No More Learning

Many of the best writers of Elizabeth's time had no faith in
the perpetuity of English as a literary language. The common
speech was left to the actor, and his drudge the play-poet. But
Sackville the courtier, by grafting the blank verse-and the poet
Spenser the sonnet of Italy to the sturdy English stock, had shown
a way which Shakespeare the actor made safe and sure for the gen-
erations coming after, to keep all exotics from the garden of their
thoughts.
The power of the drama of Elizabeth's day is never fully under-
stood by the student of mere literature or history. Drama is a dis-
tinct thing, bearing such a relation to literature as the moving and
speaking man does to an outline sketch of him. The trained actor
is the only maker of drama. This Will Shakespeare well understood,
as he understood most things; and so he went on with patience in
his chosen work, while Greene, Marlowe, and Nash made faces at
him, and called him rude and unlettered because he was nearer the
great heart of nature than they were.
―


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13182
SHAKESPEARE
Drama had, in 1492, been established under royal patronage in
Spain by Isabella of Castile; and one of the earliest English com-
panies of players (1530), not tradesmen or minstrels, was that of the
Lady Princess, her granddaughter, afterwards Queen Mary. The
method of establishing a distinct guild of players came from Spanish
example. It was the custom of the actors to divide their gains
according to certain interests which were called shares. Thus James
Burbage, the owner of the first established theatre, and his rival
Philip Henslowe, - who set up at The Curtain,' so called because
built in that part of the ruin of the old monastery of Holywell which
was called the Curtain, just across the field from Burbage's Theatre,
-paid the actors in their companies by giving certain of them a
lease for a term of years of a share of the receipts. Burbage's house,
a spacious playing-place, was built of wood in octagonal form, with a
stage projecting from one of the sides into the middle of the yard, as
the inclosed space was called. There were two galleries or stories
which were roofed over. The stage was also partly roofed, and the
yard was open to the sky for air and light; for performances were
given only in the afternoon from one to three o'clock. There were
but two doors to the structure: one at which the public entered, and
the other to the actors' tiring or dressing room. There being no
women actors, the common dressing-room of the theatre was a very
exclusive sort of club. The stairs to the galleries or rooms were on
the inside; and a fee of twopence was paid for the privilege of going
above the place of the groundlings, and sixpence for a seat. To the
boxes or lords' rooms, which were next the stage on either side, en-
trance was obtained from the stage itself or through the tiring-room.
At first the actors had only a moiety of the money that was paid at
the doors. As the fees were only twopence for entrance at the pub-
lic door, and a shilling for the more exclusive privilege of passing
through the actors' private way, it will readily be seen that the man-
ager or owner had quite the best of the count. Yet out of their
store the actors paid all costs of running the house, including the
price of poets, - the least considerable of expenses, for no play was
worth more than five pounds. The wages of the minor actors, called
the hirelings, as well as those of the minstrels and mechanicians, were
also paid by the actors. Perspectives, as scenes were then called,
-painted cloths, curtains, tombs, houses, mounds, and rocks, as well
as the flies or cloths which hung from the roof of the stage, to imi-
tate sky and conceal the ropes by which the various machines used
for the descent of gods or goblins were lowered from the property
man's quarters in a little house on the roof of the stage, — belonged
to the owner of the house and were provided by him. Yet a share
in a company of players was highly valued, and was often divided


