Witness, how dear I hold this confirmation. King. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart: The common voice, I see, is verified Of thee, which says thus, 'Do my Lord of Canterbury A shrewd turn, and he is your friend for ever.' Come, lords, we trifle time away; I long [Exeunt. [Within] Do you hear, master porter ? Port. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy. Keep the door close, sirrah. 30 Man. What would you have me do? Port. What should you do, but knock 'em down by the dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? or have we some strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening will beget a thousand; here will be father, godfather, and all together. 39 Man. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now reign in's nose; all that stand about him are under the line, they need no other penance that fire-drake did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged against me; he stands there, like a mortarpiece, to blow us. There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that railed upon me till her pinked porringer fell off her head, for kindling such a combustion in the state. I missed the meteor once, and hit that woman; who cried out 'Clubs!' when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw to her succor, which were the hope o' the Strand, where she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place at length they came to the broom-staff to me; I defied 'em still : when suddenly a file of boys behind 'em, loose shot, delivered such a shower of pebbles, that I was fain to draw mine honor in, and let 'em win the work: the devil was amongst 'em, I think, surely. Port. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples; that no audience, but the tribulation of Towerhill, or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to endure. I have some of 'em in Limbo Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days; besides the running banquet of two beadles that is to come. Enter LORD CHAMBERLAIN. Cham. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here! [coming, They grow still too; from all parts they are As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters, These lazy knaves? Ye have made a fine hand, fellows : There's a trim rabble let in are all these Your faithful friends o' the suburbs? We If the king blame me for't, I'll lay ye all By the heels, and suddenly and on your heads Clap round fines for neglect: ye are lazy knaves; And here ye lie baiting of bombards, when Ye should do service. Hark! the trumpets sound; They're come already from the christening: Go, break among the press, and find a way out To let the troop pass fairly; or I'll find A Marshalsea shall hold ye play these two months. 90 Port. Make way there for the princess. Man. You great fellow, Stand close up, or I'll make your head ache. Port. You the camlet, get up o' the rail; I'll peck you o'er the pales else. [Exeunt. SCENE V. The palace. Enter trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, LORD MAYOR, GARTER, CRANMER, DUKE OF NORFOLK with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK, two Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christeninggifts; then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, &c., train borne by a Lady; then follows the MARCHIONESS DORSET, the other godmother, and Ladies. troop pass once about the stage, and GARTER speaks. The Gart, Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth! Flourish. Enter KING and Guard. Cran. [Kneeling] And to your royal grace, and the good queen, My noble partners, and myself, thus pray: All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady, Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy, May hourly fall upon ye! King. Thank you, good lord archbishop : What is her name? Cran. King. Elizabeth. Stand up, lord. 10 [The King kisses the child. With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee ! Into whose hand I give thy life. Cran. Amen. grows with her : In her days every man shall eat in safety, Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors: God shall be truly known; and those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honor, And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. Nor shall this peace sleep with her but as when 40 The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one, When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness, Who from the sacred ashes of her honor To all the plains about him: our children's children Shall see this, and bless heaven. An aged princess; many days shall see her, She must, the saints must have her; yet a virgin, A most unspotted lily shall she pass her. EPILOGUE. 'Tis ten to one this play can never please All that are here: some come to take their ease, And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear, We have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear, They'll say 'tis naught: others, to hear the city Abused extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!' VENUS AND ADONIS. (WRITTEN ABOUT 1592.) INTRODUCTION. Venus and Adonis was entered in the Stationers' register on April 18, 1593, and was published the same year. The poem became popular at once, and before the close of 1602 it had been reprinted no fewer than six times. "As the soul of Euphorbus," wrote Meres in his Wit's Treasury (1598), “was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honytongued Shakespeare; witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c." Ovid has told the story of the love of Venus for Adonis and the death of the beautiful hunter by a wild boar's tusk; the coldness of Adonis, his boyish disdain of love, was an invention of later times. It is in this later form that Shakespeare imagines the subject; and in his treatment of it he has less in common with Ovid than with a short poem by a contemporary writer of sonnets and lyrical poems, Henry Constable, which appeared in a collection of verse published in 1600, under the name of England's Helicon. It is uncertain which of the two poems, Constable's or Shakespeare's, was the earlier written. When Venus and Adonis appeared Shakespeare was twentynine years of age; the Earl of Southampton, to whom it was dedicated, was not yet twenty. In the dedication the poet speaks of these "unpolisht lines" as "the first heire of my invention." Did he mean by this that Venus and Adonis was written before any of his plays, or before any plays that were strictly original-his own "invention ?" or does he, setting plays altogether apart, which were not looked upon as literature, in a high sense of the word, call it his first poem because he had written no earlier narrative or lyrical verse? We cannot be sure. It is possible, but not likely, that he may have written this poem before he left Stratford, and have brought it up with him to London. More probably it was written in London, and perhaps not long before its publication. The year 1593, in which the poem appeared, was a year of plague; the London theatres were closed: it may be that Shakespeare, idle in London, or having returned for a while to Stratford, then wrote the poem. Whenever written, it was elaborated with peculiar care. The subject of the poem is sensual, but with Shakespeare it becomes rather a study or analysis of passion and the objects of passion, than in itself passionate. Without being dramatic, the poem contains the materials for dramatic poetry, set forth at large. The descriptions of English landscape and country life are numerous, and give a spirit of breezy life and health to portions of the poem which could ill afford to lose anything that is fresh and healthful. 'Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD. RIGHT HONORABLE, I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden: only, if your honor seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honored you with some graver labor. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honorable survey, and your honor to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world's hopeful expectation. Your honor's in all duty, EVEN as the sun with purple-color'd face Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him. Thrice-fairer than myself,' thus she began, 'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare, Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man, More white and red than dovés or roses are ; Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life. 'Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed, And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow; If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know: Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses, And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses; And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety, But rather famish them amid their plenty, 20 Making them red and pale with fresh variety, Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty : A summer's day will seem an hour but short, Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.' Over one arm the lusty courser's rein, She red and hot as coals of glowing fire, 31 |