William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

All 213 Plays, Poems, Sonnets, Apocryphas & The Biography: Including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet…

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musaicumbooks@okpublishing.info2017 OK Publishing ISBN 978-80-272-3331-1

COMEDIES

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

AS YOU LIKE IT

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

THE TEMPEST

TWELFTH NIGHT OR, WHAT YOU WILL

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

THE WINTER’S TALE

HISTORIES

KING JOHN

THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND

KING HENRY IV, THE FIRST PART

KING HENRY IV, SECOND PART

KING HENRY V

KING HENRY VI, FIRST PART

KING HENRY THE SIXTH, SECOND PART

KING HENRY THE SIXTH, THIRD PART

THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III

KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

TRAGEDIES

ROMEO AND JULIET

CORIOLANUS

TITUS ANDRONICUS

TIMON OF ATHENS

JULIUS CAESAR

MACBETH

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

KING LEAR

OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

CYMBELINE

APOCRYPHAL PLAYS

ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM

A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY

THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF LOCRINE

MUCEDORUS THE KING’S SON OF VALENTIA, AND AMADINE, THE KING’S DAUGHTER OF ARRAGON.

THE LONDON PRODIGAL

THE PURITAINE WIDDOW

THE SECOND MAIDEN’S TRAGEDY

SIR JOHN OLD CASTLE

LORD CROMWELL

KING EDWARD THE THIRD

EDMUND IRONSIDE

SIR THOMAS MORE

FAIRE EM

A FAIRY TALE IN TWO ACTS

THE MERRY DEVILL OF EDMONTON

THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK

POETRY

THE SONNETS

VENUS AND ADONIS

THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE

A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PREFACE

I—PARENTAGE AND BIRTH

II—CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE

III—THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD

IV—ON THE LONDON STAGE

V.—EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS

VI—THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC

VII—THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY

VIII—THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS

IX—THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON

X—THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS

XI—THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER

XII—THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE

XIII—MATURITY OF GENIUS

XIV—THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY

XV—THE LATEST PLAYS

XVI—THE CLOSE OF LIFE

XVII—SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS

XVIII—AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS

XIX—BIBLIOGRAPHY

XX—POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

XXI—GENERAL ESTIMATE

APPENDIX

Table of Contents

By William Shakespeare

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING OF FRANCE.

THE DUKE OF FLORENCE.

BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon.

LAFEU, an old Lord.

PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram.

Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram in the

Florentine War.

Steward, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.

Clown, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.

A Page, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon.

COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, Mother to Bertram.

HELENA, a Gentlewoman protected by the Countess.

An old Widow of Florence.

DIANA, daughter to the Widow.

VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow.

Lords attending on the KING; Officers; Soldiers, &c., French and

Florentine.

SCENE: Partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS’S palace.

[Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black.]

COUNTESS.

In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o’er my father’s death anew; but I must attend his majesty’s command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

LAFEU. You shall find of the king a husband, madam;—you, sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

COUNTESS.

What hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?

LAFEU. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope; and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father—O, that ‘had!’ how sad a passage ‘tis!—whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king’s sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease.

LAFEU.

How called you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so—Gerard de Narbon.

LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have liv’d still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

BERTRAM.

What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

LAFEU.

A fistula, my lord.

BERTRAM.

I heard not of it before.

LAFEU. I would it were not notorious.—Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity,—they are virtues and traitors too: in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

LAFEU.

Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

COUNTESS. ‘Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena,—go to, no more, lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have.

HELENA.

I do affect a sorrow indeed; but I have it too.

LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.

COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

BERTRAM.

Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

LAFEU.

How understand we that?

COUNTESS.

Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father

In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue

Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness

Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,

Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy

Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend

Under thy own life’s key: be check’d for silence,

But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will,

That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell.—My lord,