Read Ebook: A motley jest by Adams Oscar Fay

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Ebook has 107 lines and 10116 words, and 3 pages

TRINCULO You speak nothing aside the matter, sir, as I'm a true man. There's nought to be named i' the world before sack, and herein, of all places i' the world, there's no inn, no sack, no sack within. So you'll e'en have to stomach that, though you've small stomach to't.

FALSTAFF. Small stomach, say you? An' you denominate this belly of mine a small stomach, there's no truth in your tongue.

TRINCULO. And no sack in your stomach, either.

LAUNCE. These be as fine words as ever I heard.

FALSTAFF. Now, Sir Shaveling, and who bade you to speak?

LAUNCE. None, sir. I speak but when I have a mind, sir, and I am silent when I have a mind, likewise.

FALSTAFF. Have a mind to silence and let bigger men speak for you.

LAUNCE. Then I can tell who will do all the tongue-wagging, sir, for I spy none here that is bigger i' the girth than yourself.

FALSTAFF. As for the girth, Shaveling, that cometh of sack.

TRINCULO. And pillage of the larder, too, or I'm no true woman's son.

FALSTAFF. No inn within this heathen isle, no sack within the inn! Is this a fit place to bring a good Christian knight? 'Twere enough to make a man of my sanguine and fiery composition turn Muscovite on the instant, for your Muscovite, as I take it, is a most ungodly knave, and an infidel to boot, and without a moderate deal of sack, such as is needful for a man of my kidney, how is Christendom to be kept on its legs? What gives the justice discretion? Why, sack! What gives the lover whereby to gain the hand of his mistress? Why, sack! What gives the young man a merry heart and the old man a sanguine favour? Why, sack! What gives the soldier courage in the day of battle? Why, sack! Marry, then, he that hath his bellyful of sack hath discretion, courage, a ruddy visage, a merry heart and a nimble tongue.

LAUNCE The discretion that cometh with what he calls sack is e'en but a scurvy kind of discretion, to my thinking, for all of the stout gentleman's saying. Here's Crab, my dog, and he be not so niggard of his tongue, could tell so much as that comes to, on any day i' the week.

FALSTAFF. What be these folk that forswear sack? Why, lean anatomies with not so much blood in their bodies as would suffice for a flea's breakfast. The skin hangs upon their bones for all the world like a loose garment. You may feel the wind blow through their bodies. 'Twere a simple abuse of terms to call such starvelings men: your poor forked radish would become the name better.

MIRANDA. This stout knight hath a nimble wit, in sooth, But yet he doth not please me, for his eye Bespeaks wanton desires, intemperate loves, That ill do company his thin grey hairs.

take that, And make your tongue a prisoner to your teeth.

What, in Goneril's palace? Did she not with her own hands push her old father out of door? Nay, mistress daughter; I'll not bide with you. A million murrains light upon thy unnatural head; ten million plagues burn in thy blood; a million pains lurk in thy wretched bones, thou piece of painted earth whom 'twere foul shame to call a woman.

MIRANDA O Ferdinand, what means this strange old man? There burns a direful lustre in his eye And I do fear some certain harm from him.

FERDINAND. Sweet, do not so. He is but mad o'er some Past wrong, and 'tis the quality of such To take the true for false, and thus cry out On him that's near, the guilty one not by. See, he is faint and old, and cannot harm.

FOOL. Good nuncle, methinks the sun hath made of thee a very owl, for she whom thou callest upon so loudly is not so eld by twenty summers as thy daughter Goneril.

LEAR. 'Tis no matter for that. She is a woman and the daughter of a woman, therefore she will spin foul lies for her pleasure and bid her father out of sight when he is old.

FOOL. Fathers that give away all their substance ere they be dead and rotten are like to see strange things come to pass. An' thy bald crown had been worthy thy golden one it had worn thy golden one still and thou wert warm in thy palace.

LEAR. This daughter! O this daughter, Goneril.

KING RICHARD. He lieth in his throat that swears I am No king. 'Tis Bolingbroke doth wear the crown He pluck'd from me, but there's no power can wash Away a king's anointing. I put it by, Being constrain'd, but that constraining told Not of my will but my necessity.

FOOL. Lo! here's another wight that has given away his crown. Art thou a king, too?

KING RICHARD. I am, and England was my sovereignty.

FOOL. Then thou liest abominably, for a king that lacks wit to keep his crown on 's head is no king, and that's a true saying.

KING RICHARD. Nor daughters nor no sons have I to call Me father.

LEAR. Then by so much art thou blest. Forget not that, poor man that wast a king.