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SHAKESPEARE
13183
into many fractions, and made the subject of profitable barter. This
kind of share must be kept in mind apart from another sharing first
introduced by the sons of James Burbage, when they built the Globe
Theatre in 1599, at which time they divided the leasehold into six-
teen shares, eight of which they disposed of to Shakespeare, Heminge,
Condell, and Philips.
To enter such a company in any capacity except as a hireling was
impossible except by purchase of some part of a share; and shares
could only be obtained by him who could show merit and experience.
Even with such influence as would flow from boyhood acquaintance,
and a known ability to "pen a part," the boy Shakespeare must have
spent some years in the condition of apprenticeship before he could
seriously be considered a person important enough to be a sharer.
When therefore, in 1589, it is found by Nash's petulan preface to
Greene's 'Menaphon' that some skilled and formidable actor-poet had
incurred the writer's sarcasm by putting forth a play called 'Hamlet,'
instead of sticking to the trade of noverint or scrivener to which he
was born, we have to remember that there was but one Hamlet,'
Shakespeare's; and that Arden Waferer
a lawyer of London and
counsel to Edward Arden in 1584- was in the same degree of kin-
dred to Walter Arden, their common ancestor, as William Shake-
speare. 'Hamlet' was sold by Shakespeare to the players before he
became a member of the company of the Lord Chamberlain, with
which he had been some time identified when 'Romeo and Juliet'
was published in 1597. The Lord Admiral's Company, which was
under the management of Philip Henslow in 1589, owned Hamlet'
in 1603, when they became the Prince's (his Highness's) players.
This then old play was no longer of sufficient value as dramatic
property to prevent its being published as a History "diverse times
acted" in the city of London, at Cambridge and Oxford Universities,
and elsewhere. New plays were plentiful, and public appetite for
novelty as keen as now. There was no copyright; and a play once
printed, the actors no longer held exclusive right over it.
This con-
sideration is of the first importance, and too often ignored in dealing
with the history of Shakespeare's work.
The long continuance of the plague in 1593-4 gave occasion for
the publication of 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece. ' Shakespeare's
days were days of a very busy life, wherein the study and playing
of a multitude of new parts was blithely done, while he was forming
the strange and bodiless creatures of imagination which sing to the
ages the glory of his name. The habit of such days gave way in
1593 to an idle seclusion. In that time Shakespeare busied himself
by getting out his version of old Ovid's wildwood song of 'Adonis,
a thing done in his own boyhood, "the first heir of his invention,"
―
1


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13184
SHAKESPEARE
and to it he wrote a companion poem on the story of the Roman
matron.
Francis Meres tells us the "Sugard Sonnets" were known as
early as 1598 amongst Shakespeare's private friends. They were the
whimsical recreations of a busy brain, done in the fashionable spirit
of the time, to amuse himself and to please and assist his compan-
ions. That they were gathered up for a publisher eleven years
after Meres first praised them, gives no reason to think they were
addressed to any one person. The printer applied the sentiment of
one of the sonnets to Master W. H. , who had helped him to obtain
them. William Hewes, a popular singer, had been the favorite min-
strel of the old Earl of Essex; and to a man of his name Sonnet 20
seems to have been addressed.
Looking then from 1589 and 1592, when we get the first glimpses
of his work, we must find the personal history of Shakespeare in the
practice of the actor's calling. That he was of the company which
went with Lord Leicester to the Low Countries in 1585, and traveled
to Denmark, Germany, and it may be to Italy, are fascinating con-
jectures, but valueless at present for want of evidence. That he was
one of the young players who went to various patrons during the
first decade of his career is certain. 'Titus Andronicus,' one of the
first of his plays to be printed (1594), and consequently old in public
favor, was written for the company which had been Lord Derby's.
'Henry VI. ' and 'The Taming of the Shrew' were written for the
Earl of Pembroke's, - the company to which James Burbage belonged
before 1585.
To 'Henry VI. ' we owe the best evidence of Shakespeare's early
industry and reputation as an actor. In 1592 Robert Greene, who, on
account of dissipated habits and disregard for his obligations, had
failed in his efforts to obtain recognition as a writer of plays, uttered
his disappointment in the most rancorous terms, designating the play-
ers as "burrs, puppets, antic crows, apes, rude grooms, buckram gen-
tlemen, peasants, and painted monsters. " Following these extravagant
terms, and urging his companions, scholars of the university like
himself, to cease writing for the stage, he says:-
"For unto none of you like me sought those burrs to cleave, those
puppets (I mean) that speak from our mouths, those antics garnished
in our colors. Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart crow beau-
tified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a play-
er's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse
as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his
own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. "
The expression "his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide" is
an unequivocal reference to a play written by Shakespeare, in which


