Edward III
Act II, Scene 1
Roxborough. The gardens of the castle.
Lodowick
1 - 24
-
I might perceive his eye in her eye lost,
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His ear to drink her sweet tongue’s utterance,
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And changing passion, like inconstant clouds
-
That rack upon the carriage of the winds,
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Increase and die in his disturbed cheeks.
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Lo, when she blushed, even then did he look pale,
-
As if her cheeks by some enchanted power
-
Attracted had the cherry blood from his:
-
Anon, with reverent fear when she grew pale,
-
His cheeks put on their scarlet ornaments;
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But no more like her oriental red,
-
Than brick to coral or live things to dead.
-
Why did he then thus counterfeit her looks?
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If she did blush, twas tender modest shame,
-
Being in the sacred presence of a King;
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If he did blush, twas red immodest shame,
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To veil his eyes amiss, being a king;
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If she looked pale, twas silly woman’s fear,
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To bear herself in presence of a king;
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If he looked pale, it was with guilty fear,
-
To dote amiss, being a mighty king.
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Then, Scottish wars, farewell; I fear twill prove
-
A lingering English siege of peevish love.
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Here comes his highness, walking all alone.
Edward III
25 - 48
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She is grown more fairer far since I came hither,
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Her voice more silver every word than other,
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Her wit more fluent. What a strange discourse
-
Unfolded she of David and his Scots!
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“Even thus,” quoth she, “he spake,” and then spoke broad,
-
With epithites and accents of the Scot,
-
But somewhat better than the Scot could speak:
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“And thus,” quoth she, and answered then herself—
-
For who could speak like her but she herself—
-
Breathes from the wall an angel’s note from heaven
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Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes.
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When she would talk of peace, methinks, her tongue
-
Commanded war to prison; when of war,
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It wakened Caesar from his Roman grave,
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To hear war beautified by her discourse.
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Wisdom is foolishness but in her tongue,
-
Beauty a slander but in her fair face,
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There is no summer but in her cheerful looks,
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Nor frosty winter but in her disdain.
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I cannot blame the Scots that did besiege her,
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For she is all the treasure of our land;
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But call them cowards, that they ran away,
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Having so rich and fair a cause to stay.—
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Art thou there, Lodowick? Give me ink and paper.
Lodowick
49
-
I will, my liege.
Edward III
50 - 51
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And bid the lords hold on their play at chess,
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For we will walk and meditate alone.
Lodowick
52
-
I will, my sovereign.
Edward III
53 - 58
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This fellow is well read in poetry,
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And hath a lusty and persuasive spirit;
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I will acquaint him with my passion,
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Which he shall shadow with a veil of lawn,
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Through which the queen of beauty’s queen shall see
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Her self the ground of my infirmity.
Edward III
59
-
Hast thou pen, ink, and paper ready, Lodowick?
Lodowick
60
-
Ready, my liege.
Edward III
61 - 79
-
Then in the summer arbor sit by me,
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Make it our counsel house or cabinet:
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Since green our thoughts, green be the conventicle,
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Where we will ease us by disburdening them.
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Now, Lodowick, invocate some golden muse,
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To bring thee hither an enchanted pen,
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That may for sighs set down true sighs indeed,
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Talking of grief, to make thee ready groan;
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And when thou writest of tears, encouch the word
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Before and after with such sweet laments,
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That it may raise drops in a Tartar’s eye,
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And make a flintheart Scythian pitiful;
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For so much moving hath a Poet’s pen:
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Then, if thou be a poet, move thou so,
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And be enriched by thy sovereign’s love.
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For, if the touch of sweet concordant strings
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Could force attendance in the ears of hell,
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How much more shall the strains of poets’ wit
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Beguile and ravish soft and humane minds?
Lodowick
80
-
To whom, my lord, shall I direct my stile?
Edward III
81 - 95
-
To one that shames the fair and sots the wise;
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Whose bod is an abstract or a brief,
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Contains each general virtue in the world.
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Better than beautiful thou must begin,
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Devise for fair a fairer word than fair,
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And every ornament that thou wouldest praise,
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Fly it a pitch above the soar of praise.
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For flattery fear thou not to be convicted;
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For, were thy admiration ten times more,
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Ten times ten thousand more the worth exceeds
-
Of that thou art to praise, thy praises worth.
