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 Certain devices and shows presented to her Majesty by the gentlemen of Gray’s Inn at her Highness’ court in Greenwich, the twenty-eighth day of February in the thirtieth year of her Majesty’s most happy reign. At London, printed by Robert Robinson. 1587.¹

An introduction penned by Nicolas Trotte,² Gentleman, one of the Society of Gray’s Inn; which was pronounced in manner following, viz.³ three Muses came upon the stage apparelled accordingly bringing five gentlemen students with them attired in their usual garments, whom one of the Muses presented to her Majesty as captives: the cause whereof she delivered by speech as followeth.

Of conquest (gracious Queen) the signs and fruits,
Achieved ’gainst such, as wrongfully withheld
The service by choice wits to Muses due;
In humbliest wise, these captives we present.
5And lest your Highness might suspect the gift
As spoil of war, that justice might impeach;
Hear and discern how just our quarrel was
Avowed (as you see) by good success.
A dame there is, whom men Astrea term,⁴
10She that pronounceth oracles of laws,
Who to prepare fit servants for her train
As by commission takes up flow’ring wits,
Whom first she schooleth to forget and scorn
The noble skills of language and of arts,
15The wisdom, which discourse of stories teach,
The ornaments which various knowledge yields;
But poesy she hath in most disdain,
And marshals it next folly’s scorned place.
Then, when she hath these worthy prints defaced
20Out of the minds that can endure her hand,
What doth she then supply instead of these?
Forsooth some old reports of altered laws,
Clamours of courts, and cavils upon words,
Grounds without ground, supported by conceit,
25And reasons of more subtilty than sense;
What shall I say of moot points strange, and doubts
Still argued but never yet agreed?
And she, that doth deride the poet’s law,
Because he must his words in order place,
30Forgets her forms of pleading more precise,
More bound to words than is the poet’s lore:
And for these fine conceits she fitly chose,
A tongue that barbarism itself doth use.
We, noting all these wrongs did long expect
35Their hard condition would have made them wise,
To offer us their service placed so ill,
But finding them addicted to their choice,
And specially desirous to present
You Majesty with fruits of province new,
40Now did resolve to double force and skill,
And found and used the vantage of the time,
Surprised their fort, and took them captives all.
So now submiss,⁵ as to their state belongs
They gladly yield their homage long withdrawn,
45And poetry which they did most contemn
They glory now her favours for to wear.
My sisters laughed to see them take the pen,
And lose their wits all in unwonted walks.
But to your highness that delight we leave,
50To see these poets new their style advance.
Such as they are, or naught or little worth,
Deign to accept, and therewith we beseech,
That novelty give price to worthless things.

Unto this speech one of the gentlemen answered as followeth.

Good ladies unacquaint⁶ with cunning reach,
And eas’ly led to glory in your power,
Hear now abashed our late dissembled minds.
Not now the first time as yourselves best know,
5Ye Muses sought our service to command;
Oft have ye wandered from Parnassus hill,⁷
And showed yourselves with sweet and tempting grace,
But yet returned, your train increased with few.
This resolution doth continue still.
10Unto Astrea’s name we honour bear,
Whose sound perfections we do more admire,
Than all the vaunted store of Muses’ gifts.
Let this be one (which last you put in ure,⁸
In well depraving that deserveth praise)
15No eloquence, disguising reason’s shape,
Nor poetry, each vain affection’s nurse,
No various history that doth lead the mind
Abroad to ancient tales from instant use,
Nor these, nor other mo,⁹ too long to note,
20Can win Astrea’s servants to remove
Their service, once devote¹⁰ to better things.
They with attentive minds and serious wits, 
Revolve records of deep judicial acts,
They weigh with steady and indifferent hand
25Each word of law, each circumstance of right,
They hold the grounds which time and use hath soothed¹¹
(Though shallow sense conceive them as conceits)
Presumptuous sense, whose ignorance dare judge
Of things removed by reason from her reach.
30One doubt in moots by argument increased
Clears many doubts, experience doth object.
The language she first chose, and still retains,
Exhibits naked truth in aptest terms.
Our industry maintaineth unimpeached
35Prerogative of prince, respect to peers,
The Commons’ liberty, and each man’s right:
Suppresseth mutin¹² force, and practic¹³ fraud, 
Things that for worth our studious care deserve.
40Yet never did we banish nor reject
Those ornaments of knowledge nor of tongues.
That slander envious ignorance did raise.
With Muses still we intercourse allow,
T’enrich our state with all their foreign freight:
45But never homage nor acknowledgement
Such as of subjects allegiance doth require.
Now hear the cause of your late conquest won
We had discovered your intent to be
(And sure ye,¹⁴ ladies are not secret all;
50Speech and not silence is the Muses’¹⁵ grace)
We well perceived (I say) your mind to be
T’employ such prisoners, as themselves did yield
To serve a queen, for whom her purest gold
Nature refined, that she might therein set
55Both private and imperial virtues all.
Thus (Sovereign Lady of our laws and us)
Zeal may transform us into any shape.
We, which with trembling hand the pen did guide
Never well-pleased all for desire to please
60For still your rare perfections did occur
Which are admired of Muses and of men:
Oh with how steady hand and heart assured
Should we take up the warlike lance or sword
With mind resolved to spend our loyal blood
65Your least command with speed to execute.
O that before our time the fleeting ship,
Ne’er wandered had in watery wilderness,
That we might first that venture undertake
In strange attempt t’approve our loyal hearts.
70Be it soldiers, seamen, poets, or what else.
In service once enjoined, to ready minds
Our want of use should our devoir¹⁶ increase.

Now since instead of art we bring but zeal,
Instead of praise we humbly pardon crave.
75The matter which we purpose to present,
Since straights of time our liberty controls
In tragic note the plagues of vice recounts.
How suits a tragedy for such a time?
Thus: for that since your sacred Majesty
80In gracious hands the regal scepter held
All tragedies are fled from state, to stage.

 

Nicholas Trotte.

 The Misfortunes of Arthur (Uther Pendragon’s son)  

 reduced into tragical notes by Thomas Hughes one of the Society of Gray’s Inn. And here set down as it passed from under his hands and as it was presented, excepting certain words and lines, where some of the actors either helped their memories by brief omission, or fitted their acting by some alteration. With a note in the end, of such speeches as were penned by others in lieu of some of these hereafter following.

The Argument of the Tragedy.

At a banquet made by Uther Pendragon for the solemnising of his conquest against the Saxons, he fell enamoured with Igerna wife to Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. Who perceiving the king’s passion, departed with his wife and prepared wars at Cornwall, where also in a strong-hold beyond him he placed her. Then the king levied an army to suppress him, but waxing impatient of his desire to Igerna, transformed himself by Merlin his cunning, into the likeness of Gorlois. And after his acceptance with Igerna he returned to his siege, where he slew Gorlois. Igerna was delivered of Arthur and Anne twins of the same birth. Uther Pendragon fifteen years after pursuing the Saxons was by them poisoned. Arthur delighted in his sister Anne, who made him father of Mordred. Seventeen years after Lucius Tiberius of Rome demanded a tribute due by the conquest of Caesar. Arthur gathered the powers of thirteen kings besides his own, and leaving his queen Guenevora in the tuition of Mordred, to whom likewise he committed the kingdom in his absence, arrived at France, where after 9 years’ wars, he sent the slain body of Tiberius unto Rome for the tribute. During this absence Mordred grew ambitious, for th’efffecting whereof he made love to Guenevora, who gave ear unto him. Then by th’assistance of Gilla, a British lord, he usurped, and for maintenance entertained with large promises the Saxons, Irish, Picts, and Normans. Guenevora hearing that Arthur was already embarked for return, through despair purposing diversly, sometimes to kill her husband, sometimes to kill herself, at last resolved to enter into religion. Arthur at his landing was resisted on the strands of Dover, where he put Mordred to flight. The last field was fought at Cornwall, where after the death of one hundred and twenty thousand saving on either side twenty, Mordred received his death, and Arthur his deadly wound.

The Argument and Manner of the First Dumb Show.

Sounding the music, there rose three Furies¹⁷ from under the stage apparelled accordingly with snakes and flames about their black hairs and garments. The first with a snake in the right hand and a cup of wine with a snake athwart the cup in the left hand. The second with a firebrand in the right hand, and a Cupid¹⁸ in the left. The third with a whip in the right hand and a Pegasus¹⁹ in the left. Whiles they went masking about the stage, there came from another place three nuns which walked by themselves. Then after a full sight given to the beholders, they all parted, the Furies to Mordred’s house, the nuns to the cloister. By the first Fury with the snake and cup was signified the banquet of Uther Pendragon, and afterward his death which ensued by poisoned cup. The second Fury with her firebrand and Cupid represented Uther’s unlawful heat and love conceived at the banquet, which never ceased in his posterity. By the third with her whip and Pegasus was prefigured the cruelty and ambition which thence ensued and continued to th’effecting of this tragedy. By the nuns was signified the remorse and despair of Guenevora, that wanting other hope took a nunnery for her refuge. After their departure, the four which represented the Chorus took their places.

 The Argument of the First Act.

 1. In the first scene the spirit of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, the man first and most wronged in this history being despoiled both of wife, dukedom and life, craveth revenge for these injuries, denouncing the whole misfortune ensuing.

 2. In the second scene, Guenevora, hearing that Arthur was on seas returning, desperately menaceth his death, from which intent she is dissuaded by Fronia, a lady of her court and privy to her secrets.

 3. In the third scene Guenevora perplexedly mindeth her own death, whence being dissuaded by her sister she resolveth to enter into religion.

 4. In the fourth scene Mordred goeth about to persuade Guenevora to persist in her love, but misseth thereof: and then is exhorted by Conan (a noble man of Britain) to reconcile himself to his father at his coming, but refuseth so to do and resolveth to keep him from landing by battle.

 The Names of the Speakers.

 

GORLOIS, Duke of Cornwall’s ghost. 
GUENEVORA, the Queen.  
FRONIA, a lady of her train.  
ANGHARAD, sister to the Queen. 
MORDRED the Usurper.   
CONAN, a faithful counsellor.  
NUNTIUS of Arthur’s landing.  
The HERALD from Arthur.  
GAWIN, King of Albany.  
GILLA: a British Earl.   
GILLAMOR, King of Ireland.

CHELDRICH, Duke of Saxony.

The LORD of the PICTS.

ARTHUR, King of Great Britain.

CADOR, Duke of Cornwall.

HOWELL,²⁰²¹ King of Little Britain.

The HERALD from Mordred.

ASCHILLUS, King of Denmark.

The KING of NORWAY.

A number of SOLDIERS.

NUNTIUS of the last battle.
GILDAS, a noble man of Britain.

CHORUS.

[1.1] The First Act and First Scene.

[Enter GORLOIS.]

GORLOIS  

Since thus through channels black of Limbo lake,²²
And deep infernal flood of Stygian pool,²³
The ghastly Charon’s²⁴ boat transported back
Thy ghost, from Pluto’s²⁵ pits and gloaming shades,
5To former light once lost by Dest’nies’²⁶ doom:
Where proud Pendragon broiled with shameful lust,
Despoiled thee erst of wife, of land, and life:
Now (Gorlois) work thy wish, cast here thy gall,
Glut on revenge: thy wrath abhors delays.
10 What though (besides Pendragon’s poisoned end)
The vile reproach he wrought thee by thy fere,²⁷
Through deep increase of crimes alike is plagued?
And that the shame thou suff’red’st for his lusts,
Reboundeth back, and stifleth in his stock?
15Yet is not mischief’s measure all fulfilled,
Nor wreak sufficient wrought: thy murdered corpse
And dukedom reft, for heavier vengeance cries.
 Come therefore blooms of settled mischief’s root,
Come each thing else, what fury can invent,
20Wreak all at once, infect the air with plagues,
Till bad to worse, till worse to worst be turned.
Let mischiefs know no mean, nor plagues an end.
Let th’offspring’s sin exceed the former stock:
Let none have time to hate his former fault,
25But still with fresh supply let punished crime
Increase, till time it make a complete sin.
 Go to: some fact, which no age shall allow,
Nor yet conceal: some fact must needs be dared,
That for the²⁸²⁹ horror great and outrage fell
30Thereof, may well beseem Pendragon’s brood.
And first, whiles Arthur’s navies homewards float
Triumphantly bedecked with Roman spoils:
Let Guenover express what frantic moods
Distract a wife, when wronging wedlock’s rights,
35Both fond and fell, she loves and loathes at once.
Let deep despair pursue, till loathing life
Her hateful head in cowl and cloister lurk.
 Let traitorous Mordred keep his sire from shore.
Let Britain rest a pray for foreign powers,³⁰³¹
40Let sword and fire still fed with mutual strife
Turn all the kings to ghosts, let civil wars
And discord swell till all the realm be torn.
 Even in that soil whereof myself was Duke,
Where first my spouse Igerna brake her vow,
45Where this ungracious offspring was begot,
In Cornwall, there, let Mordred’s death declare,

Let Arthur’s fatal wound bewray the wrong,
The murder vile, the rape of wife and weal,
Wherewith their sire incensed both gods and man.
50 Thus, thus Pendragon’s seed so sown and reaped,
Thus cursed imps, ill born, and worse consumed,
Shall render just revenge for parents’ crimes,
And penance due t’assuage my swelling wrath.
 The whiles O Cassiopeia³² gem-bright³³³⁴ sign,
55Most sacred sight, and sweet celestial star,
This climate’s joy, placed in imperial throne
With fragrant olive branch portending peace:
And whosoe’er besides ye heavenly powers
(Her stately train with influence divine,
60And mild aspect all prone to Britain’s good)
Foresee what present plagues do threat this isle:
Prevent not this my wreak. For you there rests
A happier age a thousand years to come:
An age for peace, religion, wealth, and ease,
65When all the world shall wonder at your bliss:
That, that is yours. Leave this to Gorlois’ ghost.
 And see where comes one engine of my hate,
With moods and manners fit for my revenge.    

Exit.

 [1.2] The Second Scene.

 [Enter] GUENEVORA [and] FRONIA.