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SHAKESPEARE
13185
a similar line occurs: the
History of Henry VI. ,' in the third part
of which occurs the line spoken by the Duke of York to Queen Mar-
garet:-
"O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide. »
The scene in which this line occurs is one of the most dramatic
in the scope of Shakespearean work. It is the description of the
humiliation of the Duke of York after his capture by Queen Marga-
ret, in one of the latest battles of the long series of bloody contests
of the Wars of the Roses. This history, as arranged to suit the
situations of the stage, was already old enough in 1594-5 to go into
print as the 'Contention' (2 Henry VI. ) and 'The True Tragedy'
(3 Henry VI. ).
That Jonson spoke truly when he said of Shakespeare that it was
necessary to suppress much that he wrote is true in fact, but not in
the inference spitefully left by him. A clear-headed study of the early
prints of Shakespeare's plays shows that these greatly misunderstood.
works were acting copies made by Shakespeare himself from the
longer and therefore unplayable originals. Hamlet,' 'Henry VI. ,'
'Richard III. ,' cannot even to-day,- when a patient public will give
three instead of two hours to the theatre,- be played in their en-
tirety. The use of unnecessary speech, a fault of the young Shake-
speare, was avoided, as experience of his calling gave the actor
mastery of every element of his art.
In the study of his plays for actual performance, it will be found
that they show abundant corroboration of this fact. A few show
plainly the marks of the author's own cutting, merciless to mere
making of speeches, but always enhancing dramatic force. In the
present condition of evidences it is useless to apply to them any
other test of chronological order.
The slander uttered by poor Greene produced an evidence of the
integrity of Shakespeare's life, as well as a further record of the fact
that he was at this early period of his career known and recognized
as an actor. Chettle, who had published Greene's 'Groatsworth of
Wit' in 1594, very soon afterward published a pamphlet called
'Kind Heart's Dream,' in the preface to which he took occasion to
apologize for the harshness of Greene's attack upon Shakespeare. He
spoke of Shakespeare in these words: -
"The other, whom at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish
I had: for that as I have moderated the heat of living writers, and might have
used my own discretion,- especially in such a case, the author being dead,-
that I did not I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault;
because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the
XXII-825
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## p. 13186 (#634) ##########################################

13186
SHAKESPEARE
quality he professes.
ness of dealing which
that approves his art. "
Besides divers of worship have reported his upright.
argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing
Four important statements: That Shakespeare was an excellent
actor ("the quality he professes "), that he was befriended by "divers
of worship," — that is, by influential nobles, - that he was upright in
his dealings, and that he wrote with grace and wit. These are not
three-hundred-year-after theories: they are the spontaneous declara-
tions of his contemporaries.
It is not important to discuss Spenser's reference in 1591, in the
'Tears of the Muses,' where Thalia laments to her sisters of the sacred
choir the intrusion of distasteful plays into the "painted theatres,"
and the enforced silence of -
"the man whom Nature self had made
To mock herself, and Truth to imitate
With kindly counter under mimick shade,
Our pleasant Willy. "
Shakespeare's fellow actors called him "a happy imitator of Nature. »
Camden, who knew him well, spoke of him in 1619 as the "late emi-
nent tragedian. " The royal license for the establishment of the
King's players in 1603 names him second in the list. Cuthbert and
Winifred Burbage in 1635 testify that Shakespeare was an active
player in 1613. A most convincing evidence of Shakespeare's excel-
lence as an actor is given by Sir John Davies, who declared himself a
lover of players and their quality. Writing about 1607, "To our Eng-
lish Terence, Mr. Wm. Shakespeare," he said:-
:-
"Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst beene a companion for a king,
And beene a king among the meaner sort.
Some others raile: but raile as they thinke fit,
Thou hast no rayling, but a raigning wit;
And honesty thou sow'st which they do reape,
So to increase their stocke which they do keepe. »
In all Shakespearean or contemporaneous literature, the parts of
Prince Hal and Henry V. are the only ones which can be called
"kingly parts in sport. " The conclusion from Davies's lines must be
that Shakespeare was their original actor. The reference to being a
king among the meaner sort, alludes to an effort to obtain the place
of court poet finally conferred upon Jonson. The storm of opposition
which followed the production of Shakespeare's 'Henry IV. ,' upon
the part of the Puritans, who took great offense at the character of