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Begin; I will to contemplate the while:
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Forget not to set down, how passionate,
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How heart sick, and how full of languishment,
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Her beauty makes me.
Lodowick
96
-
Write I to a woman?
Edward III
97 - 99
-
What beauty else could triumph over me,
-
Or who but women do our love lays greet?
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What, thinkest thou I did bid thee praise a horse?
Lodowick
100 - 101
-
Of what condition or estate she is,
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’Twere requisite that I should know, my lord.
Edward III
102 - 129
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Of such estate, that hers is as a throne,
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And my estate the footstool where she treads:
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Then mayst thou judge what her condition is
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By the proportion of her mightiness.
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Write on, while I peruse her in my thoughts.—
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Her voice to music or the nightingale—
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To music every summer leaping swain
-
Compares his sunburnt lover when she speaks;
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And why should I speak of the nightingale?
-
The nightingale sings of adulterate wrong,
-
And that, compared, is too satyrical;
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For sin, though sin, would not be so esteemed,
-
But, rather, virtue sin, sin virtue deemed.
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Her hair, far softer than the silk worm’s twist,
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Like to a flattering glass, doth make more fair
-
The yellow Amber:—like a flattering glass
-
Comes in too soon; for, writing of her eyes,
-
I’ll say that like a glass they catch the sun,
-
And thence the hot reflection doth rebound
-
Against the breast, and burns my heart within.
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Ah, what a world of descant makes my soul
-
Upon this voluntary ground of love!—
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Come, Lodowick, hast thou turned thy ink to gold?
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If not, write but in letters capital
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My mistress’ name, and it will gild thy paper:
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Read, lord, read;
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Fill thou the empty hollows of mine ears
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With the sweet hearing of thy poetry.
Lodowick
130
-
I have not to a period brought her praise.
Edward III
131 - 141
-
Her praise is as my love, both infinite,
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Which apprehend such violent extremes,
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That they disdain an ending period.
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Her beauty hath no match but my affection;
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Hers more than most, mine most and more than more:
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Hers more to praise than tell the sea by drops,
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Nay, more than drop the massy earth by sands,
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And sand by sand print them in memory:
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Then wherefore talkest thou of a period
-
To that which craves unended admiration?
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Read, let us hear.
Lodowick
142
-
“More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades,”—
Edward III
143 - 149
-
That line hath two faults, gross and palpable:
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Comparest thou her to the pale queen of night,
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Who, being set in dark, seems therefore light?
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What is she, when the sun lifts up his head,
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But like a fading taper, dim and dead?
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My love shall brave the eye of heaven at noon,
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And, being unmasked, outshine the golden sun.
Lodowick
150
-
What is the other fault, my sovereign lord?
Edward III
151
-
Read o’er the line again.
Lodowick
152
-
“More fair and chaste”—
Edward III
153 - 168
-
I did not bid thee talk of chastity,
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To ransack so the treasure of her mind;
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For I had rather have her chased than chaste.
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Out with the moon line, I will none of it;
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And let me have her likened to the sun:
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Say she hath thrice more splendor than the sun,
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That her perfections emulate the sun,
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That she breeds sweets as plenteous as the sun,
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That she doth thaw cold winter like the sun,
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That she doth cheer fresh summer like the sun,
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The she doth dazzle gazers like the sun;
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And, in this application to the sun,
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Bid her be free and general as the sun,
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Who smiles upon the basest weed that grows
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As lovingly as on the fragrant rose.
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Let’s see what follows that same moonlight line.
Lodowick
169 - 170
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“More fair and chaste than is the queen of shades,
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More bold in constance”—
Edward III
171
-
In constance! Than who?
Lodowick
172
-
“Than Judith was.”
Edward III
173 - 175
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O monstrous line! Put in the next a sword,
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And I shall woo her to cut off my head.
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Blot, blot, good Lodowick! Let us hear the next.
Lodowick
176
-
There’s all that yet is done.
Edward III
177 - 191
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I thank thee then; thou hast done little ill,
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But what is done, is passing, passing ill.
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No, let the captain talk of boisterous war,
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The prisoner of emured dark constraint,
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The sick man best sets down the pangs of death,
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The man that starves the sweetness of a feast,
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The frozen soul the benefit of fire,
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And every grief his happy opposite:
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Love cannot sound well but in lover’s tongues;
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Give me the pen and paper, I will write.