GUENEVORA  

And dares he after nine years’ space return,
And see her face, whom he so long disdained?
Was I then chose and wedded for his stale,³⁵ 
To look and gape for his retireless sails,
5Puffed back, and flittering spread to every wind?
 O wrong content with no revenge: seek out
Undared plagues, teach Mordred how to rage.
Attempt some bloody, dreadful, irksome fact,
And such as Mordred would were rather his.
10 Why stayest? It must be done: let bridle go,
Frame out some trap beyond all vulgar guile,
Beyond Medea’s³⁶ wiles: attempt some fact,
That any wight unwieldy of herself,
That any spouse unfaithful to her fere,³⁷

15Durst ever attempt in most despair of weal.
Spare no revenge, b’it poison, knife, or fire.

FRONIA

Good madam, temper these outrageous moods,
And let not will usurp, where wit should rule.

GUENEVORA    

The wrath, that breatheth blood, doth loath to lurk.
20What reason most withholds, rage wrings perforce.
I am disdained: so will I not be long:
That very hour, that he shall first arrive,
Shall be the last, that shall afford him life.
   Though, neither seas, nor lands, nor wars abroad

25Sufficed for thy foil: yet shalt thou find
Far worse at home: thy deep displeased spouse.
Whate’er thou hast subdued in all thy stay,
This hand shall now subdue: then stay thy fill.
   What’s this? My mind recoils, and irks³⁸ these threats:
30Anger delays, my grief ’gins to assuage,
My fury faints, and sacred wedlock’s faith
Presents itself. Why shun’st thou fearful wrath?
Add coals afresh, preserve me to this venge.
 At least exile thyself to realms unknown,
35And steal his wealth to help thy banished state,
For flight is best. O base and heartless fear.
Theft? Exile? Flight? All these may Fortune send
Unsought: but thee beseems more high revenge.
   Come spiteful fiends, come heaps of Furies fell,
40Not one, by one, but all at once: my breast
Raves not enough: it likes me to be filled
With greater monsters yet. My heart doth throb:
My liver boils: somewhat my mind portends,
Uncertain what: but whatsoever, it’s huge.
45 So it exceed, be what it will: it’s well.
Omit no plague, and none will be enough.
Wrong cannot be revenged, but by excess.

FRONIA   

O spare this heat: you yield too much to rage,
Y’are too unjust: is there no mean in wrong?

GUENEVORA    

50Wrong claims a mean, when first you offer wrong,
The mean is vain, when wrong is in revenge.
Great harms cannot be hid, the grief is small,
That can receive advice, or rule itself.

FRONIA    

Hatred concealed doth often hap to hurt,
55But once professed, it oft’ner fails revenge.
How better though, were’t to repress your ire?
A lady’s best revenge is to forgive.
What mean is in your hate? How much soe’er
You can invent, or dare: so much you hate.

GUENEVORA   

60And would you know what mean there is in hate?
Call love to mind, and see what mean is there.
 My love, redoubled love, and constant faith
Engaged unto Mordred works so deep:

That both my heart and marrow quite be burnt,
65And sinews dried with force of wontless flames,
 Desire to joy him still, torments my mind:
Fear of his want doth add a double grief.
Lo here the love, that stirs this meanless hate.

FRONIA    

Eschew it far: such love impugns the laws.

GUENEVORA

70Unlawful love doth like, when lawful loathes.

FRONIA    

And is your love of husband quite extinct?

GUENEVORA  

The greater flame must needs delay the less.
Besides, his sore revenge I greatly fear.

FRONIA    

How can you then attempt a fresh offence?

GUENEVORA  

75Who can appoint a stint to her offence?

FRONIA  

But here the greatness of the fact should move.

GUENEVORA    

The greater it, the fitter for my grief:

FRONIA  

To kill your spouse?  

GUENEVORA   A stranger, and a foe.

FRONIA   

Your liege and king?  

GUENEVORA    He wants both realm and crown.

FRONIA  

80Nature affords not to your sex such strength.

GUENEVORA    

Love, anguish, wrath, will soon afford enough.

FRONIA  

What rage is this?  

GUENEVORA    Such as himself shall rue.

FRONIA    

Whom gods do press enough, will you annoy?

GUENEVORA  

Whom gods do press, they bend: whom man annoys,
85He breaks.  

FRONIA  Your grief is more than his deserts:
Each fault requires an equal hate: be not severe,
Where crimes be light: as you have felt, so grieve.

GUENEVORA   

And seems it light to want him nine year space?
Then to be spoiled of one I hold more dear?
90Think all too much, b’it ne’er so just, that feeds
Continual grief: the lasting woe is worst.
FRONIA  

Yet let your highness shun these desperate moods,
Cast off this rage, and fell-disposed mind.
Put not shame quite to flight, have some regard
95Both of your sex, and future fame of life.
Use no such cruel thoughts, as far exceed
A manly mind, much more a woman’s heart.

GUENEVORA   

Well: shame is not so quite exiled, but that
I can, and will respect your sage advice.
100Your counsel I accept, give³⁹ leave a while,
Till fiery wrath may slake, and rage relent.       

Exit FRON[IA].

 

[1.3] The third scene.

 GUENEVORA. [Enter] ANGHERAT.

GUENEVORA  

The love, that for his rage will not be ruled,
Must be restrained: fame shall receive no foil.
Let Arthur live, whereof to make him sure,
Myself will die, and so prevent his harms.
5 Why stayest thou thus amazed, O slothful wrath?
Mischief is meant, dispatch it on thyself.
ANGHARAT   

Her breast not yet appeased from former rage
Hath changed her wrath, which wanting means to work
Another’s woe, (for such is fury’s wont,)
10Seeks out his own, and raves upon itself.
 Assuage (alas) that over-fervent ire,
Through too much anger, you offend too much:
Thereby the rather you deserve to live,
For seeming worthy in yourself to die.

GUENEVORA   

15Death is decreed: what kind of death, I doubt:
Whether to dround,⁴⁰ or stifle up this⁴¹⁴² breath.
Or⁴³ forcing blood, to die with dint of knife.
 All hope of prosperous hap is gone, my fame,
My faith, my spouse: no good is left unlost:
20Myself am left, there’s left both seas and lands,
And sword, and fire, and chains, and choice of harms.
 O gnawing easeless grief. Who now can heal
My maimed mind? It must be healed by death.

ANGHARAT    

No mischief must be done, whiles I be by,
25Or if there must, there must be more than one.
If death it be you seek, I seek it too:
Alone you may not die, with me you may.

GUENEVORA   

They, that will drive th’unwilling to their death,
Or frustrate death in those, that fain would die,
30Offend alike. They spoil, that bootless spare.
ANGHARAT  

But will my tears and mournings move you nought?
GUENEVORA  

Then is it best to die, when friends do mourn.

ANGHARAT    

Each where is death: that, fates have well ordained,
That each man may bereave himself of life,
35But none of death: death is so sure a doom:
A thousand ways do guide us to our graves.
   Who then can ever come too late to that,
Whence, when h’is come, he never can return?
Or what avails to hasten on our ends,
40And long for that, which destinies have sworn?
   Look back in time, too late is to repent,
When furious rage hath once cut off the choice.
GUENEVORA  

Death is an end of pain,no pain itself.
Is’t meet a plague, for such excessive wrong,
45Should be so short? Should one stroke answer all?
And wouldst thou die? Well: that contents the laws,
What then for Arthur’s ire? What for thy fame,
Which thou hast stained? What for thy stock thou sham’st?
 Not death, nor life alone can give a full
50Revenge: join both in one. Die: and yet live.
Where pain may not be oft, let it be long.
 Seek out some lingering death, whereby, thy corpse
May neither touch the dead, nor joy the quick.
Die: but no common death: pass Nature’s bounds.

ANGHARAT   

55Set plaints aside, despair yields no relief.
The more you search a wound, the more it stings.
GUENEVORA   

When guilty minds torment themselves, they heal:
Whiles wounds be cured, grief is a salve for grief.

ANGHARAT   

Grief is no just esteemer of our deeds:
60What so hath yet been done, proceeds from chance.
GUENEVORA

The mind, and not the chance, doth make th’unchaste.
ANGHARAT

Then is your fault from Fate, you rest excused:
None can be deemed faulty for her Fate.
GUENEVORA  

No Fate, but manners fail, when we offend.
65Impute mishaps to Fates, to manners faults.
ANGHARAT  

Love is an error, that may blind the best.
GUENEVORA

A mighty error oft hath seemed a sin.
My death is vowed, and death must needs take place.
 But such a death, as stands with just remorse:
70Death, to the world, and to her slippery joys:
A full divorce from all this courtly pomp,

Where daily penance done for each offence,
May render due revenge for every wrong.
 Which to accomplish: pray my dearest friends,
75That they forthwith attired in saddest guise,
Conduct me to the cloister next hereby,
There to profess, and to renounce the world.
ANGHARAT  

Alas! What change were that, from kingly roofs
To cloistered cells? To live, and die at once?
80To want your stately troupes, your friends and kin?
To shun the shows and sights of stately court;
To see in sort alive, your country’s death?
Yea, whatso’er even death itself withdraws
From any else, that life withdraws from you.
85 Yet since your Highness is so fully bent,
I will obey; the whiles asswage your grief.      

Exit [ANGHARAT].

 [1.4] The fourth scene.

 [Enter] MORDRED [and] CONAN [to] GUENEVORA.

MORDRED

The hour which erst I always feared most,
The certain ruin of my desperate state,
Is happened now: why turn’st thou (mind) thy back?
Why at the first assault dost thou recoil?
5   Trust to’t: the angry heavens contrive some spite,
And dreadful doom, t’augment thy cursed hap.
Oppose to each revenge thy guilty head,
And shun no pain nor plague fit for thy fact.⁴⁴
   What should’st thou fear, that see’st not what to hope?
10No danger’s left before, all’s at thy back.
He safely stands, that stands beyond his harms.
 Thine (Death) is all, that east, or west can see,
For thee we live, our coming is not long,
Spare us, but whiles we may prepare our graves,
15Though thou wert slow, we hasten of ourselves.
   The hour that gave, did also take our lives:
No sooner men, than mortal were we born.
I see mine end draws on, I feel my plagues.
GUENEVORA  

No plague for one ill born, to die as ill.

MORDRED  

20O Queen! My sweet associate in this plunge,
And desperate plight, behold, the time is come,
That either justifies our former faults,
Or shortly sets us free from every fear.
GUENEVORA   

My fear is past, and wedlock love hath won.
25Retire we thither yet, whence first we ought
Not to have stirred. Call back chaste faith again.
 The way, that leads to good, is ne’er too late:
Who so repents, is guiltless of his crimes.
MORDRED  

What means this course? Is Arthur’s wedlock safe?
30Or can he love, that hath just cause to hate?
 That nothing else were to be feared:
Is most apparent, that he hates at home,
Whate’er he be, whose fancy strays abroad?
 Think then, our love is not unknown to him:
35Whereof what patience can be safely hoped?
Nor love, nor sovereignty can bear a peer.
GUENEVORA   

Why dost thou still stir up my flames delayed?
His strays and errors must not move my mind.
A law for private men binds not the king.
40 What, that I ought not to condemn my liege,
Nor can, thus guilty to mine own offence?
Where both have done amiss, both will relent.
He will forgive, that needs must be forgiven.
MORDRED  

A likely thing: your faults must make you friends:
45What sets you both at odds, must join you both:
 Think well he casts already for revenge,
And how to plague us both. I know his law,
A judge severe to us, mild to himself.
 What then avails you to return too late,
50When you have passed too far? You feed vain hopes.
GUENEVORA  

The further past, the more this fault is yours:
It served your turn, t’usurp your father’s crown.
His is the crime, whom crime stands most in stead.⁴⁵

MORDRED  

They, that conspire in faults offend alike:
55Crime makes them equal, whom it jointly stains.⁴⁶
   If for my sake you then partook my guilt,
You cannot guiltless seem, the crime was joint.
GUENEVORA  

Well should⁴⁷⁴⁸ she seem most guiltless unto thee,
Whate’er she be, that’s guilty for thy sake.
60 The remnant of that sober mind, which thou
Had’st heretofore ne’er vanquished, yet resists.
Suppress for shame that impious mouth so taught,
And too much skilled t’abuse the wedded bed.
 Look back to former fates: Troy still had stood,
65Had not her prince made light of wedlock’s lore.⁴⁹
The vice that threw down Troy doth threat thy throne:
Take heed: there Mordred stands, whence Paris fell.   

 Exit [GUENEVORA].

CONAN⁵⁰

Since that your highness knows for certain truth
What power your sire prepares to claim his right,
It nearly now concerns you to resolve
In humbliest sort to reconcile yourself
5’Gainst his return.  

MORDRED    Will war.  

CONAN       That lies in chance.

MORDRED

I have as great a share in chance, as he.
CONAN  

His ways be blind, that maketh chance his guide.

MORDRED   

Whose refuge lies in chance,⁵¹⁵² what dares he not?
CONAN  

Wars were a crime far worse than all the rest.
MORDRED  

10The safest passage is from bad to worse.

CONAN

That were to pass too far, and put no mean.

MORD

He is a fool, that puts a mean in crimes.

CONAN  

But sword and fire would cause a common wound.
MORDRED   

So sword and fire will often sear the sore.

CONAN  

15Extremest cures must not be used first.

MORDRED   

In desperate times, the headlong way is best.
CONAN

Y’have many foes.  

MORDRED    No more than faithful friends.

CONAN   

Trust to’t, their faith will faint, where Fortune fails.
Where many men pretend a love to one,
20Whose power may do what good, and harm he will:
’Tis hard to say, which be his faithful friends.
Dame Flattery flitteth oft: she loves and hates
With time, a present friend an absent foe.

<MORDRED>⁵³

But yet I’ll hope the best:  

<CONAN>⁵⁴    Even then you fear

25The worst. Fears follow hopes, as fumes do flames.
Mischief is sometimes safe, but ne’er secure:
The wrongful sceptre’s held with trembling hand.

