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

And he whose kindly love and liberal hand

Doth challenge nought but food deserts of me,

I will deliver over to your hands.

This night come to his house at aldersgate:

The doors I’ll leave unlock’d against you come.

No sooner shall ye Enter through the latch,

Over the threshold to the inner court,

But on your left hand shall you see the stairs

That leads directly to my master’s chamber.

There take him and dispose him as ye please.

Now it were good we parted company;

That thus thy gentle life is levelled at?

The many good turns that thou hast done to me.

Now must I quittance with betraying thee.

I that should take the weapon in my hand

And buckler thee from ill intending foes,

Do lead thee with a wicked fraudful smile,

As unsuspected, to the slaughterhouse.

So have I sworn to Mosbie and my mistress,

So have I promised to the slaughtermen;

And should I not deal currently with them,

Their lawless rage would take revenge on me.

Tush, I will spurn at mercy for this once.

Let pity lodge where feeble women lie,

I am resolved, and Arden needs must die. (Exit MICHAEL

(here enters Arden and FRANKLIN

ARDEN

No, Franklin, no: if fear or stormy threats,

If love of me or care of womanhood,

If fear of god or common speech of men,

Who mangle credit with their wounding words,

And couch dishonor as dishonor buds,

Might join repentance in her wanton thoughts,

No question then but she would turn the leaf,

But she is rooted in her wickedness,

Perverse and stubborn, not to be reclaimed;

Good counsel is to her as rain to weeds,

And reprehension makes her vice to grow

As hydra’s head that plenish’d by decay.

Her faults, methink, are painted in my face,

For every searching eye to overread;

And Mosbie’s name, a scandal unto mine,

Is deeply trenched in my blushing brow.

Ah, Franklin, Franklin, when I think on this,

My heart’s grief rends my other powers

Worse than the conflict at the hour of death.

FRANKLIN

Gentle Arden, leave this sad lament:

She will amend, and so your griefs will cease;

Or else she’ll die, and so your sorrows end.

If neither of these two do happily fall,

Yet let your comgort be, that others bear

Your woes, twice doubled all, with patience.

ARDEN

My house is irksome; there I cannot rest.

FRANKLIN

Then stay with me in London; go not home.

ARDEN

Then that base Mosbie doth usurp my room,

And makes his triumph of my being thence.

At home or not at home, where’er I be.

Here, here it lies, ah Franklin, here it lies

That will not out till wretched Arden dies.

(here enters MICHAEL

FRANKLIN

Forget your griefs a while; here comes your man.

ARDEN

What o’clock is’t, sirrah?

MICHAEL

Almost ten.

ARDEN

See, see, how runs away the weary time!

Come, master Franklin, shall we go to bed?

(Exeunt Arden and MICHAEL

Manet FRANKLIN

FRANKLIN

I pray you, go before: I’ll follow you.

-ah, what a hell is fretful jealousy!

What pity-moving words, what deep fetch’d sighs!

What grievous groans and overlading woes

Accompanies this gentle gentleman!

Now will he shake his care oppressed head

Then fix his sad eyes on the sullen earth,

Ashamed to gaze upon the open world;

Now will he cast his eyes up towards the heavens,

Sometimes he seeketh to beguile his grief

And tells a story with his careful tongue;

Then comes his wife’s dishonor in his thoughts

And in the middle cutteth off his tale,

Pouring fresh sorrow on his weary limbs.

So woe-begone, so inly charged with woe,

Was never any lived and bare it so.

(here enters MICHAEL

MICHAEL

My master would desire you come to bed.

FRANKLIN

Is he himself already in his bed?

(Exit FRANKLIN

Manet MICHAEL

MICHAEL

He is, and fain would have the light away.

Conflicting thoughts, encamped in my breast,

Awake me with the echo of their strokes,

And i, a judge to censure either side,

Can give to neither wished victory.

Staring and grinning in thy gentle face,

And in their ruthless hands their daggers drawn,

Insulting o’er there with a peck of oaths,

Whilst thou submissive, pleading for relief,

Art mangled by their ireful instruments.

Me thinks I hear them ask where Michael is,

And pitiless Black Will cries: ‘stab the slave!

The peasant will detect the tragedy!’

The wrinkles in his foul death threat’ning face

Gape open wide, like graves to swallow men.

My death to him is but a merriment,

And he will murder me to make him sport.

He comes, he comes! Ah, master Franklin, help!

Call up the neighbors, or we are but dead!

(here Enter Franklin and ARDEN

Fran. What dismal outcry calls me from my rest?

ARDEN

What hath occasioned such a fearful cry?

speak, Michael: hath any injured thee?

MICHAEL

Nothing, sir; but as I fell asleep,

Upon the threshold leaning to the stairs,

I had a fearful dream that troubled me,

And in my slumber thought I was beset

With murderer thieves that came to rifle me.

My trembling joints witness my inward fear:

I crave your pardons for disturbing you.

What? Are the doors fast locked and all things safe?

MICHAEL