My cousin Westmoreland? - No, my fair cousin : If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold; Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not, if men my gar ments wear: Such outer things dwell not in my desires: But, if it be a sin to covet honor, God's peace! I would not lose so great an honor, As one man more, methinks, would share from me, For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more: Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he who hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in that man's company, That fears his fellowship to die with He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, And say To-morrow Crispian: is Saint Then will he strip his sleeves, and And say, these wounds I had on Old men forget; yet all shall be But he'll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day: then shall our names, Familiar in their mouths as household words, Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered: This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he, to-day, that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England, now abed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhood cheap, while any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. SHAKSPEARE. KING RICHARD'S SOLILOQUY. Richard III.-Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds, that lowered upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful adver saries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty, To strut before a wanton ambling nymph, I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashion And, if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mewed up; About a prophecy, which saysthat G Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes. SHAKSPEARE. BOADICEA. WHEN the British warrior queen, Sage beneath the spreading oak All the terrors of our tongues. Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre. HEROIC. She, with all a monarch's pride, Ruffians! pitiless as proud, Shame and ruin wait for you. BONDUCA. [Bonduca the British queen, taking occasion from a defeat of the Romans to impeach their valor, is rebuked by Caratac.] QUEEN BONDUCA, I do not grieve your fortune. If I grieve, 'tis at the bearing of your fortunes; You put too much wind to your sail : discretion And hardy valor are the twins of honor, And nursed together, make a conqueror; Divided, but a talker. 'Tis a truth, That Rome has fled before us twice, and routed; A truth we ought to crown the gods for, lady, And not our tongues. You call the Romans fearful, fleeing Romans, And Roman girls: Does this become a doer? are they such? Where is your conquest then? Why are your altars crowned with wreaths of flowers, The beast with gilt horns waiting for the fire? The holy Druidés composing songs a May-game? For hunting a poor herd of wretched Romans? Is it no more? shut up your temples, Britons, And let the husbandman redeem his heifers; Ne'er tied a longing virgin with more joy, Than I am married to that man that wounds me: And are not all these Roman? struck battles Ten I sucked these honored scars from, and all Roman. Ten years of bitter nights and heavy marches, When many a frozen storm sung through my cuirass, And made it doubtful whether that or I Were the more stubborn metal, have I wrought through, And all to try these Romans. Ten times a night I have swum the rivers, when the stars of Rome Shot at me as I floated, and the billows Tumbled their watery ruins on my shoulders, Charging my battered sides with troops of agues, And still to try these Romans; whom I found As ready, and as full of that I brought, (Which was not fear nor flight,) as valiant, As vigilant, as wise, to do and suffer, Ever advanced as forward as the Have I not seen these Britons rack swifter; not the quick The virgin from the hated ravisher My helm still on my head, my sword my prow, Turned to my foe my face, he cried out nobly, "Go, Briton, bear thy lion's whelp off safely; Thy manly sword has ransomed thee: grow strong, And let me meet thee once again in arms: Then if thou stand'st, thou art mine." I took his offer, And here I am to honor him. There's not a blow we gave since Julius landed, That was of strength and worth, but like records They file to after-ages. Our Registers The Romans are, for noble deeds of honor; And shall we burn their mentions with upbraidings? Had we a difference with some petty Isle, Or with our neighbors, lady, for our landmarks, The taking in of some rebellious Lord, Or making a head against commotions, After a day of blood, peace might be argued: But where we grapple for the ground we live on, The Liberty we hold as dear as life, The gods we worship, and next those, our honors, And with those swords that know no end of battle: Those men beside themselves allow no neighbor; Those minds that, where the day is, claim inheritance; And where the sun makes ripe the fruits, their harvest; And where they march, but measure out more ground To add to Rome, and here in the bowels on us; It must not be; no, as they are our foes, And those that must be so until we tire 'em, Let's use the peace of Honor, that's fair dealing; But in our ends, our swords. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. THE BARD. I. 1. "RUIN seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait; Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state. Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!" Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance: "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couched his quivering lance. The characters of hell to trace. The shrieks of death, through Berk- She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs, That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him wait! Amazement in his van, with flight combined, And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind. |