight ; and Poins, to prolong the fun, supported him; upon which he ran on to seven, and nine, and eleven, until he told how three knaves in Kendal green came at his back in the darkness and let drive at him, ''for it was so dark, Hal," said he, ''that you could not see your hand. ' ' This was a point too much for the prince. "These lies," he said, *' are like the father that begets them, gross, open, palpable ;* ' and he told the knight to breathe

KING HENRY IV.— PART I. 1 33

awhile, and hear him speak. Then, with a great effort to be grave; he repeated the true story of the morning's adventure, whereupon Sir John, in his most shameless mood, swore that from the first he knew those who had attacked him as well as he who made them. "And was it for me," he asked, * ' to kill the heir apparent ? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince." Thus amid the laughter of his boon fellows this ' * greasy tallow- ketch," as the prince called him, masked his cow- ardice, and made ready for a night's carouse.

But just at this moment the hostess of the Boar's Head came in and announced that there was a nobleman of the court at the door, who would speak with Prince Henry, saying he came from his father, the king. The prince told her to give him as much as would make him a royal man and send him back to his mother. Falstaff, learning that he was an old man, asked what did such gravity out of its bed at midnight! and with the prince's consent betook himself below to give the messenger an answer. While he was gone Peto and Bardolph told how the fat rogue had hacked his sword with his dagger, and persuaded them to make their noses bleed by tickling them with spear-grass, that they might stain their garments and swear it was the blood of true men.

Presently Sir John came panting back full of news learned from the king's messenger, Sir John

12

134 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

Bracy. ** You must to the court in the morning,'* he said to the prince, and, half out of breath, told that the mad fellow of the North, Percy ; and Glendower ; with his son-in-law Mortimer ; old Northumberland, and the sprightly Scot, Douglas; Mordake, and Worcester were risen in revolt, and that the king's beard, so he said, was turned white with the tidings.

But even this ill news could not dull the spirits of these gay companions, and they fell to playing in mockery the scene between Prince Hal and his father when they should meet on the morrow. Falstafif and the prince represented the king by turns, while the others sat by hugely enjoying the sport.

In the midst of the carouse, Bardolph, followed by the hostess, broke in crying that the sheriff with a most monstrous watch was at the door. Prince Hal bid Falstaff to hide himself behind the arras, while the rest, he said, should walk above. Then, with only Poins by his side, he made ready to receive the officers of the law. ' * Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?" he asked, as the sheriff entered. The answer was that a hue and cry had followed certain men to that house, one of them a gross fat man. The prince said he was not there, for he himself had at that time employed him; but he gave his princely word that he would send him to answer the charges made against him by to-morrow dinner-time. With this assurance the sheriff went out, and when Falstaff

KING HENRY IV. — PART I. I35

was called forth from behind the arras he was found fast asleep and snorting- like a horse. ' ' Search his pockets, ' ' said the prince, and, as he expected, good sport lay there. Nothing was found save papers, but one of them was a bill for a capon, sauce, two gallons of sack, anchovies and sack after supper, and a halfpenny-worth of bread. '*0 monstrous!" roared the prince; *'but one halfpenny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!" Then he directed that the knight should be allowed to sleep where he was till day; but in the morning, as he said, he would go to the court, and he would procure the fat rogue a charge of foot, for they must all to the wars. The money they had taken he said should be paid back with advantage, and he left them with an injunction that they should meet him betimes on the morrow.

When Prince Henry came into the king's pres- ence in the palace the next day, his father met him with words of bitter reproach for the shame and sorrow he had brought upon the royal house. The prince knew within himself how deep were his offences, and how well-merited were the up- braidings of his father ; but he had resolved to throw off his evil ways and to assert the noble traits which had always slumbered within him, so that he bore the king's censure with a manly humility, promising amendment and to be more himself thereafter. He vowed to redeem his faults on Percy's head, and in the closing of some glori-

136 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

ous day be bold to tell the king, I am your son; for the time would come when he would make that northern youth exchange his famous deeds for his indignities. '*I do beseech your majesty may salve the long-grown wounds of my intem- perance,'* he pleaded; and the king was pleased in his heart to find his wayward son of other metal than he had feared.

As they spoke thus together, Sir Walter Blunt came in with the news that Douglas and the Eng- lish rebels had met at Shrewsbury, and were a mighty and fearful army as ever offered foul play in a state. The king had already heard of this and had sent forward the Earl of Westmoreland, with his own son John, Duke of Lancaster. ' ' On Wednesday next," he said to Prince Henry, "you, Harry, shall set forward ; on Thursday, we our- selves will march ; our meeting-place shall be Bridgnorth. ' ' And having thus laid his plans, the king dismissed the prince and Blunt and him- self went to prepare for the coming march to the north.

