Classic Poem

THE ORDER OF THE DUMB SHOW BEFORE THE FIRST ACT, AND THE SIGNIFICATION THEREOF . First, the music of violins began to play, during which came in upon the stage six wild men, clothed in leaves. Of whom the first bare on his neck a fagot of small sticks, which they all, both severally and together, assayed with all their strength to break; but it could not be broken by them. At the length, one of them pulled out one of the sticks, and brake it: and the rest plucking out all the other sticks, one after another, did easily break them, the same being severed; which being conjoined, they had before attempted in vain. After they had this done, they departed the stage, and the music ceased. Hereby was signified, that a state knit in unity doth continue strong against all force, but being divided, is easily destroyed; as befel upon Duke Gorboduc dividing his land to his two sons, which he before held in monarchy ; and upon the dissention of the brethren, to whom it was divided.

ACT I. Scene I.

V IDENA . F ERREX .

Videna.

T HE silent night that brings the quiet pause,
From painful travails of the weary day,
Prolongs my careful thoughts, and makes me blame
The slow Aurore , that so for love or shame
Doth long delay to show her blushing face,
And now the day renews my griefful plaint.
Fer. My gracious lady, and my mother dear,
Pardon my grief for your so grieved mind
To ask what cause tormenteth so your heart.
Vid. So great a wrong and so unjust despite,
Without all cause against all course of kind!
Fer. Such causeless wrong and so unjust despite,
May have redress, or, at the least, revenge.
Vid. Neither, my son; such is the froward will,
The person such, such my mishap and thine.
Fer. Mine know I none, but grief for your distress.
Vid. Yes; mine for thine, my son. A father? no:
In kind a father, not in kindliness.
Fer. My Father? why, I know nothing at all,
Wherein I have misdone unto his grace.
Vid. Therefore, the more unkind to thee and me.
For, knowing well, my son, the tender love
That I have ever borne, and bear to thee;
He grieved thereat, is not content alone,
To spoil thee of my sight, my chiefest joy,
But thee, of thy birth-right and heritage,
Causeless, unkindly, and in wrongful wise,
Against all law and right, he will bereave:
Half of his kingdom he will give away.
Fer. To whom?
Vid. Even to Porrex , his younger son;
Whose growing pride I do so sore suspect,
That, being rais'd to equal rule with thee,
Methinks I see his envious heart to swell,
Fill'd with disdain and with ambitious hope.
The end the gods do know, whose altars I
Full oft have made in vain of cattle slain
To send the sacred smoke to Heaven's throne,
For thee, my son, if things do so succeed,
As now my jealous mind misdeemeth sore.
Fer. Madam, leave care and careful plaint for me.
Just hath my father been to every wight:
His first injustice he will not extend
To me, I trust, that give no cause thereof;
My brother's pride shall hurt himself, not me.
Vid. So grant the gods! But yet, thy father so
Hath firmly fixed his unmoved mind,
That plaints and prayers can no whit avail;
For those have I assay'd, but even this day
He will endeavour to procure assent
Of all his council to his fond devise.
Fer. Their ancestors from race to race have borne
True faith to my forefathers and their seed:
I trust they eke will bear the like to me.
Vid. There resteth all. But if they fail thereof,
And if the end bring forth an ill success,
On them and theirs the mischief shall befall,
And so I pray the gods requite it them;
And so they will, for so is wont to be,
When lords and trusted rulers under kings,
To please the present fancy of the prince,
With wrong transpose the course of governance,
Murders, mischief, and civil sword at length,
Or mutual treason, or a just revenge,
When right succeeding line returns again,
By Jove's just judgment and deserved wrath,
Brings them to cruel and reproachful death,
And roots their names and kindreds from the earth.
Fer. Mother, content you, you shall see the end.
Vid. The end! thy end I fear: Jove end me first!

ACT I. Scene II.

G ORBODUC . A ROSIUS . P HILANDER . E UBULUS .