MORDRED  

Whose rule wants right, his safety’s in his sword.
For sword and sceptre comes to kings at once.
CONAN  

30The kingliest point is to affect but right.
MORDRED  

Weak is the sceptre’s hold, that seeks but right,
The care whereof hath dangered⁵⁵ many crowns.
As much as water differeth from the fire,
So much man’s profit jars from what is just.
35 A free recourse to wrong doth oft secure

The doubtful seat, and plucks down many a foe.
The sword must seldom cease: a sovereign’s hand
Is scantly safe, but whiles it smites. Let him
Usurp no crown, that likes a guiltless life:
40Aspiring power and justice seld⁵⁶ agree.
He always fears, that shames to offer wrong.
CONAN    

What son would use such wrong against his sire?
MORDRED  

Come son, come sire, I first prefer myself.
And since a wrong must be, then it excels,
45When ’tis to gain a crown.⁵⁷ I hate a peer,
I loathe, I irk, I do detest a head.
B’it nature, be it reason, be it pride,
I love to rule: my mind nor with, nor by,
Nor after any claims, but chief and first.
CONAN

50Yet think what fame and grievous bruits would run
Of such disloyal and unjust attempts.

MORDRED   

Fame goes not with our ghosts, the senseless soul
Once gone, neglects what vulgar bruit reports.
She is both light and vain.   

CONAN     She noteth though.

<MORDRED>  

55She feareth states.  

CONAN     She carpeth ne’er the less.

MORDRED   

She’s soon suppressed.  

CONAN   As soon she springs again.

MORDRED

Tongues are untamed: and fame is envy’s dog,
That absent barks, and present fawns as fast.
It fearing dares, and yet hath never done,
60But dures⁵⁸: though death redeem us from all foes
Besides, yet death redeems us not from tongues.
 Ere Arthur land, the sea shall blush with blood.
And all the strands with smoking slaughters reek.
Now, Mars, protect me in my first attempt.
65If Mordred scape, this realm shall want no wars.

Exeunt [MORDRED and CONAN].          

[1] CHORUS

1

See here the drifts of Gorlois, Cornish Duke,
And deep desire to shake his sovereign’s throne:
How foul his fall, how bitter his rebuke,
Whiles wife, and weal, and life, and all be gone?
5 He now in Hell tormented wants that good:
 Lo, lo the end of traitorous bones and blood.
2

Pendragon broiled with flames of filthy fires,
By Merlin’s mists enjoyed Igerna’s bed,
Next spoiled Gorlois doubting his desires,
10Then was himself through force of poison sped.
 Who sows in sin, in sin shall reap his pain:
   The doom is sworn: death guerdon’s death again.
3

Whiles Arthur wars abroad and reaps renown,
Guenevora prefers his son’s desire.
15And traitorous Mordred still usurps the crown,
Affording fuel to her quenchless fire.
   But death’s too good, and life too sweet for these,
   That wanting both, should taste of neither’s ease.
4

In Rome the gaping gulf would not decrease,
20Till Curtius’⁵⁹ corpse had closed her yawning jaws:
In Thebes the rot and murrain would not cease,
Till Laius’⁶⁰ brood had paid for breach of laws:
 In Britain wars and discord will not stent
 Till Uther’s line and offspring quite be spent.

The Argument of the Second Act.⁶¹

 1. In the first scene a Nuntio⁶² declareth the success of Arthur’s⁶³ wars in France, and Mordred’s foil that resisted his landing.

 2. In the second scene Mordred, enraged at the overthrow, voweth⁶⁴ a second battle, notwithstanding Conan’s dissuasion to⁶⁵ the contrary.

 3. In the third scene Gawin (brother to Mordred by the mother)⁶⁶ with an Herald from Arthur to imparl⁶⁷ of peace, but after⁶⁸ some debate thereof peace is rejected.

4. In the fourth scene the King of Ireland and other foreign princes⁶⁹ assure Mordred of their assistance⁷⁰ against Arthur.

The Argument and Manner of the Second Dumb Show.

 Whiles the music sounded there came out of Mordred’s house a⁷¹ man stately attired representing a king, who walking once about the⁷² stage. Then out of the house appointed for Arthur there came three⁷³ nymphs apparelled accordingly, the first holding a cornucopia in her hand, the⁷⁴ second a golden branch of olive, the third a sheaf of corn. These orderly⁷⁵ one after another offered these presents to the king who scornfully refused all.⁷⁶ After the which there came a man bareheaded, with black long shagged hair down to his shoulders, apparelled with an Irish jacket and shirt, having an Irish dagger by his side and a dart in his hand. Who first with a threatening countenance looking about, and then spying the king, did furiously chase and drive him into Mordred’s house. The king represented Mordred. The three nymphs with their proffers the treatise of peace, for the which Arthur sent Gawin with an herald unto Mordred who rejected it. The Irish man signified revenge and fury which Mordred conceived after his foil on the shores, whereunto Mordred headlong yieldeth himself.

[2.1] The Second Act and First Scene.

[Enter] NUNTIUS.

NUNTIUS  

Lo here at length the stately type of Troy,
And Britain land the promised seat of Brute,⁷⁷
Decked with so many spoils of conquered kings.
 Hail native soil, these nine years’ space unseen:
5To thee hath long renowned Rome at last
Held up her hands, bereft of former pomp.
But first inflamed with wonted valure’s⁷⁸ heat,
Amidst our sorest siege and thickest broils,
She stoutly fought, and fiercely waged wars.
10 Tiberius courage gave, upbraiding oft
The Roman force, their wonted luck, and long
Retained rule, by wars throughout the world.
What shame it were, since such achieved spoils,
And conquests gained both far and wide, to want
15Of courage then, when most it should be moved.
How Britons erst paid tribute for their peace,
But now rebel, and dare them at their doors:
For what was France but theirs? Herewith incensed
They fiercely raved, and bent their force afresh.
20 Which Arthur spying, cried with thund’ring voice,
“Fie, Britons, fie: what hath bewitched you thus?
So many nations foiled, must Romans foil?
What sloth is this? Have you forgot to war,
Which ne’er knew hour of peace? Turn to your foes,
25Where you may bath in blood, and fight your fill.
Let courage work: what can he not that dares?”
Thus he puissant⁷⁹ guide in doubtful wars,
Ashamed to shun his foes, inflamed his friends.
 Then yielding to his stately steed the reigns,
30He furious drives the Roman troops about:
He plies each place, lest Fates mought alter aught,
Pursuing hap, and urging each success.
He yields in naught, but instantly persists
In all attempts, wherein what so withstands
35His wish, he joys to work a way by wrack.
And matching death to death, no passage seeks,
But what destruction works, with blade or blood.
He scorns the yielded way, he fiercely raves
To break and bruise the ranks in thickest throngs,
40All headlong bent, and prone to present spoil.
 The foes enforced withstand: but much dismayed
They senseless fight, whiles millions lose their lives.
At length Tiberius, pierced with point of spear,
Doth bleeding fall, engored with deadly wound.
45Hereat the rest recoil, and headlong fly,
Each man to save himself. The battle quails
And Britons win unto their most renown.
 Then Arthur took Tiberius’ breathless corpse,
And sent it to the senators at Rome,
50With charge to say: “This is the tribute due
Which Arthur ought,⁸⁰ as time hereafter serves,
He'll pay the like again: the whiles he rests
Your debtor thus.” But O! This⁸¹⁸² sweet success
Pursued with greater harms, turned soon to sour.
55   For lo: when foreign soils and seas were past
With safe return, and that the king should land:
Who, but his only son (O outrage rare)
With hugy host withstood him at the shore?
There were prepared the foreign aides from far,
60There were the borrowed powers of divers kings,
There were our parents, brethren, sons and kin,
Their wrath, their ire, there Mordred was thy rage.
Where erst we sought abroad for foes to foil,
Behold, our Fates had sent us foes unsought.
65When foreign realms supplanted want supply:
O blessed home, that hath such boon in store.
   But let this part of Arthur’s prowess lurk,
Nor let it e’er appear by my report,
What monstrous mischiefs rave in civil wars.
70O rather let due tears, and wailings want:
Let all in silence sink, what hence ensued.
What best deserveth mention here, is this:
That Mordred, vanquished, trusted to his flight,
That Arthur each where victor is returned.
75 And lo: where Mordred comes with heavy head,
He wields no slender weight that wields a crown.  

Exit [NUNTIUS].

[2.2] The Second Scene.

[Enter] MORDRED [and] CONAN.

MORDRED

And hath he won? Be strands and shores possessed?
Is Mordred foiled? The realm is yet unwon:
And Mordred lives reserved for Arthur’s death:
Well: ’twas my first conflict: I knew not yet
5What wars required: but now my sword is fleshed,
And taught to gore and bathe in hottest blood.
 Then think not, Arthur, that the crown is won:
Thy first success may rue our next assault.
Even at our next encounter (hap when ’twill)
10I vow by heaven, by earth, by hell, by all,
That either thou, or I, or both shall die.
CONAN

Naught should be rashly vowed against your sire.

MORDRED  

Whose breast is free from rage may soon b’advised.

CONAN    

The best redress for rage is to relent.

MORDRED  

15’Tis better for a king to kill his foes.
CONAN   

So that the subjects also judge them foes.

MORDRED  

The subjects must not judge their king’s decrees.

CONAN   

The subjects’ force is great.  

MORDRED⁸³   Greater the king’s.
CONAN   

The more you may, the more you ought to fear.
MORDRED  

20He is a fool, that feareth what he may.
CONAN

Not what you may, but what you ought is just.
MORDRED  

He that amongst so many, so unjust,

Seeks to be just, seeks peril to himself.
CONAN   

A greater peril comes by breach of laws.
MORDRED

25The laws do license as the sovereign lists.
CONAN  

Lest ought he list, whom laws do license most.
MORDRED  

Imperial power abhors to be restrained.

CONAN   

As much do meaner rooms⁸⁴ to be compelled.
MORDRED
The Fates have heaved and raised my force on high.

CONAN  

30The gentler should you press those, that are low.
MORDRED  

I would be feared:  

CONAN     The cause why subjects hate.

MORDRED   

A kingdom’s kept by fear.  

CONAN     And lost by hate.

He fears as man⁸⁵ himself, whom many fear.
MORDRED  

The timorous subject dares attempt no change.

CONAN

35What dares not desperate dread?  

MORDRED⁸⁶      What torture threats.  

CONAN   

O spare, ’twere safer to be loved.  

MORDRED     As safe

To be obeyed.  

CONAN  Whiles you command but well.

MORDRED  

Where rulers dare command but what is well:
Power is but prayer, commandment but request.
CONAN  

40If power be joined with right, men must obey.
MORDRED  

My will must go for right.  

CONAN     If they assent.

MORDRED

My sword shall force assent:  

CONAN       No, gods forbid.

MORDRED

What? Shall I stand whiles Arthur sheds my blood?
And must I yield my neck unto the axe?
45Whom Fates constrain, let him forgo his bliss:
But he that needless yields unto his bane,
When he may shun, doth well deserve to lose
The good he cannot use: who would sustain
A baser life, that may maintain the best?
50We cannot part the crown. A regal throne
Is not for two: the sceptre fits but one.
But whether is the fitter of us two,
That must our swords decern: and shortly shall.

CONAN 
How much were you to be renowned more,
55If casting off these ruinous attempts,
You would take care how to supply the loss,
Which former wars, and foreign broils have wrought.
How to deserve the people’s hearts with peace,
With quiet rest, and deep desired ease.
60 Not to increase the rage that long hath reigned,
Nor to destroy the realm, you seek to rule.
Your father reared it up, you pluck it down.
You lose your country whiles you win it thus:
To make it yours, you strive to make it none.
65Where kings impose too much, the realm envies:⁸⁷⁸⁸
Goodwill withdraws, assent becomes but slow.

MORDRED  

The first art in a kingdom is, to scorn
The envy of the realm. He cannot rule,
That fears to be envied. What can divorce
70Envy from sovereignty? Must my deserts?⁸⁹⁹⁰
   No. ’Tis my hap that Britain serves my turn
That fear of me doth make the subjects crouch,
That what they grudge, they do constrained yield.
If their assents be slow, my wrath is swift,
75Whom favour fails to bend, let fury break.
If they be yet to learn, let terror teach,
What kings may do, what subjects ought to bear.
   Then is a kingdom at a wished stay,
When whatsoever the sovereign wills, or nills,
80Men be compelled as well to praise, as bear,
And subjects’ wills enforced against their wills.
CONAN  

But who so seeks true praise, and just renown,
Would rather seek their praising hearts, than tongues.

MORDRED  

True praise may happen to the basest groom,
85A forced praise to none, but to a prince.
I wish that most, that subjects most repine.
CONAN  

But yet where wars do threaten your estate,
There needeth friends to fortify your crown.

MORDRED   

Each crown is made of that attractive mould,
90That of itself it draws a full defence.
CONAN  

That is a just, and no usurped⁹¹ crown.
And better were an exile’s life, than thus
Disloyally to wrong your⁹²⁹³ sire and liege.
Think not that impious crimes can prosper long,
95A time they scape, in time they be repaid.
MORDRED  

The hugest⁹⁴ crimes bring best success to some.
CONAN  

Those some be rare.

MORDRED  Why may not I be rare?

CONAN   

It was their hap.  

MORDRED   It is my hope.  

CONAN     But hope

May miss, where hap doth hurl.  

MORDRED    So hap may hit,

100Where hope doth aim.  

CONAN    But hap is last, and rules

The stern.  

MORDRED  So hope is first, and hoists the sail.

CONAN   

Yet fear: the first and last do seld agree.
MORDRED

Nay dare: the first and last have many means.
But cease at length: your speech molests me much:
105My mind is fixed. Give Mordred leave to do
What Conan neither can allow, nor like.

CONAN  

But lo, an herald sent from Arthur’s host:
Gods grant his message may portend our good.

[2.3] The Third Scene.

[Enter] HERALD [and] GAWIN [to] MORDRED [and CONAN].⁹⁵

HERALD  

Your sire, O Prince, considering what distress
The realm sustains by both your mutual wars,
Hath sent your brother Gawin, Albane King,
To treat of truce, and to imparl of peace.

MORDRED   

5Speak, brother: what commandment sends my sire?
What message do you bring? My life, or death?

GAWIN

A message far unmeet, most needful though.
The sire commands not, where the son rebels:

His love descends too deep to wish your death.
MORDRED  

10And mine ascends too high to wish his life.
GAWIN  

Yet thus he off’reth: though your faults be great,
And most disloyal to his deep abuse,
Yet yield yourself: he’ll be as prone to grace,
As you to ruth: an uncle, sire, and liege.
15And fitter were your due submission done,
Than wrongful wars to reave his right and realm.

