William Shakespeare - The Complete Apocryphal Works of William Shakespeare - All 17 Rare Plays in One Edition

Spurn thou thy fortunes first if they be base:

Come view thy second brother.—Fates,

My childrens blood

Shall spin into your faces, you shall see

How Confidently we scorn beggery!

[Exit with his Son.]

SCENE V. A bed-room in the same.

[Enter a maid with a child in her arms, the mother by her a step.]

MAID.

Sleep, sweet babe; sorrow makes thy mother sleep:

It bodes small good when heaviness falls so deep.

Hush, pretty boy, thy hopes might have been better.

Tis lost at Dice what ancient honour won:

Hard when the father plays away the son!

No thing but misery serves in this house.

Ruin and desolation, oh!

[Enter husband with the boy bleeding.]

HUSBAND.

Whore, give me that boy.

[Strives with her for the child.]

MAID.

Oh help, help! out alas, murder, murder!

HUSBAND.

Are you gossiping, prating, sturdy queane?

I’ll break your clamor with your neck: down stairs!

Tumble, tumble, headlong!

[Throws her down.]

So!

The surest way to charm a womans tongue

Is break her neck: a politician did it.

SON.

Mother, mother; I am kild, mother.

WIFE WAKES.

Ha, whose that cried? oh me, my children!

Both, both, both; bloody, bloody.

[Catches up the youngest.]

HUSBAND.

Strumpet, let go the boy, let go the beggar.

WIFE.

Oh my sweet husband!

HUSBAND.

Filth, harlot.

WIFE.

Oh what will you do, dear husband?

HUSBAND.

Give me the bastard.

WIFE.

Your own sweet boy!

HUSBAND.

There are too many beggars.

WIFE.

Good my husband—

HUSBAND.

Doest thou prevent me still?

WIFE.

Oh god!

HUSBAND.

Have at his heart!

[Stabs at the child in her arms.]

WIFE.

Oh my dear boy!

[Gets it from her.]

HUSBAND.

Brat, thou shalt not live to shame thy house!

WIFE.

Oh heaven!

[She’s hurt and sinks down.]

HUSBAND.

And perish! now begone:

There’s whores enow, and want would make thee one.

[Enter a lusty servant.]

SERVANT.

Oh Sir, what deeds are these?

HUSBAND.

Base slave, my vassail:

Comst thou between my fury to question me?

SERVANT.

Were you the Devil, I would hold you, sir.

HUSBAND.

Hold me? presumption! I’ll undo thee for’t.

SERVANT.

Sblood, you have undone us all, sir.

HUSBAND.

Tug at thy master!

SERVANT.

Tug at a Monster.

HUSBAND.

Have I no power? shall my slave fetter me?

SERVANT.

Nay, then, the Devil wrestles, I am thrown.

HUSBAND.

Oh, villain, now I’ll tug thee,

[Overthrows him]

now I’ll tear thee;

Set quick spurs to my vassail, bruize him, trample him.

So! I think thou wilt not follow me in haste.

My horse stands ready saddled. Away, away;

Now to my brat at nurse, my suckling begger.

Fates, I’ll not leave you one to trample on.

SCENE VI. Court before the house.

[The Master meets him.]

MASTER.

How ist with you, sir? me thinks you look

Of a distracted colour.

HUSBAND.

Who? I, sir? tis but your fancy.

Please you walk in, Sir, and I’ll soon resolve you:

I want one small part to make up the sum,

And then my brother shall rest satisfied.

MASTER.

I shall be glad to see it: sir, I’ll attend you.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE VII. The same as Scene V.

SERVANT.

Oh I am scarce able to heave up my self:

Ha’s so bruizd me with his devilish weight,

And torn my flesh with his blood-hasty spur,

A man before of easy constitution

Till now hell’s power supplied, to his soul’s wrong.

Oh, how damnation can make weak men strong.

[Enter Master, and two servants.]

SERVANT.

Oh, the most piteous deed, sir, since you came.

MASTER.

A deadly greeting! has he somde up these

To satisfy his brother? here’s an other:

And by the bleeding infants, the dead mother.

WIFE.

Oh, oh.

MASTER.

Surgeons, Surgeons! she recovers life.

One of his men all faint and bloodied.

1 SERVANT.

Follow, our murderous master has took horse

To kill his child at nurse: oh, follow quickly.

MASTER.

I am the readiest, it shall be my charge

To raise the town upon him.

[Exit Master and servants.]

1 SERVANT. Good sir, do follow him.

WIFE.

Oh my children.

1 SERVANT. How is it with my most afflicted Mistress?

WIFE.

Why do I now recover? Why half live?

To see my children bleed before mine eyes?

A sight able to kill a mothers breast

Without an executioner! what, art thou

Mangled too?

1 SERVANT.

I, thinking to prevent what his quick mischiefs

Had so soon acted, came and rusht upon him.

We struggled, but a fouler strength then his

O’er threw me with his arms; then did me bruize me

And rent my flesh, and robd me of my hair,

Like a man mad in execution;

Made me unfit to rise and follow him.

WIFE.

What is it has beguild him of all grace

And stole away humanity from his breast?

To slay his children, purpose to kill his wife,

And spoil his servants.

[Enter two guards.]

AMBO.

Sir, please you leave this most accursed place,

A surgeon waits within.

WIFE.

Willing to leave it!

Tis guilty of sweet blood, innocent blood:

Murder has took this chamaber with full hands,

And will ne’er out as long as the house stands.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE VIII. A high road.

[Enter Husband as being thrown off his horse,

And falls.]

HUSBAND.

Oh stumbling Jade, the spavin overtake thee,

The fifty disease stop thee!

Oh, I am sorely bruisde; plague founder thee:

Thou runst at ease and pleasure. Hart of chance!

To Throw me now within a flight oth Town,

In such plain even ground, sfoot, a man

May dice up on’t, and throw away the Meadows.

Filthy beast.

CRY WITHIN.

Follow, follow, follow.

HUSBAND.

Ha! I hear sounds of men, like hew and cry:

Up, up, and struggle to thy horse, make on;

Dispatch that little begger and all’s done.

KNIGHT.

Here, this way, this way!

HUSBAND.

At my back? Oh,

What fate have I? my limbs deny me go,

My will is bated: beggery claims a part.

Oh, could I here reach to the infants heart.

[Enter Master of the College, 3. Gentlemen, and others with

Holberds.]

[Find him.]

ALL.

Here, here: yonder, yonder.

MASTER.

Unnatural, flinty, more than barbarous:

The Scythians or the marble hearted fates

Could not have acted more remorseless deeds

In their relentless natures, then these of thine:

Was this the answer I long waited on,

The satisfaction for thy prisoned brother?

HUSBAND.

Why, he can have no more on’s then our skins,

And some of em want but fleaing.

1 GENTLEMAN. Great sins have made him imprudent.

MASTER.

H’as shed so much blood that he cannot blush.

2 GENTLEMAN.

Away with him, bear him a long to the Justices;

A gentleman of worship dwells at hand;

There shall his deeds be blazed.

HUSBAND.

Why, all the better.

My glory tis to have my action known:

I grieve for nothing, but I mist of one.

MASTER.

There’s little of a father in that grief:

Bear him away.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IX. A room in the house of a Magistrate.

[Enter a knight with two or three Gentlemen.]

KNIGHT.

Endangered so his wife? murdered his children?

1 GENTLEMAN. So the Cry comes.