Gor. My lords, whose grave advice and faithful aid
Have long upheld my honour and my realm,
And brought me to this ago from tender years,
Guiding so great estate with great renown:
Now more importeth me, than erst to use
Your faith and wisdom, whereby yet I reign;
That when by death my life and rule shall cease,
The kingdom yet may with unbroken course
Have certain prince, by whose undoubted right
Your wealth and peace may stand in quiet stay;
And eke that they, whom nature hath prepared,
In time to take my place in princely seat,
While in their father's time their pliant youth
Yields to the frame of skilful governance,
May so be taught and trained in noble arts,
As what their fathers, which have reigned before,
Have with great fame derived down to them,
With honour they may leave unto their seed;
And not be thought, for their unworthy life,
And for their lawless swerving out of kind,
Worthy to lose what law and kind them gave;
But that they may preserve the common peace,
The cause that first began and still maintains
The lineal course of kings' inheritance,
For me, for mine, for you, and for the state
Whereof both I and you have charge and care.
Thus do I mean to use your wonted faith
To me and mine, and to your native land.
My lords, be plain without all wry respect,
Or poisonous craft to speak in pleasing wise,
Lest as the blame of ill succeeding things
Shall light on you, so light the harms also.
Aros. Your good acceptance so, most noble king,
Of such our faithfulness, as heretofore
We have employed in duties to your grace,
And to this realm, whose worthy head you are,
Well proves, that neither you mistrust at all,
Nor we shall need in boasting wise to show
Our truth to you, nor yet our wakeful care
For you, for yours, and for our native land.
Wherefore, O king, I speak as one for all,
Sith all as one do bear you equal faith:
Doubt not to use our counsels and our aids,
Whose honours, goods, and lives are whole avow'd,
To serve, to aid, and to defend your grace.
Gor. My lords, I thank you all. This is the case:
Ye know, the gods, who have the sovereign care
For kings, for kingdoms, and for common weals,
Gave me two sons in my more lusty age,
Who now, in my decaying years, are grown
Well towards riper state of mind and strength,
To take in hand some greater princely charge.
As yet they live and spend their hopeful days
With me, and with their mother, here in court.
Their age now asketh other place and trade,
And mine also doth ask another change,
Theirs to more travail, mine to greater case.
When fatal death shall end my mortal life,
My purpose is to leave unto them twain,
The realm divided in two sundry parts:
The one, Ferrex , mine elder son, shall have,
The other, shall the younger, Porrex , rule.
That both my purpose may more firmly stand,
And eke that they may better rule their charge,
I mean forthwith to place them in the same;
That in my life they may both learn to rule,
And I may joy to see their ruling well.
This is, in sum, what I would have you weigh:
First, whether ye allow my whole devise,
And think it good for me, for them, for you,
And for our country, mother of us all:
And if ye like it and allow it well,
Then, for their guiding and their governance,
Show forth such means of circumstance,
As ye think meet to be both known and kept.
Lo, this is all; now tell me your advice.
Aros. And this is much, and asketh great advice:
But for my part, my sovereign lord and king,
This do I think: Your majesty doth know,
How under you, in justice and in peace,
Great wealth and honour long we have enjoy'd:
So as we cannot seem with greedy minds
To wish for change of prince or governance:
But if we like your purpose and devise,
Our liking must be deemed to proceed
Of rightful reason, and of heedful care,
Not for ourselves, but for the common state,
Sith our own state doth need no better change.
I think in all as erst your grace hath said:
First, when you shall unload your aged mind
Of heavy care and troubles manifold,
And lay the same upon my lords, your sons,
Whose growing years may bear the burden long,
(And long I pray the gods to grant it so)
And in your life, while you shall so behold
Their rule, their virtues, and their noble deeds,
Such as their kind behighteth to us all,
Great be the profits that shall grow thereof;
Your age in quiet shall the longer last,
Your lasting age shall be their longer stay.
For cares of kings, that rule as you have rul'd,
For public wealth, and not for private joy,
Do waste man's life and hasten crooked age,
With furrowed face, and with enfeebled limbs,
To draw on creeping death a swifter pace.
They two, yet young, shall bear the parted reign
With greater case than one, now old, alone
Can wield the whole, for whom much harder is
With lessened strength the double weight to bear.
Your eye, your counsel, and the grave regard
Of father, yea, of such a father's name,
Now at beginning of their sundred reign,
When is the hazard of their whole success,
Shall bridle so their force of youthful heats,
And so restrain the rage of insolence,
Which most assails the young and noble minds,
And so shall guide and train in temper'd stay
Their yet green bending wits with reverend awe,
As now inur'd with virtues at the first,
Custom, O king, shall bring delightfulness,
By use of virtue, vice shall grow in hate.
But if you so dispose it, that the day
Which ends your life, shall first begin their reign,
Great is the peril, what will be the end,
When such beginning of such liberties,
Void of such stays as in your life do lie,
Shall leave them free to random of their will,
An open prey to traiterous flattery,
The greatest pestilence of noble youth:
Which peril shall be past, if in your life,
Their temper'd youth with aged father's awe
Be brought in ure of skilful stayedness;
And in your life, their lives disposed so
Shall length your noble life in joyfulness.
Thus think I that your grace hath wisely thought,
And that your tender care of common weal
Hath bred this thought, so to divide your land,
And plant your sons to bear the present rule,
While you yet live to see their ruling well,
That you may longer live by joy therein.
What further means behooveful are and meet,
At greater leisure may your grace devise,
When all have said, and when we be agreed
If this be best, to part the realm in twain,
And place your sons in present government:
Whereof, as I have plainly said my mind,
So would I hear the rest of all my lords.
Phil . In part I think as hath been said before;
In part, again, my mind is otherwise.
As for dividing of this realm in twain,
And lotting out the same in equal parts
To either of my lords, your grace's sons,
That think I best for this your realm's behoof,
For profit and advancement of your sons,
And for your comfort and your honour eke:
But so to place them while your life do last,
To yield to them your royal governance,
To be above them only in the name
Of father, not in kingly state also,
I think not good for you, for them, nor us.
This kingdom, since the bloody civil field
Where Morgan slain did yield his conquer'd part
Unto his cousin's sword in Camberland ,
Containeth all that whilom did suffice
Three noble sons of your forefather Brute ;
So your two sons it may suffice also,
The more the stronger, if they 'gree in one.
The smaller compass that the realm doth hold,
The easier is the sway thereof to wield,
The nearer justice to the wronged poor,
The smaller charge, and yet enough for one.
And when the region is divided so
That brethren be the lords of either part,
Such strength doth nature knit between them both,
In sundry bodies by conjoined love,
That, not as two, but one of doubled force,
Each is to other as a sure defence:
The nobleness and glory of the one
Doth sharp the courage of the other's mind,
With virtuous envy to contend for praise.
And such an equalness hath nature made
Between the brethren of one father's seed,
As an unkindly wrong it seems to be,
To throw the brother subject under feet
Of him, whose peer he is by course of kind;
And Nature, that did make this equalness,
Oft so repineth at so great a wrong,
That oft she raiseth up a grudging grief
In younger brethren at the elder's state:
Whereby both towns and kingdoms have been rased,
And famous stocks of royal blood destroyed:
The brother, that should be the brother's aid,
And have a wakeful care for his defence,
Gapes for his death, and blames the lingering years
That draw not forth his end with faster course;
And, oft impatient of so long delays,
With hateful slaughter he prevents the fates,
And heaps a just reward for brother's blood,
With endless vengeance on his stock for aye.
Such mischiefs here are wisely met withal;
If equal state may nourish equal love,
Where none hath cause to grudge at other's good.
But now the head to stoop beneath them both,
Ne kind, ne reason, ne good order bears.
And oft it hath been seen, where nature's course
Hath been perverted in disordered wise,
When fathers cease to know that they should rule,
The children cease to know they should obey;
And often over kindly tenderness
Is mother of unkindly stubbornness.
I speak not this in envy or reproach,
As if I grudg'd the glory of your sons,
Whose honour I beseech the gods increase:
Nor yet as if I thought there did remain
So filthy cankers in their noble breasts,
Whom I esteem (which is their greatest praise)
Undoubted children of so good a king.
Only I mean to show by certain rules,
Which kind hath graft within the mind of man,
That Nature hath her order and her course,
Which (being broken) doth corrupt the state
Of minds and things, ev'n in the best of all.
My lords, your sons, may learn to rule of you,
Your own example in your noble court
Is fittest guider of their youthful years.
If you desire to see some present joy
By sight of their well ruling in your life,
See them obey, so shall you see them rule:
Who so obeyeth not with humbleness
Will rule with outrage and with insolence.
Long may they rule, I do beseech the gods,
Long may they learn, ere they begin to rule.
If kind and fates would suffer, I would wish
Them aged princes, and immortal kings.
Wherefore, most noble king, I well assent
Between your sons that you divide your realm,
And as in kind, so match them in degree.
But while the gods prolong your royal life,
Prolong your reign; for thereto live you here,
And therefore have the gods so long forborne
To join you to themselves, that still you might
Be prince and father of our common weal.
They, when they see your children ripe to rule,
Will make them room, and will remove you hence,
That yours, in right ensuing of your life,
May rightly honour your immortal name.
Eub. Your wonted true regard of faithful hearts
Makes me, O king, the bolder to presume
To speak what I conceive within my breast;
Although the same do not agree at all
With that which other here my lords have said,
Nor which yourself have seemed best to like.
Pardon I crave, and that my words be deem'd
To flow from hearty zeal unto your grace,
And to the safety of your common weal.
To part your realm unto my lords, your sons,
I think not good for you, ne yet for them,
But worst of all for this our native land.
Within one land, one single rule is best:
Divided reigns do make divided hearts;
But peace preserves the country and the prince.
Such is in man the greedy mind to reign,