MORDRED  

It is my fault, that he doth want his right:
It is his own, to vex the realm with wars.

GAWIN   

It is his right that he attempts to seek:
20It is your wrong that driveth him thereto.
MORDRED  

’Tis his insatiate mind that is not so content,
Which hath so many kingdoms more besides.
GAWIN  

The more you ought to tremble at his power.
MORDRED  

The greater is my conquest, if I win.
GAWIN  

25The more your foil, if you should hap to lose.
For Arthur’s fame and valure’s such as you
Should rather imitate, or at the least
Envy, if hope of better fancies failed.
For whereas Envy reigns, though it repines,
30Yet doth it fear a greater than itself.
MORDRED  

He that envies the valure of his foe
Detects a want of valure in himself.
He fondly fights that fights with such a foe,
Where ’twere a shame to lose, no praise to win:
35But with a famous foe, succeed what will,
To win is great renown, to lose less foil.
His conquests, were they more, dismay me not:
The oft’ner they have been, the more they threat.
No danger can be thought both safe, and oft:
40And who hath oft’ner waged wars then he?
Escapes secure him not: he owes the price:
Whom Chance hath often missed, Chance hits at length
Or, if that Chance have furthered his success,
So may she mine: for Chance hath made me king.

GAWIN   

45As Chance hath made you king, so Chance may change.
Provide for peace: that’s it the highest peers,
No state except, even conquerors ought to seek.
   Remember Arthur’s strength, his conquests late,
His fiery mind, his high aspiring heart.
50 Mark then the odds: he expert, you untried;
He ripe, you green: yield you, whiles yet you may –
He will not yield: he wins his peace with wars.
MORDRED  

If Chance may change, his Chance was last to win.
The likelier now to lose: his haughty heart
55And mind I know: I feel mine own no less.
As for his strength, and skill, I leave to hap:
Where many meet, it lies not all in one.

  What though he vanquished have the Roman troops?
That boots him not: himself is vanquished here.
60Then weigh your words again: if conquerors ought
To seek for peace, the conquered must perforce.
 But he’ll not yield, he’ll purchase peace with wars.
Well: yield that will: I neither will, nor can:
Come peace, come wars, choose him: my danger’s his,
65His safety mine, our states do stand alike.
If peace be good, as good for him, as me:
If wars be good, as good for me, as him.
GAWIN

What cursed wars, alas, were those, wherein
Both son and sire should so oppose themselves?
70Him, whom you now, unhappy man, pursue,
If you should win, yourself would first bewail.
Give him his crown; to keep it peril breeds.
MORDRED  

The crown I’ll keep myself: ensue what will:
Death must be once: how soon, I least respect.
75He best provides that can beware in time,
Not why, nor when: but whence, and where he falls.
 What fool, to live a year or twain in rest,
Would lose the state and honour of a crown?
GAWIN  

Consider then your father’s grief and want,
80Whom you bereave of kingdom, realm, and crown.
MORDRED  

Trust me: a huge and mighty kingdom ’tis,
To bear the want of kingdom, realm, and crown.
GAWIN  

A common want, which works each worldling’s woe,
That many have too much, but none enough.
85It were his praise, could he be so content,
Which makes you guilty of the greater wrong.
   Wherefore think on the doubtful state of wars,
Where Mars hath sway, he keeps no certain course.
Sometimes he lets the weaker to prevail,
90Sometimes the stronger stoops: hope, fear, and rage
With eyeless lot rules all, uncertain good,
Most certain harms, be his assured haps.
 No luck can last, now here, now there it lights:
No state alike, Chance blindly snatcheth all,
95And Fortune maketh guilty whom she lists.

MORDRED

Since therefore fear, and hope, and hap in wars
Be all obscure, till their success be seen:
Your speech doth rather drive me on to try,

And trust them all, mine only refuge now.
GAWIN   

100And fear you not so strange and uncouth wars?
MORDRED

No, were they wars that grew from out the ground.
GAWIN  

Nor yet your sire so huge, yourself so small?

MORDRED

The smallest axe may fell the hugest oak.

GAWIN

Nor that in felling him, yourself may fall?
MORDRED  

105He falleth well, that falling fells his foe.

GAWIN

Nor common chance whereto each man is thrall?
MORDRED

Small manhood were to turn my back to chance.

GAWIN  

Nor that, if chance afflict, kings brook it not?

MORDRED

I bear no breast so unprepared for harms.
110Even that I hold the kingliest point of all,
To brook afflictions well: and by how much
The more his state and tottering empire sags,
To fix so much the faster foot on ground.
 No fear but doth forejudge, and many fall
115Into their fate, whiles they do fear their fate.
Where courage quails, the fear exceeds the harm,
Yea worse than war itself, is fear of war.

GAWIN  

War seemeth sweet to such as have not tried:
But wisdom wills we should forecast the worst.
120The end allows the act: that plot is wise,
That knows his means, and least relies on chance.
Eschew the course where error lurks, there grows
But grief, where pain is spent, no hope to speed.
 Strive not above your strength: for where your force
125Is over-matched with your attempts, it faints,
And fruitless leaves, what bootless it began.

MORDRED   

All things are ruled in constant course. No Fate
But is foreset; the first day leads the last.
No wisdom then: but difference in conceit,
130Which works in many men, as many minds.
 You love the mean, and follow virtue’s race:
I like the top, and aim at greater bliss.
You rest content, my mind aspires to more:
In brief, you fear, I hope: you doubt, I dare.
135 Since then the sagest counsels are but strifes,
Where equal wits may wrest each side alike,
Let counsel go: my purpose must proceed:
Each likes his course, mine own doth like me best.
 Wherefore e’er Arthur breath, or gather strength,
140Assault we him: lest he assault us first.
He either must destroy, or be destroyed.
The mischief’s in the midst: catch he that can.
GAWIN

But will no reason rule that desperate mind?

MORDRED

A fickle mind that every reason rules.
145I rest resolved: and to my sire say thus:
 If here he stay but three days to an end,
And not forthwith discharge his band and host,
’Tis Mordred’s oath: assure himself to die.
But if he find his courage so to serve,
150As for to stand to his defence with force:
In Cornwall if he dare, I’ll try it out.
GAWIN  

O strange contempt: like as the craggy rock
Resists the streams, and flings the waltering waves

Aloof, so he rejects and scorns my words.

Exit [GAWIN].

[2.4] The Fourth Scene.

[Enter] GILLA, GILLAMOR, CHELDRICHUS, DUX PICTORUM [to MORDRED and] CONAN.⁹⁶

MORDRED  

Lo, where – as they decreed – my faithful friends
Have kept their time; be all your powers repaired?

GILLA  

They be: and all with ardent minds to Mars,
They cry for wars, and longing for th’alarm
5Even now they wish t’encounter with their foes.
MORDRED  

What could be wished for more? Puissant King,
For your great help and valiant Irish force,
If I obtain the conquest in these wars,
Whereas my father claims a tribute due
10Out of your realm, I here renounce it quite.
And if assistance need in doubtful times,
I will not fail to aid you with the like.

GILLA   

It doth suffice me to discharge my realm,
Or at the least to wreak me on my foes.
15I rather like to live your friend and peer,
Than rest in Arthur’s homage and disgrace.

MORDRED   

Right noble Duke, through whom the Saxons vow
Their lives with mine, for my defence in wars:
If we prevail and may subdue our foes:
20I will in lieu of your so high deserts,
Give you and yours all British lands that lie
Between the flood of Humber,⁹⁷ and the Scots,
Besides as much in Kent as Horsus and
Hengistus had, when Vortigern was King.⁹⁸

CHELDRICHUS   

25Your gracious proffers I accept with thanks,
Not for the gain, but that the good desire
I have henceforth to be your subject here,
May thereby take effect: which I esteem
More than the rule I bear in Saxon soil.

MORDRED  

30Renowned lord, for your right hardy Picts,
And chosen warriors to maintain my cause,
If our attempts receive a good success,
The Albane crown I give to you and yours.

DUX PICTORUM  

Your Highness’ bounty in so high degree,
Were cause enough to move me to my best.
35But sure yourself, without regard of meed,⁹⁹
Should find both me and mine at your command.

MORDRED

Lord Gilla, if my hope may take success,
And that I be thereby undoubted King,
The Cornish dukedom I allot to you.

GILLA   

40My liege, to further your desired attempts,
I joyfully shall spend my dearest blood.
The rather, that I found the king your sire
So heavy lord to me and all my stock.

MORDRED  

Since then our rest is on’t, and we agreed
45To war it out, what resteth now but blows?
Drive Dest’nies on with swords, Mars frames the means,
Henceforth what Mordred may, now lies in you.
Ere long if Mars ensue with good success,
Look whatsoe’er it be, that Arthur claims,
50By right, or¹⁰⁰¹⁰¹ wrong, or conquests gained with blood,
In Britain, or abroad is mine to give.
 To show I would have said: I cannot give,
What every hand must give unto itself.
Whereof who lists to purchase any share,
55Now let him seek and win it with his sword:
The Fates have laid it open in the field.
 What stars, O Heavens, or poles, or powers divine
Do grant so great rewards for those that win?
Since then our common good and each man’s care
60Requires our joint assistance in these toils,
Shall we not hazard our extremest hap,
And rather spend our Fates, than spare our foes?
 The cause I care for most is chiefly yours:
This hand and heart shall make mine own secure.
65That man shall see me foiled by myself,
What e’er he be, that sees my foe unfoiled.
 Fear not the field because of Mordred’s faults,
Nor shrink one jot the more for Arthur’s right.
Full safely Fortune guideth many a guilt,
70And Fates have none but wretches whom they wrench.
 Wherefore make speed to cheer your soldiers’ hearts,
That to their fires you yet may add more flames.
The side that seeks to win in civil wars
Must not content itself with wonted heat.

Exeunt omnes preter MORDRED and CONAN.¹⁰²

CONAN  

75Would God your Highness had been more advised,
Ere too much will had drawn your wits too far:
Then had no wars endangered you, nor yours,
Nor Mordred’s cause required foreign care.

MORDRED   

A troubled head: my mind revolts to fear,
80And bears my body back: I inwards feel my fall.
My thoughts misgive me much: down terror: I
Perceive mine end: and desperate though I must
Despise despair, and somewhat hopeless hope.
The more I doubt, the more I dare: by fear
85I find the fact is fittest for my fame.
 What though I be a ruin to the realm,
And fall myself therewith? No better end.
His last mishaps do make a man secure.
Such was King Priam’s end, who, when he died,
90Closed and wrapped up his kingdom¹⁰³ in his death.
A solemn pomp, and fit for Mordred’s mind,
To be a grave and tomb to all his realm.    

Exeunt [MORDRED and CONAN].

[2] CHORUS

1

Ye princely peers extoled to seats of state,
Seek not the fair, that soon will turn to foul:
 Oft is the fall of high and hovering Fate,
And rare the room, which time doth not control.¹⁰⁴
5   The safest seat is not on highest hill,
 Where winds, and storms, and thunders thump their ill.
 Far safer were to follow sound advice,
 Than for such pride to pay so dear a price.

 

2

The mounting mind that climes the haughty cliffs,
10And soaring seeks the tip of lofty type,
 Intoxicates the brain with giddy drifts,
Then rolls, and reels, and falls at length plum ripe.
 Lo: heaving high is of so small forecast,
 To totter first, and tumble down at last.
15 Yet Pegasus¹⁰⁵ still rears himself on high,
 And coltishly doth kick the clouds in sky.
3

Who saw the grief engraven in a crown,
Or knew the bad and bane whereto it’s bound:
 Would never stick to throw and fling it down,
20Nor once vouchsafe to heave it from the ground.
   Such is the sweet of this ambitious power,
 No sooner had, than turned eftsoons to sour:
 Achieved with envy, exercised with hate,
 Guarded with fear, supported with debate.
4

25O restless race of high aspiring head,
O worthless rule both pitied and envied:
 How many millions to their loss you lead:
With love and lure of kingdom’s bliss untried?
   So things untasted cause a quenchless thirst,
30 Which, were they known, would be refused first,
 Yea, oft we see, yet seeing cannot shun
 The fact, we find as fondly dared, as done.

 The Argument of the Third Act.

 1. In the first scene Cador and Howell incite and exhort Arthur unto war: who, moved with fatherly affection towards his son, notwithstanding their persuasions resolveth upon peace.

 2. In the second scene, an Herald is sent from Mordred to command Arthur to discharge his armies under pain of death, or otherwise if he dare, to try it by battle.

 3. In the third scene Arthur calleth his assistants and soldiers together, whom he exhorteth to pursue their foes.

4. In the fourth scene Arthur between grief and despair resolveth to war.

 The Argument and Manner of the Third Dumb Show.

 During the music after the second act, there came upon the stage two gentlemen attired in peaceable manner, which brought with them a table, carpet, and cloth: and then having covered the table they furnished it with incense on the one end, and banqueting dishes on the other end. Next there came two gentlemen appareled like soldiers with two naked swords in their hands, the which they laid across upon the table. Then there came two sumptuously attired and warlike, who, spying this preparation smelled the incense and tasted the banquet. During the which there came a messenger and delivered certain letters to those two that fed on the dainties: who, after they had well viewed and perused the letters, furiously flung the banquet under feet: and violently snatching the swords unto them, they hastily went their way. By the first two that brought in the banquet was meant the servants of Peace, by the second two were meant the servants of War: by the two last were meant Arthur and Cador. By the messenger and his letters was meant the defiance from Mordred.

[3.1] The Third Act and First¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁷ Scene.

[Enter] ARTHUR, CADOR [and] HOWELL.

ARTHUR  

Is this the welcome that my realm prepares?
Be these the thanks I win for all my wars?
Thus to forbid me land? To slay my friends?
To make their blood distain my country shores?
5   My son (belike) lest that our force should faint
For want of wars, prepared us wars himself.
He thought (perhaps) it mought impair our fame,
If none rebelled, whose foil might praise our power.
   Is this the fruit of Mordred’s forward youth,
10And tender age discreet beyond his years?
O false and guileful life, O crafty world:
How cunningly conveyest thou fraud unseen?
Th’ambitious seemeth meek, the wanton chaste,
Disguised vice for virtue vaunts itself.
15 Thus, Arthur,¹⁰⁸ thus hath Fortune played her part,
Blind for thy weal, clear-sighted for thy woe.
Thy kingdom’s gone, thy fere affords no faith,
Thy son rebels, of all thy wonted pomp
No tot is left, and Fortune hides her face.
20No place is left for prosperous plight, mishaps
Have room and ways to run and walk at will.
   Lo, Cador, both our states, your daughter's trust,
My son’s respect, our hopes reposed in both.