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Enter Countess.
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But soft, here comes the treasurer of my spirit.—
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Lodowick, thou knowst not how to draw a battle;
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These wings, these flankers, and these squadrons
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Argue in thee defective discipline:
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Thou shouldest have placed this here, this other here.
Countess
192 - 194
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Pardon my boldness, my thrice gracious lords;
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Let my intrusion here be called my duty,
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That comes to see my sovereign how he fares.
Edward III
195
-
Go, draw the same, I tell thee in what form.
Countess
197 - 199
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Sorry I am to see my liege so sad:
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What may thy subject do to drive from thee
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Thy gloomy consort, sullome melancholy?
Edward III
200 - 202
-
Ah, lady, I am blunt and cannot straw
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The flowers of solace in a ground of shame:—
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Since I came hither, Countess, I am wronged.
Countess
203 - 205
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Now God forbid that any in my house
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Should think my sovereign wrong! Thrice gentle King,
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Acquaint me with your cause of discontent.
Edward III
206
-
How near then shall I be to remedy?
Countess
207 - 208
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As near, my liege, as all my woman’s power
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Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy.
Edward III
209 - 211
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If thou speakst true, then have I my redress:
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Engage thy power to redeem my Joys,
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And I am joyful, Countess; else I die.
Countess
212
-
I will, my Liege.
Edward III
213
-
Swear, Countess, that thou wilt.
Countess
214
-
By heaven, I will.
Edward III
215 - 220
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Then take thyself a little way a side,
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And tell thyself, a king doth dote on thee;
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Say that within thy power it doth lie
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To make him happy, and that thou hast sworn
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To give him all the joy within thy power:
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Do this, and tell me when I shall be happy.
Countess
221 - 224
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All this is done, my thrice dread sovereign:
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That power of love, that I have power to give,
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Thou hast with all devout obedience;
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Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof.
Edward III
225
-
Thou hear’st me say that I do dote on thee.
Countess
226 - 231
-
If on my beauty, take it if thou canst;
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Though little, I do prize it ten times less;
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If on my virtue, take it if thou canst,
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For virtue’s store by giving doth augment;
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Be it on what it will, that I can give
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And thou canst take away, inherit it.
Edward III
232
-
It is thy beauty that I would enjoy.
Countess
233 - 237
-
O, were it painted, I would wipe it off
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And dispossess myself, to give it thee.
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But, sovereign, it is soldered to my life:
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Take one and both; for, like an humble shadow,
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It haunts the sunshine of my summer’s life.
Edward III
238
-
But thou mayst lend it me to sport with all.
Countess
239 - 246
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As easy may my intellectual soul
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Be lent away, and yet my body live,
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As lend my body, palace to my soul,
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Away from her, and yet retain my soul.
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My body is her bower, her court, her abbey,
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And she an angel, pure, divine, unspotted:
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If I should leave her house, my lord, to thee,
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I kill my poor soul and my poor soul me.
Edward III
247
-
Didst thou not swear to give me what I would?
Countess
248
-
I did, my liege, so what you would I could.
Edward III
249 - 252
-
I wish no more of thee than thou mayst give:—
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Nor beg I do not, but I rather buy—
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That is, thy love; and for that love of thine
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In rich exchange I tender to thee mine.
Countess
253 - 280
-
But that your lips were sacred, my lord,
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You would profane the holy name of love.
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That love you offer me you cannot give,
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For Caesar owes that tribute to his queen;
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That love you beg of me I cannot give,
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For Sara owes that duty to her lord.
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He that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp
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Shall die, my lord; and will your sacred self
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Commit high treason against the King of Heaven,
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To stamp his image in forbidden metal,
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Forgetting your allegiance and your oath?
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In violating marriage sacred law,
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You break a greater honor than yourself:
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To be a king is of a younger house
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Than to be married; your progenitour,
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Sole reigning Adam on the universe,
-
By God was honored for a married man,
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But not by him anointed for a king.
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It is a penalty to break your statutes,
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Though not enacted with your highness’ hand:
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How much more, to infringe the holy act,
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Made by the mouth of God, sealed with his hand?