So great is his desire to climb aloft,
In worldly stage the stateliest parts to bear,
That faith and justice, and all kindly love,
Do yield unto desire of sovereignty,
Where equal state doth raise an equal hope
To win the thing that either would attain.
Your grace remembereth how in passed years,
The mighty Brute , first prince of all this land,
Possess'd the same, and rul'd it well in one:
He, thinking that the compass did suffice
For his three sons three kingdoms eke to make,
Cut it in three, as you would now in twain.
But how much British blood hath since been spilt,
To join again the sunder'd unity!
What princes slain before their timely hour!
What waste of towns and people in the land!
What treasons heap'd on murders and on spoils!
Whose just revenge ev'n yet is scarcely ceas'd,
Ruthful remembrance is yet raw in mind.
The gods forbid the like to chance again:
And you, O king, give not the cause thereof.
My lord Ferrex , your elder son, perhaps
(Whom kind and custom gives a rightful hope
To be your heir, and to succeed your reign)
Shall think that he doth suffer greater wrong
Than he perchance will bear, if power serve.
Porrex , the younger, so uprais'd in state,
Perhaps in courage will be rais'd also.
If flattery then, which fails not to assail
The tender minds of yet unskilful youth,
In one shall kindle and increase disdain,
And envy in the other's heart inflame,
This fire shall waste their love, their lives, their land,
And ruthful ruin shall destroy them both.
I wish not this, O king, so to befall,
But fear the thing, that I do most abhor.
Give no beginning to so dreadful end,
Keep them in order and obedience,
And let them both by now obeying you,
Learn such behaviour as beseems their state;
The elder, mildness in his governance,
The younger, a yielding contentedness.
And keep them near unto your presence still,
That they, restrained by the awe of you,
May live in compass of well temper'd stay,
And pass the perils of their youthful years.
Your aged life draws on to feebler time,
Wherein you shall less able be to bear
The travails that in youth you have sustain'd,
Both in your person's and your realm's defence.
If planting now your sons in further parts,
You send them further from your present reach,
Less shall you know how they themselves demean:
Traiterous corrupters of their pliant youth
Shall have unspied a much more free access;
And if ambition and inflam'd disdain
Shall arm the one, the other, or them both,
To civil war, or to usurping pride,
Late shall you rue that you ne reck'd before.
Good is I grant of all to hope the best,
But not to live still dreadless of the worst.
So trust the one that th' other be foreseen.
Arm not unskilfulness with princely power.
But you that long have wisely rul'd the reins
Of royalty within your noble realm,
So hold them, while the gods, for our avails,
Shall stretch the thread of your prolonged days.
Too soon he clomb into the flaming car,
Whose want of skill did set the earth on fire.
Time, and example of your noble Grace,
Shall teach your sons both to obey and rule.
When time hath taught them, time shall make them place,
The place that now is full: and so I pray
Long it remain, to comfort of us all.
Gor. I take your faithful hearts in thankful part:
But sith I see no cause to draw my mind,
To fear the nature of my loving sons,
Or to misdeem that envy or disdain
Can there work hate, where nature planteth love;
In one self purpose do I still abide.
My love extendeth equally to both,
My land sufficeth for them both also.
Humber shall part the marches of their realms:
The southern part the elder shall possess,
The northern shall Porrex , the younger, rule.
In quiet I will pass mine aged days,
Free from the travail, and the painful cares,
That hasten age upon the worthiest kings.
But lest the fraud, that ye do seem to fear,
Of flattering tongues, corrupt their tender youth,
And writhe them to the ways of youthful lust,
To climbing pride, or to revenging hate,
Or to neglecting of their careful charge
Lewdly to live in wanton recklessness,
Or to oppressing of the rightful cause,
Or not to wreak the wrongs done to the poor,
To tread down truth, or favour false deceit;
I mean to join to either of my sons
Some one of those, whose long approved faith
And wisdom tried, may well assure my heart,
That mining fraud shall find no way to creep
Into their fenced ears with grave advice.
This is the end; and so I pray you all
To bear my sons the love and loyalty
That I have found within your faithful breasts.
Aros. You, nor your sons, my sovereign lord, shall want
Our faith and service, while our hearts do last.

C HORUS.

When settled stay doth hold the royal throne
In steadfast place, by known and doubtless right,
And chiefly when descent on one alone
Makes single and unparted reign to light;
Each change of course unjoints the whole estate,
And yields it thrall to ruin by debate.

The strength that knit by fast accord in one,
Against all foreign power of mighty foes,
Could of itself defend itself alone,
Disjoined once, the former force doth lose.
The sticks, that sunder'd brake so soon in twain,
In fagot bound attempted were in vain.

Oft tender mind that leads the partial eye
Of erring parents in their children's love,
Destroys the wrongly loved child thereby.
This doth the proud son of Apollo prove,
Who, rashly set in chariot of his sire,
Inflam'd the parched earth with heaven's fire.

And this great king that doth divide his land,
And change the course of his descending crown,
And yields the reign into his children's hand,
From blissful state of joy and great renown,
A mirror shall become to princes all,
To learn to shun the cause of such a fall.