CADOR    

The time, puissant Prince, permits not now
25To moan our wrongs, or search each several sore.
Since Arthur thus hath ransacked all abroad,
What marvel is’t, if Mordred rave at home?
When far and near your wars had worn the world,
What wars were left for him, but civil wars?
30   All which requires revenge with sword and fire,
And to pursue your foes with presence force.
In just attempts Mars gives a rightful doom.

ARTHUR  

Nay rather, Cador, let them run their race,
And leave the heavens revengers of my wrong.
35Since Britain’s prosperous state is thus debased
In servile sort to Mordred’s cursed pride,
Let me be thrall, and lead a private life:
None can refuse the yoke his country bears.
But as for wars, in sooth my flesh abhors,
40To bid the battle to my proper blood.
Great is the love, which nature doth enforce
From kin to kin, but most from sire to son.

HOWELL   

The noble neck disdains the servile yoke,
Where rule hath pleased, subjection seemeth strange.
45A king ought always to prefer his realm
Before the love he bears to kin or son.
 Your realm destroyed is ne’er restored again,
But time may send you kin and sons enough.

ARTHUR

How hard it is to rule th’aspiring mind,
50And what a kingly point it seems to those
Whose lordly hands the stately sceptre sways
Still to pursue the drift they first decreed:
My wonted mind and kingdom lets me know.
 Think not but if you drive this hazard on
55He desperate will resolve to win or die:
Whereof who knows which were the greater guilt,
The sire to slay the son, or son the sire.

CADOR  

If bloody Mars do so extremely sway,
That either son or sire must needs be slain,
60Give law the choice: let him die that deserves.
Each impotent affection notes a want.
 No worse a vice then lenity in kings,
Remiss indulgence soon undoes a realm.
He teacheth how to sin, that winks at sins,
65And bids offend, that suffereth an offence.
The only hope of leave increaseth crimes,
And he that pardoneth one, emboldneth all
To break the laws. Each patience fostereth wrongs.
 But vice severely punished faints at foot,
70And creeps no further off, than where it falls.
One sour example will prevent more vice,
Than all the best persuasions in the world.
Rough rigour looks out right, and still prevails:
Smooth mildness looks too many ways to thrive.
75Wherefore since Mordred’s crimes have wronged the laws
In so extreme a sort, as is too strange:
Let right and justice rule with rigour’s aid,
And work his wrack at length, although too late:
That damning laws, so damned by the laws,
80He may receive his deep deserved doom.
 So let it fare with all, that dare the like:
Let sword, let fire, let torments be their end.
Severity upholds both realm and rule.

ARTHUR 
Ah, too severe, far from a father’s mind.
85Compassion is as fit for kings as wrath.
Laws must not lour.¹⁰⁹ Rule oft admitteth ruth.
So hate, as if there were yet cause to love:
Take not their lives as foes, which may be friends.
To spoil my son were to despoil myself:
90Oft, whiles we seek our foes, we seek our foils.
Let’s rather seek how to allure his mind
With good deserts: deserts may win the worst.

HOWELL 
Where Cato¹¹⁰ first had saved a thief from death,
And after was himself condemned to die:
95When else not one would execute the doom,
Who but the thief did undertake the task?
If too much bounty work so bad effects
In thankless friends, what for a ruthless foe?
Let laws have still their course, the ill-disposed
100Grudge at their lives, to whom they owe too much.
ARTHUR  

But yet where men with reconciled minds
Renew their love with recontinued grace,
Atonement frames them friends of former foes,
And makes the moods of swelling wrath to swage.
105No faster friendship, than that grows from grief,
When melting minds with mutual ruth relent.
How close the severed skin unites again,
When salves have smoothly healed the former hurts!

CADOR   

I never yet saw hurt so smoothly healed,
110But that the scar bewrayed the former wound:
Yea, where the salve did soonest close the skin,
The sore was oft’ner covered up than cured.
Which festering deep and filed within, at last
With sudden breach grew greater than at first.
115 What then for minds, which have revenging moods,
And ne’er forget the cross they forced bear?
Whereto if reconcilement come, it makes
The t’one secure, whiles t’other works his will.
   Atonement seld defeats, but oft defers
120Revenge: beware a reconciled foe.
ARTHUR

Well, what avails to linger in this life,
Which Fortune but reserves for greater grief?
This breath draws on but matter of mishap:
Death only frees the guiltless from annoys.
125Who so hath felt the force of greedy Fates,
And dured the last decree of grisly death,
Shall never yield his captive arms to chains,
Nor drawn in triumph deck the victor’s pomp.

HOWELL   

What mean these words? Is Arthur forced to fear?
130Is this the fruit of your continual wars,
Even from the first remembrance of your youth?

ARTHUR 
My youth, I grant, and prime of budding years,
Puffed up with pride and fond desire of praise,
Foreweening¹¹¹ naught what perils might ensue,
135Adventured all, and wrought to will the reins.
 But now this age requires a sager course,
And will, advised by harms, to wisdom yields.
Those swelling spirits the self-same cause which first
Set them on gog,¹¹² even Fortune’s¹¹³ favours quailed.
140 And now mine oft’nest scapes do scare me most,
I fear the trap, whereat I oft have tripped:
Experience tells me plain that chance is frail,
And oft, the better past, the worse to come.

CADOR  

Resist these doubts: ’tis ill to yield to harms.
145’Tis safest then to dare when most you fear.
ARTHUR  

As safe sometimes to fear, when most we dare.
A causeless courage gives repentance place.

HOWELL  

If Fortune fawn.  

ARTHUR Each way on me she frowns.

For win I, lose I, both procure my grief.
CADOR   

150Put case¹¹⁴ you win, what grief?  

ARTHUR   Admit I do,

What joy?  

CADOR    Then may you rule.  

ARTHUR   When I may die.

CADOR   

To rule is much.  

ARTHUR  Small if we covet naught.

CADOR

Who covets not a crown.  

ARTHUR   He that discerns

The sword aloft.¹¹⁵  

CADOR    That hangeth fast.  

ARTHUR     But by

155A hair.  

CADOR Right holds it up.  

ARTHUR     Wrong pulls it down.

CADOR   

The Commons help the king.  

ARTHUR   They sometimes hurt.

CADOR  

At least the Peers.  

ARTHUR   Seld, if allegiance want.

CADOR   

Yet sovereignty.  

ARTHUR  Not, if subjection¹¹⁶¹¹⁷ fail.

CADOR  

Doubt¹¹⁸ not, the realm is yours.  

ARTHUR    ’Twas mine till now.

CADOR   

160And shall be still.  

ARTHUR   If Mordred list.  

CADOR      ’Twere well

Your crown were won.  

ARTHUR  Perhaps ’tis better¹¹⁹ lost.

HOWELL   

The name of rule should move a princely mind.
ARTHUR

Trust me, bad things have often glorious names.

HOWELL

The greatest good that Fortune can afford.

ARTHUR  

165A dangerous good that wisdom would eschew.
HOWELL

Yet weigh the hearsay of the old renown,
And Fame the wonderer of the former age:
Which still extolls the facts of worthiest wights,
Preferring no deserts before your deeds.
170Even she exhorts you to this new attempts,
Which left untried your winnings be but loss.

ARTHUR  

Small credit will be given of matters past
To Fame, the flatterer of the former age.
Were all believed which antique bruit imports,
175Yet wisdom weighs the peril joined to praise:
Rare is the Fame – mark well all ages gone –
Which hath not hurt the house it most enhanced.
 Besides, Fame’s but a blast that sounds a while,
And quickly stints, and then is quite forgot.
180Look whatsoe’er our virtues have achieved,
The Chaos vast and greedy time devours.
 Today all Europe rings of Arthur’s praise:
'Twill be as hushed, as if I ne’er had been.
What boots it then to venture life or limb,
185For that, which needs ere long we leave, or lose?
CADOR  

Can blind affection so much blear the wise,
Or love of graceless son so witch the sire?
That what concerns the honour of a prince
With country’s good and subjects’ just request,
190Should lightly be contemned by a king?
   When Lucius sent but for his tribute due,
You went with thirteen kings to root him out:
Have Romans, for requiring but their own,
Aboad¹²⁰ your nine years brunts? Shall Mordred scape,
195That wronged you thus in honour, queen, and realm?
 Were this no cause to stir a king to wrath,
Yet should your conquests late achieved ’gainst Rome
Inflame your mind with thirst of full revenge.

ARTHUR   

Indeed, continual wars have chafed our minds,
200And good success hath bred impatient moods.
Rome puffs us up, and makes us too too fierce:
There, Britons, there we stand, whence Rome did fall.
 Thou Lucius mak’st me proud, thou heav’st my mind:
But what? Shall I esteem a crown aught else,
205Than as a gorgeous crest of easeless helm,
Or as some brittle mould of glorious pomp,
Or glittering glass, which, whiles it shines, it breaks?
All this a sudden chance may dash, and not
Perhaps with thirteen kings, or in nine years:
210All may not find so slow and ling’ring Fates.
   What, that my country cries for due remorse
And some relief for long sustained toils?
By seas and lands I daily wrought her wreck,
And spareless spent her life on every foe.
215Each where my soldier perished, whilst I won:
Throughout the world my conquest was their spoil.
 A fair reward for all their deaths, for all
Their wars abroad, to give them civil wars.
What boots it them reserved from foreign foils
220To die at home? What end of ruthless rage?
 At least let age, and nature worn to naught,
Provide at length their graves with wished groans.
Pity their hoary hairs, their feeble fists,
Their withered limbs, their strengths consumed in camp.
225Must they still end their lives amongst the blades?
Rests there no other Fate whiles Arthur reigns?
   What deem you me? A Fury fed with blood,
Or some Ciclopian¹²¹ born and bred for brawls?
Think on the mind that Arthur bears to peace:
230Can Arthur please you nowhere but in wars?
 Be witness heavens how far ’tis from my mind,
Therewith to spoil or sack my native soil:
I cannot yield, it brooks not in my breast,
To seek her ruin, whom I erst have ruled.
235What relics now so e’er both civil broils
And foreign wars have left, let those remain:
Th’are few enough, and Britons fall too fast.

[3.2] The Second Scene.

[Enter] an HERALD from Mordred.

HOWELL  

Lo here, an herald sent from Mordred’s camp,
A froward message, if I read aright:
We mought not stir his wrath; perhaps this may:
Persuasions cannot move a Briton’s mood,
5And yet none sooner stung with present wrong.

HERALD   

Hail peerless prince, whiles Fortune would, our king,
Though now bereft of crown and former rule.
Vouchsafe me leave my message to impart,
No jot enforced, but as your son affords.
10 If here you stay but three days to an end,
And not forthwith discharge your bands and host,
’Tis Mordred’s oath: assure yourself to die.
But if you find your courage so to serve,
As for to stand to your defence with force,
15In Cornwall (if you dare) he’ll try it out.

ARTHUR   

Is this the choice my son doth send his sire?
And must I die, or try it if I dare?
To die were ill; thus to be dared is worse.
Display my standard forth, let trump¹²² and drum
20Call soldiers near, to hear their sovereign’s hest.¹²³

[3.3] The Third Scene.

[Enter] GAWIN King of Albany, ASCHILLUS King of Denmark, KING of NORWAY, a number of SOLDIERS.

ARTHUR

O friends and fellows of my weariest toils,
Which have borne out with me so many brunts,
And desperate storms of wars and brainsick Mars:
Lo now the hundreth month wherein we win.
5 Hath all the blood we spent in foreign coasts,
The wounds, and deaths, and winters bode abroad,
Deserved thus to be disgraced at home?
   All Britain rings of wars. No town, nor field
But swarms with armed troops: the mustering trains
10Stop up the streets: no less a tumult’s raised,
Than when Hengistus fell and Horsus fierce
With treacherous truce did overrun the realm.
   Each corner threatneth death: both far and near
Is Arthur vexed. What if my force had failed,
15And standard fallen, and ensigns all been torn,
And Roman troops pursued me at the heels,
With luckless wars assayed in foreign soils?
 Now that our fortune heaves us up thus high,
And heavens themselves renew our old renown:
20Must we be dared? Nay, let that princock¹²⁴ come,
That knows not yet himself, nor Arthur’s force,
That ne’er yet waged wars, that's yet to learn
To give the charge. Yea let that princock come,
With sudden soldiers pampered up in peace,
25And gowned troops, and wantons worn with ease:
With sluggish Saxons’ crew, and Irish kerns,¹²⁵
And Scottish aid, and false red-shanked Picts,
Whose slaughters yet must teach their former foil.
 They shall perceive with sorrow e’er they part,
30When all their toils be told, that nothing works
So great a waste and ruin in this age,
As do my wars. O Mordred blessed son:
No doubt, these market mates so highly hired
Must be the stay of thy usurped state.
35 And lest my head, inclining now to years,
Should joy the rest, which yet it never reaped:
The traitor Gilla, trained in treacherous jars,
Is chief in arms, to reave me of my realm.
What corner (ah) for all my wars shall shroud
40My bloodless age:¹²⁶ what seat for due deserts?
What town, or field for ancient soldiers’ rest?
What house? What roof? What walls for wearied limbs?
 Stretch out again, stretch out your conquering hands,
Still must we use the force so often used.
45To those, that will pursue a wrong with wreck,
He giveth all, that once denies the right.
 Thou soil which erst Diana did ordain
The certain seat and bower of wand’ring Brute¹²⁷:
Thou realm which ay I reverence as my saint,
50Thou stately Britain, th’ancient type of Troy,
Bear with my forced wrongs: I am not he,
That willing would impeach thy peace with wars.
 Lo here both far and wide I conqueror stand,
Arthur each where thine own, thy liege, thy king.
55Condemn not mine attempts: he, only he
Is sole in fault, that makes me thus thy foe.
 Here I renounce all leagues and treats of truce,
Thou Fortune henceforth art my guard and guide.
Hence peace, on wars, run Fates, let Mars be judge,
50I erst did trust to right, but now to rage.
   Go: tell the boy that Arthur fears no brags,
In vain he seeks to brave it with his sire.
I come, Mordred, I come, but to thy pain.
Yea, tell the boy his angry father comes
55To teach a novice both to die and dare. 