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SHAKESPEARE
13187
Sir John Falstaff, supposed by them to be conceived in ridicule of
the Protestant martyr Sir John Oldcastle, fell upon Shakespeare, and
undoubtedly interfered with any good-will evinced toward him by
King James; who, besides taking the company to which Shakespeare
belonged into the royal household as the King's Players, never would,
even when the Puritan influence became strongest at court, consent
to give up his attachment for these actors, however he might be pre-
vented from advancing one of them from his humble station.
It would have been worth all the inconvenience of living in that
time, to have seen and heard Will Shakespeare making merry with
the fair Catherine of France, or provoking the drolleries of Falstaff!
In a play, author unknown, but produced by the students of St.
John's College, Cambridge, in 1601 or 1602, the then general estima-
tion of Shakespeare is voiced through the mouth of Will Kempe,
who speaks thus of university-bred poets:-
"Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, ay and
Ben Jonson too! "
Of Shakespeare's domestic life we know only that his wife was
eight years his elder, and gave him but the three children already
named. That he was attached to his home and family is plainly
shown by the fact that he bought for them in Stratford in 1597 the
"great house," which was regarded as the most respectable residence
in the town. His son Hamnet died in 1596, and he must then have
been without expectation of a male heir. Yet there is absolutely
no reason to believe that he was estranged from his wife. His will,
made but a short time before his death, shows him to have been
prudent and careful of the interests of his family to the last.
In worldly property he was, according to the chances of his time,
- though not to be compared in wealth to Edward Alleyn, the Bur-
bages, or his fellow player John Heminge,- fairly fortunate. He accu-
mulated an estate of about £2,000 value, most of which was in lands
and leaseholds in the vicinity of Stratford. His great popularity as
a play-writer brought him little money until 1599; when, upon the re-
moval of The Theatre from the fields on the north of the city to the
bankside, Southwark, where it was re-edified and called The Globe,
he was admitted by Richard and Cuthbert Burbage (who had suc-
ceeded their father James upon his death in 1596) to an interest in
the larger profits of his work, as one of the actors holding a share in
the ownership of the house. The importance of this increase in his
resources is shown by the fact that in 1602 he invested £380 in lands
near Stratford, and in 1605 £440 more in a moiety of a thirty-one
years' remainder of a lease of certain tithes, an investment which
gave him an income of £120 per year. On March 12th, 1613, he
bought land in the Blackfriars in London, for which he paid £120;


## p. 13188 (#636) ##########################################

13188
SHAKESPEARE
and in the same year had been admitted by the Burbages to a share
in the Blackfriars Theatre, which they owned in fee, and which they
then took up from Evans, the manager of the company of Paul's
Boys who had leased it in 1596-7. These shares in the Globe and
Blackfriars were disposed of by Shakespeare at some time between
1613 and the date of his death, April 1616. There is a hint in the
purchase of the Blackfriars estate; for £80 only was paid down, and
a mortgage was executed for £60 by Shakespeare and two of his
fellow players,-John Heminge and Henry Condell. These two, as
appears by subsequent dealings with the Globe and Blackfriars stock,
became the owners of all the shares in both theatres not accounted
for by the Burbages and Augustine Philips.
Shakespeare had never been a manager, although an important
actor in the company. He was in the prime of life, and his invest-
ment in London property might well have set him at the head of a
theatre of his own had not his death been sudden.
It is a mistake to suppose that Shakespeare retired to a life of in-
action in Stratford, as some say, early in the first years of the seven-
teenth century, although he was buried there in April 1616. The
modest, gentle player-man, known to his friends as "Sweet Master
Shakespeare," simply and justly complied with the obligations of a
humble and contented life,-neither the companion of kings nor an
envier of their greatness. He bore the same cares which beset the
lowly, with unfailing constancy; and though death took from him one
by one the men-children of his own and his father's house, he uttered
no vain or querulous cry against the dispensation which caused
the extinction of his name. For a brief space, undoubtedly, his soul
quivered at the untimely loss of his only son, when in the year 1597
he followed his little ten-year-old Hamlet, as he was fondly called,
to the church-yard of Holy Trinity; but when in the early spring of
1616 the last call came to him, he was still an active player of that
sublime part for which great Mother Nature had cast him,- a teacher
of men by the simplest yet subtlest of arts, the drama.
знавайте
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## p. 13189 (#637) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13189
A
RIEL
Ariel -
-
Prospero-
Ariel-
All hail, great master; grave sir, hail.
To answer thy best pleasure; be 't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds: to thy strong bidding task
Ariel, and all his quality.
Prospero-
Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ariel To every article.
I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometimes I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,—
Yea, his dread trident shake.
-
Prospero-
Ariel-
Prospero-
ARIEL
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
From The Tempest'
Present: Prospero. Enter Ariel
-
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and played
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair),
Was the first man that leaped; cried, "Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here. "
Why, that's my spirit!
Close by, my master.
-
I come
But was not this nigh shore?
But are they, Ariel, safe?
Not a hair perished;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,