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I know, my sovereign, in my husband’s love,
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Who now doth loyal service in his wars,
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Doth but so try the wife of Salisbury,
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Whither she will hear a wanton’s tale or no,
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Lest being therein guilty by my stay,
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From that, not from my liege, I turn away.
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Exit.
Edward III
281 - 298
-
Whether is her beauty by her words dying,
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Or are her words sweet chaplains to her beauty?
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Like as the wind doth beautify a sail,
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And as a sail becomes the unseen wind,
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So do her words her beauties, beauties words.
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O, that I were a honey gathering bee,
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To bear the comb of virtue from this flower,
-
And not a poison sucking envious spider,
-
To turn the juice I take to deadly venom!
-
Religion is austere and beauty gentle;
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Too strict a guardian for so fair a ward!
-
O, that she were, as is the air, to me!
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Why, so she is, for when I would embrace her,
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This do I, and catch nothing but myself.
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I must enjoy her; for I cannot beat
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With reason and reproof fond love a way.
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Enter Warwick.
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Here comes her father: I will work with him,
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To bear my colors in this field of love.
Earl of Warwick
299 - 302
-
How is it that my sovereign is so sad?
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May I with pardon know your highness grief;
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And that my old endeavor will remove it,
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It shall not cumber long your majesty.
Edward III
303 - 311
-
A kind and voluntary gift thou proferest,
-
That I was forward to have begged of thee.
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But, O thou world, great nurse of flattery,
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Why dost thou tip men’s tongues with golden words,
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And peise their deeds with weight of heavy lead,
-
That fair performance cannot follow promise?
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O, that a man might hold the heart’s close book
-
And choke the lavish tongue, when it doth utter
-
The breath of falsehood not charactered there!
Earl of Warwick
312 - 317
-
Far be it from the honor of my age,
-
That I should owe bright gold and render lead;
-
Age is a cynic, not a flatterer.
-
I say again, that if I knew your grief,
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And that by me it may be lessened,
-
My proper harm should buy your Highness’ good.
Edward III
318 - 323
-
These are the vulgar tenders of false men,
-
That never pay the duty of their words.
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Thou wilt not stick to swear what thou hast said;
-
But, when thou knowest my grief’s condition,
-
This rash disgorged vomit of thy word
-
Thou wilt eat up again, and leave me helpless.
Earl of Warwick
324 - 325
-
By heaven, I will not, though your majesty
-
Did bid me run upon your sword and die.
Edward III
326 - 327
-
Say that my grief is no way medicinable
-
But by the loss and bruising of thine honor.
Earl of Warwick
328 - 329
-
If nothing but that loss may vantage you,
-
I would accompt that loss my vantage too.
Edward III
330
-
Thinkst that thou canst unswear thy oath again?
Earl of Warwick
331
-
I cannot; nor I would not, if I could.
Edward III
332
-
But, if thou dost, what shall I say to thee?
Earl of Warwick
333 - 334
-
What may be said to any perjured villain,
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That breaks the sacred warrant of an oath.
Edward III
335
-
What wilt thou say to one that breaks an oath?
Earl of Warwick
336 - 337
-
That he hath broke his faith with God and man,
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And from them both stands excommunicate.
Edward III
338 - 339
-
What office were it, to suggest a man
-
To break a lawful and religious vow?
Earl of Warwick
340
-
An office for the devil, not for man.
Edward III
341 - 350
-
That devil’s office must thou do for me,
-
Or break thy oath, or cancel all the bonds
-
Of love and duty twixt thyself and me;
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And therefore, Warwick, if thou art thyself,
-
The lord and master of thy word and oath,
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Go to thy daughter; and in my behalf
-
Command her, woo her, win her any ways,
-
To be my mistress and my secret love.
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I will not stand to hear thee make reply:
-
Thy oath break hers, or let thy sovereign die.
Earl of Warwick
351 - 372
-
O doting King! O detestable office!
-
Well may I tempt myself to wrong myself,
-
When he hath sworn me by the name of God
-
To break a vow made by the name of God.
-
What, if I swear by this right hand of mine
-
To cut this right hand off? The better way
-
Were to profane the Idol than confound it:
-
But neither will I do; I’ll keep mine oath,
-
And to my daughter make a recantation
-
Of all the virtue I have preacht to her:
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I’ll say, she must forget her husband Salisbury,
-
If she remember to embrace the king;
-
I’ll say, an oath may easily be broken,
-
But not so easily pardoned, being broken;
-
I’ll say, it is true charity to love,
-
But not true love to be so charitable;
-
I’ll say, his greatness may bear out the shame,
-
But not his kingdom can buy out the sin;
-
I’ll say, it is my duty to persuade,
-
But not her honesty to give consent.