HERALD Exit.

HOWELL   

If we without offence, O greatest guide
Of British name, may pour our just complaints,
We most mislike that your too mild a mood
Hath thus withheld our hands and swords from strokes.
60 For what? Were we behind in any help?
Or without cause did you misdoubt our force,
Or truth so often tried with good success?
 Go to: conduct your army to the field,
Place man to man, oppose us to our foes:
65As much we need to work, as wish your weal.

CADOR  

Seems it so sour to win by civil wars?
Were it to gore with pike my father’s breast,
Were it to rive and cleave my brother’s head,
Were it to tear piecemeal my dearest child,
70I would enforce my grudging hands to help.
 I cannot term that place my native soil,
Whereto your trumpets send their warlike sounds.
If case required to batter down the towers
Of any town, that Arthur would destroy:
75Yea, wert of Britain’s self, which most I rede:
Her bulwarks, fortress, rampires,¹²⁸ walls and fence,
These arms should rear the rams to run them down.
   Wherefore ye princes, and the rest my mates,
If what I have averred in all your names,
80Be likewise such as stands to your content,
Let all your “Yeas” avow my promise true.
SOLDIERS  

Yea, yea, etc.

ASCHILLUS  

Wherein, renowned king, myself, or mine,
My life, my kingdom, and all Denmark power
85May serve your turn, account them all your own.
KING OF NORWAY  

And whatsoe’er my force or Norway aid
May help in¹²⁹ your attempts, I vow it here.

GAWIN  

As heretofore I always served your hest,
So let this day be judge of Gawin’s trust.
90Either my brother Mordred dies the death
By mine assault, or I at least by his.

ARTHUR  

Since thus, my faithful mates, with vows alike,
And equal love to Arthur’s cause you join
In common care, to wreak my private wrongs:
95Lift up your ensigns efts, stretch out your strengths,
Pursue your Fates, perform your hopes to Mars,
Lo here the last and outmost work for blades.
 This is the time that all our valour craves.
This time by due desert restores again
100Our goods, our lands, our lives, our weal and all.
This time declares by Fates whose cause is best,
This, this condemns the vanquished side of guilt.¹³⁰
   Wherefore if for my sake you scorn your selves,
And spare no sword nor fire in my defence:
105Then whiles my censure justifies your cause,
Fight, fight amain¹³¹: and clear your blades from crime,
The judge once changed, no wars are free from guilt.
 The better cause gives us the greater hope
Of prosperous wars, wherein if once I hap
110To spy the wonted signs, that never failed
Their guide, your threat’ning looks, your fiery eyes,
And bustling bodies pressed to present spoil:
The field is won. Even then me thinks I see
The wonted wastes, and scattered heads of foes,
115The Irish carcass kicked, and Picts oppressed,
And Saxons slain, to swim in streams of blood.
I quake with hope. I can assure you all,
We never had a greater match in hand.
   March on: delay no Fates whiles Fortune fawns,
120The greatest praise of wars consists in speed.

Exeunt REGIS et COHORS.¹³²

[3.4] The Fourth Scene.

CADOR, ARTHUR.

CADOR  

Since thus, victorious King, your peers, allies,
Your lords, and all your powers be ready pressed,
For good, for bad, for whatsoe’er shall hap,
To spend both limb and life in your defence:
5Cast off all doubts, and rest yourself on Mars:
A hopeless fear forbids a happy Fate.

ARTHUR   

In sooth, good Cador, so our Fortune fares,
As needs we must return to wonted force.
To wars we must: but such unhappy wars,
10As yield no hope for right or wrong to scape.
 Myself foresees the Fate, it cannot fall
Without our dearest blood: much may the mind
Of pensive sire presage, whose son so sins.
All truth, all trust, all blood, all bands be broke,
15The seeds are sown that spring to future spoil,
My son, my nephew, yea each side myself,
Nearer than all (woe’s me), too near, my foe.
   Well: ’tis my plague for life so lewdly led,
The price of guilt is still a heavier guilt.
20For were it light, that ev’n by birth myself
Was bad, I made my sister bad: nay were
That also light, I have begot as bad.
Yea worse, an heir assigned to all our sins.
 Such was his birth: what base, what vulgar vice
25Could once be looked for of so noble blood?
The deeper guilt descends, the more it roots:
The younger imps affect the huger crimes.   

Exeunt.

[3] CHORUS

1

When many men assent to civil wars,
And yield a suffrage to enforce the Fates:
No man bethinks him of his own mishap,
But turns that luck unto another's share.
5Whereas if fear did first forewarn each foil,
Such love to fight would breed no Briton’s bane.
 And better were still to preserve our peace,
Than thus to vent for peace through waging wars.
What folly to forgo such certain haps,
10And in their stead to feed uncertain hopes?
 Such hopes as oft have puffed up many a realm,
Till cross success hath pressed it down as deep:
Whiles blind affection fetched from private cause
Misguiding wit hath masked in wisdom’s veil,
15Pretending what in purpose it abhorred.
2

Peace hath three foes encamped in our breasts,
Ambition, Wrath, and Envy: which subdued,
We should not fail to find eternal peace.
  ’Tis in our power to joy it all at will,
20And few there be, but if they will, they may:
But yet even those, who like the name of peace,
Through fond desire repine at peace itself.
 Between the hope whereof, and it itself,
A thousand things may fall: that further wars.
25The very speech sometimes and treats of truce,
Is slashed and cut asunder with the sword.
  Nor sield the name of peace doth edge our minds,
And sharpeneth on our fury till we fight:
So that the mention made of love and rest
30Is oft a whetstone to our hate and rage.
3

Lo here the end, that kingly pomp imparts,
The quiet rest, that princely palace plights.
Care upon care, and every day a new
Fresh-rising¹³³ tempest tires the tossed minds.
35 Who strives to stand in pomp of princely port,
On giddy top and culm of slippery court,
Finds oft a heavy fate, whiles too much known
To all, he falls unknown unto himself.
   Let who so else that list, affect the name,
40But let me seem a potentate to none:
My slender bark shall creep¹³⁴ anenst¹³⁵ the shore,
And shun the winds, that sweep the waltering¹³⁶ waves.
 Proud Fortune overhips¹³⁷ the safest roads,
And seeks amidst the surging seas those keels,
45Whose lofty tops and tacklings¹³⁸ touch the clouds.
4

O base, yet happy boors! O gifts of gods
Scant yet perceived: when powdered ermine robes
With secret sighs mistrusting their extremes,
In baleful breast forecast their faltering Fates,
50And stir, and strive, and storm, and all in vain:
 Behold, the peasant poor with tattered coat,
Whose eyes a meaner fortune feeds with sleep,
How safe and sound the careless Snudge doth snore.
 Low-roofed lurks the house of slender hap,
55Costless, not gay without, scant clean within:
Yet safe: and oft’ner shrouds the hoary hairs,
Then haughty turrets reared with curious art,
To harbour heads that wield the golden crest.
 With endless cark¹³⁹ in glorious courts and towns,
60The troubled hopes and trembling fears do dwell.

The Argument of the Fourth Act.

1. In the first scene Gildas and Conan confer of the state of Britain.

2. In the second scene Nuntius maketh report of the whole battle, with the death of Mordred and Arthur’s and Cador’s deadly wound.

3. In the third scene Gildas and Conan lament the unfortunate state of the country.

The Argument and Manner of the Fourth Dumb Show.

 During the music appointed after the third act, there came a Lady Courtly¹⁴⁰¹⁴¹ attired with a counterfeit child in her arms, who walked softly on¹⁴² the stage. From another place there came a king crowned, who likewise¹⁴³ walked on another part of the stage. From a third place there came four soldiers¹⁴⁴ all armed, who spying this lady and king, upon a sudden pursued the lady,¹⁴⁵¹⁴⁶ from whom they violently took her child and flung it against the walls; she¹⁴⁷ in mournful sort wringing her hands passed her way. Then in like manner they¹⁴⁸ set on the king, tearing his crown from his head, and casting it in pieces under¹⁴⁹ feet drave¹⁵⁰ him by force away; and so passed themselves over the stage. By¹⁵¹ this was meant the fruit of war, which spareth neither man woman nor child;¹⁵²¹⁵³ with the end of Mordred’s usurped crown.

[4.1] The Fourth Act and First Scene.

[Enter] GILDAS [and] CONAN.

GILDAS  

Lord Conan, though I know how hard a thing
It is, for minds trained up in princely thrones,
To hear of aught against their humour’s course;
Yet, sithence¹⁵⁴ who forbiddeth not offence,
5If well he may, is cause of such offence:¹⁵⁵
I could have wished – and blame me not, my lord –
Your place and count’nance both with son and sire
Had more prevailed on either side, than thus
T’have left a crown in danger for a crown
10Through civil wars, our country’s wonted woe.
Whereby the kingdom’s wound still fest’ring deep
Sucks up the mischief’s humour to the heart.
 The staggering state of Britain’s troubled brains,
Headsick, and sore encumbered in her crown,
15With giddy steps runs on a headlong race.
Whereto this tempest tends, or where this storm
Will break, who knows? But gods avert the worst.

CONAN
Now surely, Gildas, as my duty stood,
Indifferent for the best to son and sire:
20So (I protest) since these occasions grew,
That in the depth of my desire to please,
I more esteemed what honest faith required
In matters meet for their estates and place:
Than how to feed each fond affection prone
25To bad effects, whence their disgrace mought grow.
   And as for Mordred’s desperate and disloyal plots,
They had been none, or fewer at the least,
Had I prevailed: which Arthur knows right well.
 But ev’n as counters¹⁵⁶ go sometimes for one,
30Sometimes for thousands more, sometimes for none:
So men in greatest count’nance with their king,
Can work by fit persuasion sometimes much:
But sometimes less; and sometimes naught at all.

GILDAS   

Well: we that have not spent our time in wars,
35But bent our course at peace, and country’s weal,
May rather now expect what strange event,
And chance ensues of these so rare attempts:
Than enter to discourse upon their cause,
And err as wide in words, as they in deeds.

CONAN   

40And lo, to satisfy your wish therein,
Where comes a soldier sweating from the camps.

[4.2] The Second Scene.

[Enter] NUNCIUS.

NUNCIUS  

Thou Echo¹⁵⁷ shrill that haunt’st the hollow hills,
Leave off that wont to snatch the latter word:
Howl on a whole discourse of our distress,
Clip of no clause: sound out a perfect sense.

GILDAS  

5What fresh mishap, alas, what new annoy
Removes our pensive minds from wonted woes,
And yet requires a new lamenting mood?
Declare: we joy to handle all our harms;
Our many griefs have taught us still to mourn.

NUNCIUS   

10But (ah) my tongue denies my speech his aid:
Great force doth drive it forth; a greater keeps
It in. I rue, surprised with wontless¹⁵⁸ woes.
CONAN   

Speak on, what grief soe’er our Fates afford.

NUNCIUS  

Small griefs can speak: the great astonished stand.

GILDAS  

15What greater sins could hap, than what be past?
What mischiefs could be meant, more than were wrought?  

NUNCIUS  

And think you these to be an end to sins?
No. Crime proceeds: those made but one degree.
What mischiefs erst were done, term sacred deeds:
20Call nothing sin, but what hath since ensued.
A greater grief requires your tears. Behold
These fresh annoys: your last mishaps be stale.

CONAN   

Tell on, my friend, suspend our minds no more:

Hath Arthur lost? Hath Mordred won the field?

NUNCIUS  

25O: nothing less! Would gods it were but so.
Arthur hath won, but we have lost the field.
The field? Nay all the realm, and Britain’s bounds.

GILDAS  

How so? If Arthur won, what could we lose?
You speak in clouds, and cast perplexed words.
30Unfold at large, and sort our¹⁵⁹ sorrows out.
NUNCIUS  

Then list a while: this instant shall unwrap
Those acts, those wars, those hard events, that all
The future age shall ever have cause to curse.
   Now that the time drew on, when both the camps
35Should meet in Cornwall fields, th'appointed place:
The reckless troops, whom Fates forbad to live
Till noon, or night, did storm and rave for wars.
They swarmed about their guides, and clust’ring called
For signs to fight, and fierce with uproars fell,
40They onwards hailed the hast’ning hours of death.
A direful frenzy rose: each man his own
And public fates all heedless headlong flung.
 On Mordred’s side were sixty thousand men,
Some borrowed powers, some Britons bred at home.
45The Saxons, Irish, Normans, Picts, and Scots
Were first in place, the Britons followed last.
   On Arthur’s side there were as many more.
Islandians, Goths, Norwegians, Albanes, Danes,
Were foreign aides, which Arthur brought from France,
50A trusty troupe, and tried at many a trench.
 That now the day was come, wherein our state
For ay should fall, whenceforth men might inquire
What Britain was: these wars thus near bewrayed.
Nor could the heavens no longer hide these harms,
55But by prodigious signs portend our plagues.
 For lo: ere both the camps encountering coped,¹⁶⁰
The skies and poles opposed themselves with storms.
Both East, and West with tempests dark were dimmed,
And showers of hail, and rain outrageous poured.
60The heavens were rent, each side the lightnings flashed,
And clouds with hideous claps did thundering roar.
 The armies all aghast did senseless stand,
Mistrusting much, both force, and foes, and Fates.
’Twas hard to say, which of the two appalled
65Them most, the monstrous air, or too much fear.
 When Arthur spied his soldiers thus amazed,
And hope extinct, and deadly dread drawn on:
“My mates”, quoth he, “the gods do scour the skies,
To see whose cause and courage craves their care.
70The Fates contend to work some strange event:
And Fortune seeks by storms in heavens and earth,
What pagions¹⁶¹ she may play for my behoof.
Of whom she knows, she then deserves not well,
When ling’ring aught, she comes not at the first.”
75   Thus said: rejoicing at his dauntless mind,
They all revived, and former fear recoiled.
By that the light of Titan's troubled beams¹⁶²
Had piercing scattered down the drowping fogs,
And greeted both the camps with mutual view:
80Their choler swells, whiles fell disposed minds
Bounce in their breasts, and stir uncertain storms.
Then paleness wan and stern with cheerless change,
Possessing bleak their lips and bloodless cheeks,
With troublous trembling shows their death is near.
85   When Mordred saw the danger thus approached,
And boisterous throngs of warriors threat’ning blood:
His instant ruins gave a nod at Fates,
And mind, though prone to Mars, yet daunted paused.
   The heart which promised erst a sure success,
90Now throbs in doubts: nor can his own attempts,
Afford him fear, nor Arthur’s yield him hope.
This passion lasts not long, he soon recalls
His ancient guise, and wonted rage returns.
He loathes delays, and scorched with sceptre’s lust,
95The time and place, wherein he oft had wished
To hazard all upon extremest chance,
He offered spies, and spied pursues with speed.
   Then both the armies met with equal might,
This stirred with wrath, that with desire to rule:
100And equal prowess was a spur to both.
The Irish king whirled out a poisoned dart,
That lighting pierced deep in Howell’s brains,
A peerless prince and near of Arthur’s blood.
 Hereat the air with uproar loud resounds,
105Which efts on mountains rough rebounding rears.
The trumpets hoarse their trembling tunes do tear
And thund’ring drums their dreadful larums¹⁶³ ring.
The standards broad are blown, and ensigns spread,
And every nation bends his wonted wars.
110   Some near their foes, some further off do wound,
With dart, or sword, or shaft, or pike, or spear,
The weapons hide the heavens: a night composed
Of warlike engines overshades the field.
From every side these fatal signs are sent:
115And boisterous bangs with thumping thwacks fall thick.
 Had both these camps been of usurping kings,
Had every man thereof a Mordred been,
No fiercelier had they fought for all their crowns.
The murders meanless waxed, no art in fight,
120Nor way to ward nor try each other’s skill,
But thence the blade, and hence the blood ensues.