## p. 13190 (#638) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13190
Ariel-
But fresher than before: and as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.
The king's son have I landed by himself,
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
Prospero-
Of the king's ship,
The mariners say how thou hast disposed,
And all the rest o' the fleet?
Safely in harbor
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;
Whom, with a charm joined to their suffered labor,
I have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again,
And all upon the Mediterranean float,
Bound sadly home for Naples,
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked,
And his great person perish.
ARIEL'S SONGS
Ariel enters, invisible, playing and singing; Prince Ferdinand following
him
COM
Ariel sings
OME unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
Hark, hark!
Burden Bow, wow [dispersedly].
The watch-dogs bark:
Burden Bow, wow.
Hark. hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticlere
Cry Cock-a-doodle-doo.


## p. 13191 (#639) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13191
Ferdinand -
Ferdinand-
Prospero-
Ariel-
――――
Where should this music be? i' th' air, or th' earth? —
It sounds no more; - and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion,
With its sweet air; thence I have followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather; - but 'tis gone. —
No, it begins again.
Ariel sings
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Burden-Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,- ding-dong, bell.
The ditty does remember my drowned father. -
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes-I hear it now above me.
Ariel, singing, helps to attire Prospero
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:
There I couch. When owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
But yet thou shalt have freedom; - so, so, so. —
To the king's ship, invisible as thou art:
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
Under the hatches; the master, and the boatswain,
Being awake, enforce them to this place,
And presently, I pr'ythee.
I drink the air before me, and return
Or e'er your pulse twice beat.
[Exit Ariel.


## p. 13192 (#640) ##########################################

13192
SHAKESPEARE
MARRIAGE SONG
From The Tempest'
UNO- Honor, riches, marriage, blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns, and garners never empty;
Vines, with clustering bunches growing;
Plants, with goodly burden bowing;
Rain come to you, at the farthest,
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres's blessing so is on you.
SILVIA
From Two Gentlemen of Verona'
HO is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise as free:
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.
WHO
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness. –
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness;
And being helped, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.


## p. 13193 (#641) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13193
Ε
FALSTAFF TORMENTED BY THE SUPPOSED FAIRIES
From the Merry Wives of Windsor >
VANS-
Lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But stay! I smell a man of middle earth.
Falstaff [to himself] — Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest
he transform me to a piece of cheese!
Pistol Vile worm, thou wast o'erlooked even in thy birth.
Queen
With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
Pistol A trial! come.
Evans-
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn Falstaff with their tapers. ]
--
Falstaff-
Queen-
Oh, oh, oh!
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme;
And as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG BY ONE
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart; whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them higher and higher.
CHORUS
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villainy;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out!


## p. 13194 (#642) ##########################################

13194
SHAKESPEARE
SONG: TAKE, OH! TAKE
From 'Measure for Measure >
MAKE, oh! take those lips away,
Τ
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,—
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.
Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in icy chains by thee.
BALTHAZAR'S SONG
From Much Ado About Nothing'
SIGH
IGH no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,
Or dumps so dull and heavy;
The frauds of men were ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.


## p. 13195 (#643) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13195
LADY HERO'S EPITAPH
From Much Ado About Nothing'
C
Scene: The Inside of a Church. Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and Attend-
ants, with music and tapers.
LAUDIO-Is this the monument of Leonato?
Attendants-It is, my lord.
Claudio [reads]-
----
EPITAPH
Done to death by slanderous tongues
Was the Hero that here lies:
Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
Gives her fame which never dies.
So the life that died with shame
Lives in death with glorious fame.
Hang thou there upon the tomb,
Praising her when I am dumb. -
Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.
SONG
Pardon, goddess of the night,
Those that slew thy virgin bright;
For the which, with songs of woe,
Round about her tomb we go.
Midnight, assist our moan;
Help us to sigh and groan,
Heavily, heavily:
Graves, yawn, and yield your dead,
Till death be uttered,
Heavily, heavily.
WHITE AND RED
From 'Love's Labour's Lost'
Μ
OTH - If she be made of white and red,
Her faults will ne'er be known;
For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale white shown:
Then, if she fear, or be to blame,
By this you shall not know;
For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth owe.