-
Enter Countess.
-
See where she comes; was never father had
-
Against his child an embassage so bad?
Countess
373 - 376
-
My lord and father, I have sought for you:
-
My mother and the Peers importune you
-
To keep in presence of his majesty,
-
And do your best to make his highness merry.
Earl of Warwick
377 - 415
-
Aside.
-
How shall I enter in this graceless arrant?
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I must not call her child, for where’s the father
-
That will in such a suit seduce his child?
-
Then, “wife of Salisbury”; shall I so begin?
-
No, he’s my friend, and where is found the friend
-
That will do friendship such indammagement?
-
To the Countess.
-
Neither my daughter nor my dear friend’s wife,
-
I am not Warwick, as thou thinkst I am,
-
But an attorney from the court of hell,
-
That thus have housed my spirit in his form,
-
To do a message to thee from the king.
-
The mighty king of England dotes on thee:
-
He that hath power to take away thy life,
-
Hath power to take thy honor; then consent
-
To pawn thine honor rather than thy life:
-
Honor is often lost and got again,
-
But life, once gone, hath no recovery.
-
The sun, that withers hay, doth nourish grass;
-
The king, that would disdain thee, will advance thee.
-
The poets write that great Achilles’ spear
-
Could heal the wound it made: the moral is,
-
What mighty men misdo, they can amend.
-
The lion doth become his bloody jaws,
-
And grace his forragement by being mild,
-
When vassel fear lies trembling at his feet.
-
The king will in his glory hide thy shame;
-
And those that gaze on him to find out thee,
-
Will lose their eyesight, looking in the sun.
-
What can one drop of poison harm the sea,
-
Whose huge vastures can digest the ill
-
And make it loose his operation?
-
The king’s great name will temper thy misdeeds,
-
And give the bitter potion of reproach,
-
A sugared, sweet and most delicious taste.
-
Besides, it is no harm to do the thing
-
Which without shame could not be left undone.
-
Thus have I in his majesty’s behalf
-
Appareled sin in virtuous sentences,
-
And dwell upon thy answer in his suit.
Countess
416 - 433
-
Unnatural besiege! Woe me unhappy,
-
To have escaped the danger of my foes,
-
And to be ten times worse injured by friends!
-
Hath he no means to stain my honest blood,
-
But to corrupt the author of my blood
-
To be his scandalous and vile solicitor?
-
No marvel though the branches be then infected,
-
When poison hath encompassed the root:
-
No marvel though the leprous infant die,
-
When the stern dame invenometh the Dug.
-
Why then, give sin a passport to offend,
-
And youth the dangerous reign of liberty:
-
Blot out the strict forbidding of the law,
-
And cancel every cannon that prescribes
-
A shame for shame or penance for offense.
-
No, let me die, if his too boistrous will
-
Will have it so, before I will consent
-
To be an actor in his graceless lust.
Earl of Warwick
434 - 461
-
Why, now thou speakst as I would have thee speak:
-
And mark how I unsay my words again.
-
An honorable grave is more esteemed
-
Than the polluted closet of a king:
-
The greater man, the greater is the thing,
-
Be it good or bad, that he shall undertake:
-
An unreputed mote, flying in the sun,
-
Presents a greater substance than it is:
-
The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint
-
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss:
-
Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe:
-
That sin doth ten times aggravate itself,
-
That is committed in a holy place:
-
An evil deed, done by authority,
-
Is sin and subornation: deck an ape
-
In tissue, and the beauty of the robe
-
Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast.
-
A spatious field of reasons could I urge
-
Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame:
-
That poison shews worst in a golden cup;
-
Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash;
-
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds;
-
And every glory that inclines to sin,
-
The shame is treble by the opposite.
-
So leave I with my blessing in thy bosom,
-
Which then convert to a most heavy curse,
-
When thou convertest from honor’s golden name
-
To the black faction of bed blotting shame.
Countess
462 - 463
-
I’ll follow thee; and when my mind turns so,
-
My body sink my soul in endless woe!