CONAN   

But what? Did Mordred’s eyes endure this sight?

NUNCIUS  

They did. And he himself, the spur of fiends
And Gorgons¹⁶⁴ all, lest any part of his
125Scaped free from guilt, enflamed their minds to wrath.
And, with a valure more than virtue yields,
He cheered them all, and at their back with long
Outreached spear, stirred up each ling’ring hand,
All fury-like frounced up with frantic frets.
130   He bids them leave and shun the meaner sort,
He shows the kings, and Britain’s noblest peers.

GILDAS   

He was not now to seek what blood to draw:
He knew what juice refreshed his fainting crown.
Too much of Arthur’s heart! O had he wist¹⁶⁵
135How great a vice such virtue was as then,
In civil wars, in rooting up his realm!
O frantic fury, far from valure’s praise.

NUNCIUS   

There fell Aschillus stout, of Denmark king;
There valiant Gawin, Arthur’s nephew dear,
140And late by Augel’s death made Albane king,
By Mordred’s hand hath lost both life and crown.
 There Gilla wounded Cador, Cornish Duke,
In hope to win the Dukedom for his meed.
The Norway king, the Saxon’s duke, and Picts,

145In woeful sort fell grovelling to the ground.
 There prince and peasant both lay hurled on heaps:
Mars frowned on Arthur’s mates: the Fates waxed fierce,
And jointly ran their race with Mordred’s rage.

CONAN  

But with what joy, alas, shall he return,
150That thus returns, the happier for this field?
NUNCIUS  

These odds endure not long, for Mars retires,
And Fortune, pleased with Arthur’s moderate fear,
Returns more full, and friendlier then her wont.
 For when he saw the powers of Fates opposed,
155And that the dreadful hour thus hastened on:
Perplexed much in mind, at length resolves,
That fear is covered best by daring most.
   Then forth he pitched: the Saxon duke withstood,
Whom with one stroke he headless sent to hell.
160Not far from thence he spied the Irish king,
Whose life he took as price of broken truce.
 Then Cador forward pressed, and haply met
The traitor Gilla, worker of these wars,
Of whom by death he took his due revenge.
165   The remnant then of both the camps concur,
They Britons all, or most: few foreigns left.
These wage the wars, and hence the deaths ensue.
Nor t’one, nor t’other side, that can destroy
His foes so fast, as ’tis itself destroyed.
170   The brethren broach their blood: the sire his son’s,
The son again would prove by too much wrath,
That he, whom thus he slew, was not his sire.
No blood nor kin can swage their ireful moods.
No foreign foe they seek, nor care to find:
175The Briton’s blood is sought on every side.
   A vain discourse it were to paint at large
The several fates, and foils of either side.
To tell what groans and sighs the parting ghosts
Sent forth: who dying bare the fellest breast:
180Who changed cheer at any Briton’s fall:
Who oft’nest struck: who best bestowed his blade:
Who ventured most: who stood: who fell: who failed:
Th’effect declares it all: thus fared the field.
Of both these hosts so huge and main at first,
185There were not left on either side a score,
For son, and sire to win, and lose the realm.
 The which when Mordred saw, and that his sire
’Gainst foes, and Fates themselves would win the field,
He sighed, and twixt despair and rage he cried,
190“Here, Arthur, here, and hence the conquest comes:
Whiles Mordred lives, the crown is yet unwon.”
   Hereat the prince of prowess much amazed,
With thrilling tears, and count’nance cast on ground,
Did groaning fetch a deep and earnful¹⁶⁶ sigh.
195   Anon they fierce encountering both concurred,
With grisly looks, and faces like their fates:
But dispar¹⁶⁷ minds, and inward moods unlike.
 The sire with mind to safeguard both, or t’one:
The son to spoil the t’one, or hazard both.
200No fear, nor fellness failed on either side:
The wager lay on both their lives and bloods.
 At length when Mordred spied his force to faint,
And felt himself oppressed with Arthur’s strength
(O hapless lad, a match unmeet for him),
205He loathes to live in that afflicted state,
And valiant with a forced virtue, longs
To die the death: in which perplexed mind,
With grinning teeth, and crabbed looks he cries,
“I cannot win: yet will I not be won.
210   What should we shun our Fates, or play with Mars,
Or thus defraud the wars of both our bloods?
Whereto do we reserve ourselves? Or why
Be we not sought ere this, amongst the dead?
So many thousands murdered in our cause,
215Must we survive, and neither win nor lose?
   The Fates that will not smile on either side,
May frown on both.” So saying, forth he flings,
And desperate runs on point of Arthur’s sword,
(A sword, alas, prepared for no such use)
220Whereon engored he glides, till near approached,
With dying hand he hews his father’s head.
So through his own annoy, he noyes his liege:
And gains by death access to daunt his sire.
 There Mordred fell, but like a prince he fell.
225And as a branch of great Pendragon’s graft
His life breaths out, his eyes forsake the sun,
And fatal clouds infer a lasting clipse.¹⁶⁸
There Arthur staggering scant sustained himself,
There Cador found a deep and deadly wound,
230There ceased the wars, and there was Britain lost.
   There lay the chosen youths of Mars, there lay
The peerless knights, Bellona’s¹⁶⁹ bravest train.
There lay the mirrors rare of martial praise,
There lay the hope and branch of Brute suppressed.
235There Fortune laid the prime of Britain’s pride,
There laid her pomp, all topsy-turvy turned. 

Exit [NUNCIUS].

[4.3] The Third Scene.

GILDAS. CONAN.

GILDAS  

Come cruel griefs, spare not to stretch our strengths,
Whiles baleful breasts invite our thumping fists.
Let every sign, that mournful passions work,
Express what piteous plights our minds amaze.
5 This day supplants what no day can supply,
These hands have wrought those wastes, that never age,
Nor all the brood of Brute shall e’er repair.
That future men may joy the surer rest,
These wars prevent their birth, and nip their spring.
10 What nations erst the former age subdued
With hourly toils to Britain’s yoke, this day
Hath set at large, and backwards turned the Fates.
Henceforth the Kerns may safely tread their bogs:
The Scots may now their inroads old renew,
15The Saxons well may vow their former claims,
And Danes without their danger drive us out.
 These wars found not th’effect of wonted wars,
Nor doth their weight the like impression work:
There several fates annoyed but several men,
20Here all the realm and people find one fate.
What there did reach but to a soldier’s death,
Contains the death of all a nation here.
 These blades have given this isle a greater wound,
Than time can heal. The fruit of civil wars:
25A kingdom’s hand hath gored a kingdom's heart.

CONAN  

When Fame shall blaze these acts in latter years,
And time to come so many ages hence
Shall efts report our toils and British pains:
Or when perhaps our children’s children read
30Our woeful wars displayed with skilful pen:
They’ll think they hear some sounds of future facts,
And not the ruins old of pomp long past.
’Twill move their minds to ruth, and frame afresh
New hopes, and fears, and vows, and many a wish,
35And Arthur’s cause shall still be favoured most.
 He was the joy, and hope, and hap of all,
The realm’s defence, the sole delay of Fates,
He was our wall and fort; twice thirteen years
His shoulders did the Britain state support.
40 Whiles yet he reigned, no foreign foes prevailed,
Nor once could hope to bind the Britain bounds:
But still both far and near were forced to fly,
They thrall to us, we to ourselves were free.
 But now, and henceforth ay, adieu that hope,
45Adieu that pomp, that freedom, rule and all:
Let Saxons now, let Normans, Danes, and Scots,
Enjoy our meadows, fields, and pleasant plains:
Come, let us fly to mountains, cliffs and rocks,
A nation hurt, and ne'er in case to heal.
50   Henceforth, the weight of Fates thus fall’n aside,
We rest secure from fear of greater foil:
Our leisure serves to think on former times,
And know what erst we were, who now are thus.  

Exeunt.

[4] CHORUS

1

O Britain’s prosperous state, were¹⁷⁰¹⁷¹ heavenly powers

But half so willing to preserve thy peace,

As they are prone to plague thee for thy wars.

But thus, O Gods, yea, thus it likes you still,
5When you decree to turn, and touse¹⁷² the world,
To make our errors cause of your decrees.
 We fretting fume, and burning wax right wood,¹⁷³
We cry for swords, and harmful harness crave,
We rashly rave, whiles from our present rage,
10You frame a cause of long foredeemed doom.
2

  When Britain so desired her own decay,
That ev’n her native brood would root her up:
Seemed it so huge a work, O Heavens, for you
To tumble down, and quite subvert her state,
15Unless so many nations came in aid?
What thirst of spoil, O Fates, in civil wars
Were you afraid to faint for want of blood?
 But yet, O wretched state in Britons fond,
What needed they to stoop to Mordred’s yoke,
20Or fear the man themselves so fearful made?
Had they but linked like friends in Arthur’s bands,
And joined their force against the foreign foes:
These wars and civil sins had soon surceased,
And Mordred reft of rule had feared his sire.

3

25   Would gods these wars had drawn no other blood
Than such as sprung from breasts of foreign foes:
So that the fountain, fed with changeless course,
Had found no nearer vents for dearer juice.
 Or if the Fates so thirst for British blood,
30And long so deeply for our last decay:
O that the rest were spared and safe reserved,
Both Saxons, Danes, and Normans most of all.
 Hereof when civil wars have worn us out,
Must Britain stand, a borrowed blood for Brute.

4

35   When prosperous haps, and long continuing bliss,
Have passed the ripeness of their budding growth,
They fall and falter like the mellow fruit,
Surcharged with burden of their own excess.
So Fortune, wearied with our often wars,
40Is forced to faint, and leave us to our fates.
 If men have minds presaging aught their harms,
If ever heavy heart foreween¹⁷⁴ her woe:
What Briton lives, so far removed from home,
In any air, or pole, or coast abroad:
45But that even now through Nature’s sole instinct,
He feels the fatal sword imbrue his breast,
Wherewith his native soil for ay is slain?
What hopes, and haps lie wasted in these wars?
Who knows the foils he suffered in these fields?

The Argument of the Fifth Act.

1. In the first scene Arthur and Cador returned deadly wounded and bewailed the misfortune of themselves and their country, and are likewise bewailed of the Chorus.

 2. In the second scene the ghost of Gorlois returneth rejoicing at his revenge, and wishing ever after a happier fate unto Britain, which done, he descendeth where he first rose.

The Argument and Manner of the Fifth and Last Dumb Show.

 Sounding the music, four gentlemen all in black, half armed, half unarmed, with black scarfs overthwart their shoulders should come upon the stage. The first bearing aloft in the one hand on the truncheon of a spear an helmet, an arming sword, a gauntlet, etc., representing the Trophea;¹⁷⁵ in the other hand a target¹⁷⁶ depicted with a man’s heart sore wounded and the blood gushing out, crowned with a crown imperial and a laurel garland, thus written in the top: En totum quod superest,¹⁷⁷ signifying the King of Norway which spent himself and all his power for Arthur, and of whom there was left nothing but his heart to enjoy the conquest that ensued. The second bearing in the one hand a silver vessel full of gold, pearls, and other jewels representing the Spolia;¹⁷⁸ in the other hand a target with an oliphant and dragon thereon fiercely combatting, the dragon, under the oliphant and sucking by his extreme heat the blood from him, is crushed in pieces with the fall of the oliphant, so as both die at last, this written above: Victor, an victus?¹⁷⁹ Representing the King of Denmark, who fell through Mordred’s wound, having first with his soldiers destroyed the most of Mordred’s army. The third bearing in the one hand a pyramis¹⁸⁰ with a laurel wreath about it representing victory. In the other hand a target with this device: a man sleeping, a snake drawing near to sting him, a lizard preventing the snake by fight, the lizard being deadly wounded awaketh the man, who seeing the lizard dying, pursues the snake, and kills it, this written above: Tibi morimur.¹⁸¹ Signifying Gawin King of Albany slain in Arthur’s defence by Mordred, whom Arthur afterwards slew. The fourth bearing in the one hand a broken pillar, at the top thereof the crown and sceptre of the vanquished king, both broken asunder, representing the conquest over usurpation: in the other hand a target with two cocks painted thereon, the one lying dead, the other with his wings broken, his eyes pecked out, and the blood everywhere gushing forth to the ground, he standing upon the dead cock and crowing over him, with this emblem in the top: Qua vici, perdidi,¹⁸² signifying Cador deadly wounded by Gilla whom he slew. After these followed a king languishing in complete harness black, bruised and battered unto him, besprinkled with blood. On his head a laurel garland, leaning on the shoulders of two heralds in mourning gowns and hoods, th’one in Mars his coat of arms, the other in Arthur’s, presenting Arthur victoriously, but yet deadly wounded. There followed a page with a target whereon was portraited a pelican pecking her blood out of her breast to feed her young ones, through which wound she dieth, this written in the top: Qua fovi, perii,¹⁸³ signifying Arthur’s too much indulgency of Mordred, the cause of his death. All this represented the dismayed and unfortunate victory of Arthur, which is the matter of the act ensuing.

