Edward III
Act III, Scene 2
Picardy. The fields near Cressy.
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Enter three Frenchmen; a Frenchwoman and two little children
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meet them, and other Citizens.
Third Frenchman
1 - 4
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Well met, my masters: how now? What’s the news?
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And wherefore are ye laden thus with stuff?
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What, is it quarter-day that you remove,
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And carry bag and baggage too?
First Frenchman
5 - 6
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Quarter-day? Aye, and quartering day, I fear:
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Have ye not heard the news that flies abroad?
Third Frenchman
7
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What news?
Second Frenchman
8 - 9
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How the French navy is destroy’d at sea,
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And that the English army is arrived.
Third Frenchman
10
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What then?
First Frenchman
11 - 12
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What then, quoth you? Why, ist not time to fly,
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When envy and destruction is so nigh?
Third Frenchman
13 - 15
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Content thee, man: they are far enough from hence,
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And will be met, I warrant ye, to their cost,
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Before they break so far into the realm.
First Frenchman
16 - 26
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Aye, so the grasshopper doth spend the time
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In mirthful jollity, till winter come;
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And then too late he would redeem his time,
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When frozen cold hath nipped his careless head.
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He, that no sooner will provide a cloak,
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Then when he sees it doth begin to reign,
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May, peradventure, for his negligence,
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Be throughly washed, when he suspects it not.
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We that have charge and such a train as this,
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Must look in time to look for them and us,
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Least, when we would, we cannot be relieved.
Third Frenchman
27 - 28
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Belike, you then despair of all success,
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And think your country will be subjugate.
Second Frenchman
29
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We cannot tell; ’tis good to fear the worst.
Third Frenchman
30 - 31
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Yet rather fight, then, like unnatural sons,
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Forsake your loving parents in distress.
First Frenchman
32 - 37
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Tush, they that have already taken arms
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Are many fearful millions in respect
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Of that small handful of our enemies;
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But ’tis a rightful quarrel must prevail;
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Edward is son unto our late king’s sister,
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When John Valois is three degrees removed.
Frenchwoman
38 - 45
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Besides, there goes a prophecy abroad,
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Published by one that was a friar once,
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Whose oracles have many times proved true;
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And now he says, the time will shortly come,
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When as a lion, roused in the west,
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Shall carry hence the fluerdeluce of France:
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These, I can tell ye, and such like surmises
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Strike many French men cold unto the heart.
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Enter a Fourth Frenchman.
Fourth Frenchman
46 - 76
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Fly, country men and citizens of France!
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Sweet flowering peace, the root of happy life,
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Is quite abandoned and expulst the land;
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Instead of whom ransacked constraining war
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Sits like to ravens upon your houses’ tops;
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Slaughter and mischief walk within your streets,
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And, unrestrained, make havoc as they pass;
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The form whereof even now myself beheld
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Upon this fair mountain whence I came.
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For so far of as I directed mine eyes,
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I might perceive five cities all on fire,
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Corn fields and vineyards, burning like an oven;
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And, as the reaking vapor in the wind
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Turned but aside, I like wise might discern
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The poor inhabitants, escaped the flame,
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Fall numberless upon the soldiers’ pikes.
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Three ways these dreadful ministers of wrath
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Do tread the measures of their tragic march:
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Upon the right hand comes the conquering King,
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Upon the left his hot unbridled son,
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And in the midst our nation’s glittering host,
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All which, though distant yet, conspire in one,
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To leave a desolation where they come.
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Fly therefore, citizens, if you be wise,
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Seek out some habitation further off:
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Here if you stay, your wives will be abused,
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Your treasure shared before your weeping eyes;
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Shelter you yourselves, for now the storm doth rise.
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Away, away; me thinks I hear their drums:—
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Ah, wretched France, I greatly fear thy fall;
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Thy glory shaketh like a tottering wall.