## p. 13196 (#644) ##########################################

13196
SHAKESPEARE
LOVE'S RHAPSODY
From Love's Labour's Lost'
O SWEET a kiss the golden sun gives not
S
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thine eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The dew of night that on my cheeks down flows.
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light:
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep,—
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far thou dost excel,
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.
SONG: SPRING AND WINTER
From 'Love's Labour's Lost'
WH
SPRING
HEN daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,-
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo,- oh, word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plowmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,—
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
Cuckoo,
Cuckoo, cuckoo,- oh, word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear.


## p. 13197 (#645) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
P⁹
UCK-
WINTER
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 nipped, and ways be foul,-
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
To-who,
Tu-whit, to-who,- a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
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,
Tu-whit, to-who,- a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Fairy-
From Midsummer Night's Dream'
Scene: A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy and Puck at opposite doors.
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moonè's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips all her pensioners be:
In their gold cups spots you see:
Those be rubies, fairy favors,
In those freckles live their savors.
PUCK
13197
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I'll be gone.
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.


## p. 13198 (#646) ##########################################

13198
SHAKESPEARE
Puck-
The king doth keep his revels here to-night.
Take heed the queen come not within his sight:
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy:
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
Fairy Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern,
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm;
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck :
Are not you he?
Puck-
Fairy, thou speak'st aright:
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal.
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me:
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And "tailor" cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there. -
But room, Fairy: here comes Oberon.
Oberon - My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,


## p. 13199 (#647) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
―
Puck-
I remember.
Oberon - That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
Puck-
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
-
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower,- the herb I showed thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that is seen.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
I'd put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
THE DIVERSIONS OF THE FAIRIES
From Midsummer Night's Dream'
BERON-
-
O Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love. -
Re-enter Puck
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Puck
Ay, there it is.
Oberon —
13199
I pray thee, give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;


## p. 13200 (#648) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13200
Puck-
-
Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,
Lulled in these bowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enameled skin,—
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove.
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love.
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
Fear not, my lord: your servant shall do so.
[Exeunt.
Scene: Another part of the Wood. Enter Titania, with her train.
Titania - Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some war with rear-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices, and let me rest.
FAIRIES' SONG
First Fairy-You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong:
Come not near our fairy queen.
CHORUS
Philomel, with melody,
Sing now your sweet lullaby:
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,


## p. 13201 (#649) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13201
Second Fairy - Weaving spiders, come not here;
Oberon -
P
UCK-
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So good-night, with lullaby.
Second Fairy - Hence, away! now all is well.
One, aloof, stand sentinel.
XXII-826
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence:
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm, nor snail, do no offense.
CHORUS
Philomel, with melody,
Sing now your sweet lullaby:
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So good-night, with lullaby.
[Exeunt Fairies.
Enter Oberon
What thou seest, when thou dost wake,
[Anointing Titania's eyelids. ]
Do it for thy true love take;
Love, and languish for his sake:
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near.
Titania sleeps.
THE FAIRIES' WEDDING CHARM
From Midsummer Night's Dream'
Enter Puck with a broom on his shoulder
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy plowman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
[Exit.


## p. 13202 (#650) ##########################################

13202
SHAKESPEARE
-
By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic; not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house:
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
Enter Oberon and Titania with all their train
Oberon Through the house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire;
Every elf, and fairy sprite,
Hop as light as bird from brier:
And this ditty after me
Sing, and dance it trippingly.
- First, rehearse your song by rote,
To each word a warbling note:
Hand in hand with fairy grace
Will we sing, and bless this place.
Titania
Puts the wretch that lies in woe,
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
THE SONG
Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we:
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be:
And the blots of nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand:
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate.
Every fairy take his gait,


## p. 13203 (#651) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13203
All
MIENS
A
WHERE IS FANCY BRED
From the Merchant of Venice'
A SONG [the whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself]
TELL
ELL me, where is fancy bred,-
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engendered in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy's knell;
I'll begin it,- Ding, dong, bell.
Ding, dong, bell.
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace with sweet peace;
Ever shall it safely rest,
And the owner of it blest.
Trip away; make no stay:
Meet me all by break of day.
-
UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE
From As You Like It'
Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,-
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall we see no enemy
But winter and rough weather.
All together-Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,-
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see no enemy
But winter and rough weather.