KING RICHARD. My kingdom was both daughter and my son, And e'en as Judas sold his master Christ, So did my kingdom chaffer for my crown, And so deliver'd me to Bolingbroke.

FOOL. Is't he that hath thy crown?

KING RICHARD. 'Tis he, my sometime subject, Bolingbroke: He hath my crown and kingdom both, and I Of all sad monarchs most disconsolate.

FOOL. Then have we here a pair of kings lacking both crowns and kingdoms to wear 'em in. These be but evil times for kings or fools either; and to my thinking there's not so great a difference betwixt a fool and a king, save that the fool may chance be the wiser man of the two. Of a surety there was little wit a going begging when these twain put their golden crowns from off their simple skulls. Though I'm but a fool, and no wise man, I were but a fool indeed were I to change places with a king.

KING HENRY. What sayest thou of kings? Kings are but men, Cool'd by the same wind as their subjects are, And blister'd by the self-same burning sun. O happiest are the common folk who toil Afield by day, eat scanty fare, and sleep Anight unvex'd by cares of state or plots Of traitorous nobles envious of a crown.

FOOL. What do I say of kings? Marry, I say they were best to watch well their daughters and their kingdoms; it needs no fool to say so much as that. Prithee, art thou a king of the same mould as these thou beholdest here in this place?

KING HENRY. At scarce nine months was I anointed king.

FOOL. Truly, thou serv'st a tender apprenticeship to thy business and I marvel the less at thy present having. Good nuncle, here's yet another king out at the elbows, one, belike, that shook his rattle as 't were a sceptre, and wore his porringer on 's head where his crown should have been.

LEAR And thou, too, wert a king?

KING HENRY. I was, but now Am I a king no longer. Edward of March Usurps my title and my crown. There come No suitors unto me, a shadow prince Mated with Madge of Anjou, strong where I Am weak, for she loves war, and weak where I Am strong, for I am joined to content Which she, poor soul, wots little of.

KING RICHARD. O let Us make a compact with this same content; As which shall joy the most in it, that thus The hours shall fleet unhinder'd o'er our heads As o'er the shepherd's gazing on his flock From out the hawthorn shade. Or what say you, Were it not fitter pastime to bewail Our loss of crown and kingdom morn by morn, Evening by evening, till at last we died Of grief?

KING HENRY. Wiser it were to strive to find What comfort's left to us.

KING RICHARD. Why, so we will. Come, fool, be thou our numbering clock and tell Item by item all that's left to us Unhappy kings, brothers in wretchedness.

LEAR. A plague upon ye both that will not curse The authors of your woes, that will not vex The heavens with prayers for their undoing. Curse On curse I'll heap upon the heads of those She wolves, my daughters, sprung from out my loins; The kingdom's ruin and their father's bane. What say you then to my voice? Is my voice perished?

TOM SNOUT. No, Nick Bottom.

BOTTOM. I thank you, good Tom Snout, and to show you that I am the same Nick Bottom, however my visage may appear altered, for travel doth greatly age a man, as they say, you shall hear me wake the echoes once again. What angel can compare unto my love? Beauty itself, beholding thee, might swoon For envy, and the eldest sage would yield His place to thee on th' instant. O my love!

Upon the hay Cophetua Did waste the hours in sighing. The beggar maid Unto him said, Good sir, are you a dying?

TITANIA. That voice would make the nightingale asham'd. Aye! kill me, dogs of Christians, an' ye will! Meseems the Jew hath no more leave to tread The stones on Christian streets; he may not breathe The air a Christian breathes, nor gaze uncheck'd Upon the Christian's sky; he hath no part Or lot in anything that is, unless A Christian please to nod the head. I hate Ye, brood of Satan that ye are! May all The plagues of Egypt fall upon ye, dogs Of Christians; all the pains--

FOURTH CITIZEN. Nay, gentle Jew, 'Tis said thou must become a Christian, straight; Old Shylock, turn perforce, a "Christian dog!" Now, greybeard infidel, how lik'st thou this?

SHYLOCK. Eternal torments blister him that asks. Why that's Revenge! Revenge!

DUKE. So must thou quit thy house In Jewry, dwell mid Christian folk, and go With Christian folk to church on holy days, And wear henceforth the cross thou did'st disdain. Dost hearken unto us, Cristofero?

SHYLOCK. I hear but to obey, dread duke; and thank Thee for thy clemency to me, once Jew, But now, within this very selfsame hour, A gasping new born Christian, all unschool'd In duties other Christians know full well, Yet earnest still, to act the Christian's part, With hope to better his ensample set.

GRATIANO For all thy gentle Portia saith but now, I like not such smooth terms from out those lips.

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