In the mean time a part of the nobles who were in revolt had, as Blunt reported, encamped with their forces near Shrewsbury; but news came to Hotspur that his father, the Earl of Northumber- land, was sick and unable to keep his engagement to meet them with his forces. The impetuous Percy was indignant at his father for thus dis- concerting his plans, and broke into a storm of temper, while Worcester, more poHtic, said that

KING HENRY IV. — PART I. 1 37

the quality of the attempt they were engaged in brooked no division, and he greatly feared that the earl's absence would be thought to show his dis- like of their proceedings, thus turning the tide of fearful faction away from them, and breeding a question of their cause. But Hotspur could little tolerate the wise balancing of diplomacy, and his mind, which changed in a flash, now altered to the belief that his father's absence might lend a lustre and a larger daring to their enterprise, for men must think that if they could make a bold stand against the king without Northumberland, with him they might overturn the throne.

As Hotspur gave forth these bold sentiments, his cousin. Sir Richard Vernon, arrived with tidings of the march thitherward of all the king's forces. Hotspur inquired where were the nimble-footed madcap the Prince of Wales and his comrades that dafled the world aside and bid it pass. ' ' All furnished, all in arms," answered Vernon. ' ' I saw young Harry with his beaver on, his cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, rise from the ground like feathered Mercury and vault with such ease into his seat as if an angel had dropped down from the clouds to turn and wind a fiery Pegasus and witch the world with noble horsemanship." Such praise as this of one he deemed his rival had an unwelcome sound in Percy's ears. He uttered some daring words, then called for his horse, which was to bear him, he said, like a thunderbolt against the bosom of the Prince of

12*

138 TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

Wales. ' ' Harry to Harry shall meet and never part till one drops down a corse." But Vernon brought other news which was not so inspiring. Worcester, he said, could not gather his forces these fourteen days; and though this to Hotspur had a frosty sound, yet his stout heart ever grew bolder under adversities, and he vowed he could win the day without any of his backward allies.

The king had been swift in his equipment, and was soon on the road to Shrewsbury, whither in a few days he arrived, and encamped at nightfall. Percy and Douglas were eager for the battle, and would have made an attack the very night of his arrival, but the wiser counsels of Worcester and of Vernon were against so rash a measure. Hence arose a debate in the rebel camp that was like to have broken forth into violent discord, when a parley sounded and Sir Walter Blunt presented himself, saying he came a messenger with gracious offers from King Henry if they would vouchsafe him hearing and respect. Hotspur, who was fond of all who possessed strength and prowess, gave the knight a hearty welcome. ** Would to God," he said, " you were of our determination, for some of us love you well." But Sir Walter was loyal to his king and hoped Heaven might keep him always against rebellion. He said King Henry desired to know the nature of their griefs, and why they broke the civil peace with such bold hostility; for if his majesty had in any way forgot their deserts he would with all speed grant their

KING HENRY IV. — PART I. 1 39

desires, and pardon them and all others whom they had misled into revolt.

Hotspur's family had, however, suffered too much ingratitude at the hands of King Henry to put faith in his offers of reconciliation now that they stood in open warfare against him. When the king had landed in England from exile, and affected only to desire a restoration of his rights and pos- sessions as Duke of Lancaster, they had rallied to his aid and had helped to bring King Richard to acknowledge his claims; and now, when through their support this BoHngbroke had come to be king, he had forgot his benefactors ; had suffered their kinsman March, who in very deed was King Richard's rightful heir, to be imprisoned without ransom in Wales; had disgraced Hotspur in his happy victories; rated his uncle from the council- board ; dismissed his father from court ; broken oath on oath and committed wrong on wrong. Thus the young Percy stormed, and Blunt asked, * ' Shall I return this answer to the king ?' ' but Hotspur said no, for he and his commanders would withdraw a while for counsel, and Sir Walter should go back, and in the morning his uncle Worcester should take a reply to the king. Then Hotspur bade Sir Walter farewell, and they parted for the night.

On the morrow Worcester presented himself in the royal camp, where again King Henry made offer of pardon and grace; but if Hotspur would not yield he threatened rebuke and dread correc-

I4O TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

tion, whereupon he dismissed the earl from his presence and would not hear a reply. But Wor- cester feared that if his cousin Percy should accept the king's terms and make peace, there would be great danger to his house, for it was not possible, he thought, that King Henry should keep his word of loving them. He broached these sus- picions to Sir Richard Vernon, who accompanied him, and said his nephew must not know of the liberal offer of the king, for if he accepted it they would all be undone. When, therefore, they came up with Hotspur, his uncle told him that the king would bid him battle without delay, and the young warrior, rejoicing at the news, bid Douglas release the hostage and send by him a defiance to the king. While the brave Scot was gone on this errand, Hotspur questioned his uncle more closely, but Worcester concealed the king's intentions and made him appear to seek their destruction.

Presently Douglas came back, crying, ''Arm, gentlemen; to arms! I have thrown a brave defi- ance in King Henry's teeth;" whereupon the rebel chiefs began to look to their