## p. 13204 (#652) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13204
Jaques - I'll give you a verse to this note, that I made yesterday
in despite of my invention.
Amiens And I'll sing it.
Jaques Thus it goes:-
--
-
-
If it do come to pass,
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease,
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame:
Here shall he see gross fools as he,
An if he will come to me.
Amiens-What's that ducdame?
Jaques 'Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle. I'll go
sleep if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.
B
BLOW, BLOW, THOU WINTER WIND
From As You Like It'
LOW, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude:
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly.
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then, heigh, ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly.
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then, heigh, ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.


## p. 13205 (#653) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13205
LOVE IN SPRINGTIME
From As You Like It'
T WAS a lover and his lass,
I¹ With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green cornfield did pass
In the springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that our life was but a flower,
In the springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crowned with the prime
In the springtime, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
ONE IN TEN
From All's Well That Ends Well'
WAS
As this fair face, quoth she, the cause
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
Fond done, done fond, good sooth it was:
Was this King Priam's joy?
With that she sighed as she stood,
And gave this sentence then:
Among nine bad if one be good,
There's yet one good in ten.


## p. 13206 (#654) ##########################################

13206
SHAKESPEARE
SWEET AND TWENTY
From Twelfth Night'
O
MISTRESS mine! where are you roaming?
Oh, stay, for here your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no farther, pretty sweeting:
Journeys end in lovers' meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,-
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Co
LOVE'S LAMENT
From Twelfth Night'
OME away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
Oh, prepare it:
My part of death no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, oh, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there.


## p. 13207 (#655) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13207
THE RAIN IT RAINETH
From Twelfth Night'
Clown sings, to pipe and tabor
HEN that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
WHE
But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my bed,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still I had drunken head,
For the rain it raineth every day.
1
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.
WHEN
WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER
From the Winter's Tale'
Enter Autolycus, singing
HEN daffodils begin to peer,—
With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,-
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,—
With, heigh! the sweet birds, oh, how they sing! -
Doth set my prigging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.


## p. 13208 (#656) ##########################################

13208
SHAKESPEARE
The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.
WHAT MAIDS LACK
From the Winter's Tale'
Enter Autolycus, singing
AWN, as white as driven snow;
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow;
Gloves, as sweet as damask roses:
Masks for faces, and for noses;
Bugle-bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden quoifs, and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:
Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy,
Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry:
Come, buy.
Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new'st, and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?
Come to the peddler;
Money's a meddler,
That doth utter all men's ware-a.
SWEET MUSIC
From King Henry VIII. '
Ο
RPHEUS with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops, that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music, plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.


## p. 13209 (#657) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13209
PHELIA-
Everything that heard him play-
Even the billows of the sea-
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die.
D
Queen
DOUBT NOT
From Hamlet'
OUBT thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
Enter Horatio, with Ophelia distracted
O' Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Queen-How now, Ophelia ?
DEAD AND GONE
From 'Hamlet'
Oh, ho!
Ophelia [singing] - How should I your true love know
From another one? -
-
-
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
Queen- Alas, sweet lady! what imports this song?
Ophelia - Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
[Singing]- He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a green grass turf,
At his heels a stone.
Queen
Ophelia -
Pray you, mark:-
[Singing]- White his shroud as the mountain snow
Enter King
- Alas! look here, my lord.
Nay, but, Ophelia —
-
-


## p. 13210 (#658) ##########################################

SHAKESPEARE
13210
Ophelia -
Ο
PHELIA [sings] —
Larded with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers.
―――
OPHELIA'S LAMENT
From Hamlet'
They bore him bare-faced on their bier;
Hey, non nonny, nonny, hey nonny:
And in his grave rained many a tear;-
-
Fare you well, my dove!