[5.1] The Fifth Act and First Scene.

[Enter] Arthur, Cador [to] Chorus.

ARTHUR  

Come Cador, as our friendship was most firm
Throughout our age, so now let’s link as fast.
Thus did we live in wars, thus let us die
In peace, and arm in arm partake our Fates.
5Our wounds, our grief, our wish, our hap alike,
Our end so near, all crave each other’s help.

CADOR

O King, behold the fruit of all our fame:
Lo here our pomp, consumed with ourselves;
What all our age with all our wars had won,
10Lo here one day hath lost it all at once.
 Well: so it likes the heavens; thus Fortune gibes:
She hoisteth up to hurl the deeper down.

CHORUS 1  

O sacred prince: what sight is this we see?
Why have the Fates reserved us to these woes –
15Our only hope, the stay of all our realm,
The pillar of our state, thus sore oppressed?
   O would the gods had favoured us so much:
That, as we lived partakers of your pains,
And likewise joyed the fruit of your exploits;
20So having thus bereft our sovereign’s bliss,
They had with more indifferent doom conjoined
The subjects both, and sovereign’s bane in one.
 It now, alas, engendereth double grief,
To rue your want, and to bewail our woes.

ARTHUR

25Rue not, my Britons, what my rage hath wrought,
But blame your king, that thus hath rent your realm.
My meanless moods have made the Fates thus fell,
And too much anger wrought in me too much.
   For had impatient ire endured abuse,
30And yielded where resistance threatened spoil,
I mought have lived in foreign coasts unfoiled,
And six score thousand men had been unmoaned.
 But wrong, incensing wrath to take revenge,
Preferred chance before a better choice.

CHORUS 2

35’Twas Mordred’s wrong and too unjust deserts
That justly moved your Highness to such wrath:
Your claim required no less than those attempts;
Your cause right good was praised, and prayed for most.

ARTHUR   

I claimed my crown; the cause of claim was good,
40The means to claim it in such sort was bad.
 Yea: rather than my realm and native soil
Should wounded fall, thus bruised with these wars,
I should have left both realm, and right, and all;
Or dured¹⁸⁴ the death ordained by Mordred’s oath.

CADOR   

45And yet so far as Mars could bide a mean,
You hateless sought the safeguard of them all.
 Whereto the better cause, or badder chance
Did draw, you still inclined: preferring oft
The weaker side, sometimes for love, sometimes
50For right (as Fortune swayed) your son, yourself.
   So pity spared, what reason sought to spoil:
Till all at length, with equal spoil was spent.

CHORUS 3  

Would gods your mind had felt no such remorse,
And that your foes had no such favour found.
55So mought your friends have had far friendlier Fates,
If rebels for their due deserts had died.
 The wicked’s death is safety to the just.
To spare the traitors, was to spoil the true.
Of force he hurts the good, that helps the bad.
60   In that you sought your country’s gain, ’twas well:
In that you shunned not her loss, ’twas hard.
Good is the friend, that seeks to do us good:
A mighty friend, that doth prevent our harms.

ARTHUR   

Well: so it was; it cannot be redressed:
65The greater is my grief, that sees it so.
   My life, I feel, doth fade, and sorrows flow,
The rather that my name is thus extinct.
In this respect, so Mordred did succeed,
O, that myself had fall’n, and Mordred lived:
70That, having conquered all my foes but him,
I mought have left you him, that conquered me.
 O heavy wretched lot: to be the last
That falls, to view the burial of my realm.
Where each man else hath felt his several fate,
75I only pine oppressed with all their fates.

CHORUS 4   

Although your Highness do sustain such grief,
As needs enforceth all your realm to rue:
Yet since such ruth affordeth no relief,
Let due discretion swage each cureless sore,

 80And bear the harms, that run without redress.
The loss is ours, that lose so rare a prince,
You only win, that see your foe here foiled.

The breathless body of MORDRED, in armour as he fell, is brought upon the stage.

 
ARTHUR

 A causeless foe. When wars did call me hence
He was in years but young, in wit too old.
85As virtue shineth most in comeliest wights,
When inward gifts are decked with outward grace:
So did his wit and feature feed that hope,
Which falsely trained me to this woeful hap.
 His mind transformed thus, I cannot choose
90But long to see what change his face sustains.
My blood and kindred, doubled in his birth,
Inspires a mixed, and twice-descending love,
Which drives my dying veins to wish his view.
Unhelm his luckless head, set bare his face:
95That face which erst pleased me and mine too much.
CHORUS 1  

 See, worthiest king, the hope of all your realm,
Had not his lust to rule prevented all.

 ARTHUR   

 I see, alas, I see – hide, hide again:
O spare mine eyes! – a witness of my crimes:
100A fearful vision of my former guilt:
A dreadful horror of a future doom:
A present gall of mind. O happy they,
Whose spotless lives attain a dreadless death.
 And thou, O hapless boy, O spite of Fates –
105What mought I term thee, nephew, son, or both? –
Alas, how happy should we both have been,
If no ambitious thought had vexed thy head,
Nor thou thus strived to reave thy father’s rule,
But stayed thy time, and not forestalled us both?

 CADOR   

 110The hot-spurred youth that forced the forward steeds,
Whiles needs he would his father’s chariot guide,
Neglecting what his sire had said in charge,
The fires, which first he flung about the poles,
Himself at last, most woeful wretch, inflamed.¹⁸⁵
115So too much love to hover in the heavens
Made him to pay the price of rash attempts.

 ARTHUR   

 What ruth (ah) rent the woeful father’s heart,
That saw himself thus made a sonless sire?
Well: since both heavens and hell conspired in one,
120To make our ends a mirror to the world,
Both of incestuous life, and wicked birth:
Would gods, the Fates that linked our faults alike,
Had also framed our minds of friendlier moulds:
That, as our linage had approached too near,
125So our affections had not swerved too far.
 Then mought I lived t’enlarge the Britons’ praise,
In rearing efts¹⁸⁶ the first triumphant Troy,
And after, thou succeeding mine attempts,
Have spent thy courage in a juster cause.
130   But t’would not be. Ambition grew too great:
We could not join our minds; our Fates we joined:
And through thy blood, a way was made to mine.

 CHORUS 2   

 And must we needs, O worthiest peers, forgo,
By this untimely Fate our greatest hope?
135That in your ripest years and likeliest time,
Your chiefest force should on this sudden fall?

 CHORUS 3  

 Have you throughout your youth made Britain’s pomp
A sovereign of so many nations stout,
To th’end ere half your age untimely death
140Should leave us subject to our wonted foils?
CHORUS 4   

 See, see, our idle hopes, our brittle trust,
Our vain desires, our over-fickle state:
Which, though a while they sail on quiet seas,
Yet sink in surge, ere they arrive to rode.¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁸
145O woeful wars, O Mordred’s cursed pride,
That thus hath wrought both king and kingdom’s woe.

 CADOR   

 Let plaints and mournings pass, set moans apart.
They made much of themselves: yea, too too much
They loved to live, that seeing all their realm
150Thus topsy-turvy turned, would grudge to die.
ARTHUR  

 Yea sure: since thus, O Fates, your censure seems,
That free from force of foreign foes, there rests
That Mordred reap the glory of our deaths –
B’it so: drive on your doom, work your decree:
155We fearless bide what bane so e’er you bid.
 And though our ends thus hastened through your hests, 
Abruptly break the course of great attempts;
Yet go we not inglorious to the ground:
Set wish apart; we have performed enough.
160   The Irish King and nation wild we tamed:
The Scots and Picts, and Orcade Isles¹⁸⁹ we won:
The Danes and Goths and Friesland¹⁹⁰ men with all
The isles inserted near those seas; and next
The German king, and Saxons we subdued.
165   Not France, that could prevail against our force,
Nor lastly Rome, that rues her pride suppressed.
Each foreign power is parcel of our praise,
No titles want to make our foes afraid.
 This only now I crave, O Fortune (erst
170My faithful friend) – let it be soon forgot,
Nor long in mind, nor mouth, where Arthur fell.
Yea: though I conqueror die, and full of fame:
Yet let my death and parture¹⁹¹ rest obscure.
No grave I need, O Fates, nor burial rights,
175Nor stately hearse, nor tomb with haughty top;
But let my carcass lurk: yea, let my death
Be ay unknown, so that in every coast
I still be feared, and looked for every hour.

 Exeunt ARTHUR and CADOR.

CHORUS 1  

Lo here the end that Fortune sends at last
180To him, whom first she heaved to highest hap.
The flattering look wherewith he long was led;
The smiling Fates, that oft had fed his fame;
The many wars and conquests, which he gained,
Are dashed at once: one day infers that foil,
185Whereof so many years of yore were free.
CHORUS 2  

O willing world to magnify man’s state:
O most unwilling to maintain the same.
Of all misfortunes and unhappy Fates,
Th’unhappiest seems, to have been happy once.
190’Twas Arthur sole, that never found his joys
Disturbed with woe, nor woes relieved with joy.
In prosperous state all heavenly powers aspired:
Now, made a wretch, not one that spares his spoil.

CHORUS 3  

Yea Fortune’s self in this afflicted case,
195Exacts a pain for long continued pomp.
She urgeth now the bliss of wonted weal,
And bears him down with weight of former fame.
His praises past be present shame. O tickle trust:
Whiles Fortune chops and changeth every chance.
200What certain bliss can we enjoy alive,
Unless, whiles yet our bliss endures, we die?

CHORUS 4  

Yea: since before his last and outmost gasp,
None can be deemed a happy man or blest,
Who dares commit himself to prosperous Fates,
205Whose death prepared attends not hard at hand?
That sithence death must once determine all,
His life may sooner fly, than Fortune flit.

[5.2] The Second Scene.

[Enter] GORLOIS.

GORLOIS  

Now Gorlois swage thyself. Pride hath his pay;
Murder his price; Adult’ry his desert;
Treason his meed; Disloyalty his doom;
Wrong hath his wreak; and Guilt his guerdon bears.
5Not one abuse erst offered by thy foes
But since most sternly punished, is now purged.
Where thou didst fall, ev’n on the self-same soil
Pendragon, Arthur, Mordred, and their stock,
Found all their foils: not one hath scaped revenge;
10Their line from first to last quite razed out.
   Now rest content, and work no further plagues:
Let future age be free from Gorlois’ ghost.
Let Britain henceforth bath in endless weal.
Let Virgo¹⁹² come from heaven, the glorious star;
15The Zodiac’s joy; the Planets’ chief delight:
The hope of all the year: the ease of skies:
The Air’s relief, the comfort of the Earth.
That virtuous Virgo borne for Britain’s bliss;
That peerless branch of Brute; that sweet remain
20Of Priam’s state; that hope of springing Troy:
Which time to come, and many ages hence
Shall of all wars compound eternal peace.
 Let her reduce¹⁹³ the golden age again,
Religion, ease, and wealth of former world.
25Yea, let that Virgo come and Saturn’s reign,¹⁹⁴
And years oft ten times told expired in peace.
A rule, that else no realm shall ever find,
A rule most rare, unheard, unseen, unread,
The sole example that the world affords.
30   That, Britain, that renown, yea that is thine.
B’it so: my wrath is wrought. Ye furies black
And ugly shapes, that howl in holes beneath:
Thou Orcus¹⁹⁵ dark, and deep Avernas’¹⁹⁶ nook,
With duskish dens out-gnawn in gulfs below,
35Receive your ghastly charge, Duke Gorlois’ ghost:
Make room: I gladly thus revenged return.
And though your pain surpass, I greet them though:
He hates each other heaven, that haunteth hell.

Descendit.¹⁹⁷

EPILOGUS

See here by this the tickle trust of time;
The false affiance of each mortal force,
The wavering weight of Fates; the fickle trace,
That Fortune trips; the many mocks of life;
5The cheerless change; the easeless brunts and broils,
That man abides; the restless race he runs.
 But most of all, see here the peerless pains;
The lasting pangs; the stintless griefs; the tears;
The sighs; the groans; the fears; the hopes; the hates;
10The thoughts and cares, that kingly pomp imparts.
 What follies then bewitch th’ambitious minds,
That thirst for sceptre’s pomp, the well of woes?
Whereof, alas, should wretched man be proud,
Whose first conception is but sin, whose birth
15But pain, whose life but toil, and needs must die?
 See here the store of great Pendragon’s brood,
The t’one quite dead, the t’other hastening on,
As men, the son but green, the sire but ripe:
Yet both forestalled ere half their race were run.
20As kings, the mightiest monarchs in this age,
Yet both suppressed and vanquished by themselves.
 Such is the brittle breath of mortal man,
Whiles human nature works her daily wracks:
Such be the crazed crests of glorious crowns,
25Whiles worldly powers like sudden puffs do pass.
And yet for one that goes, another comes,
Some born, some dead: so still the store endures.
So that both Fates and common care provide
That men must needs be born, and some must rule.
30Wherefore ye Peers and Lordings lift aloft,
And whosoe’er in thrones that judge your thralls:
Let not your sovereignty heave you to high,
Nor their subjection press them down too low.
It is not pride, that can augment your power,
35Nor lowly looks, that long can keep them safe.
The Fates have found a way, whereby ere long
The proud must leave their hope, the meek their fear.
Whoe’er received such favour from above,
That could assure one day unto himself?
40Him, whom the morning found both stout and strong,
The evening left all grovelling on the ground.
 This breath and heat wherewith man’s life is fed
Is but a flash, or flame, that shines a while,
And once extinct, is as it ne’er had been.
45Corruption hourly frets the body’s frame,
Youth tends to age, and age to death by kind.
Short is the race, prefixed is the end,
Swift is the time, wherein man’s life doth run.
But by his deeds t’extend renown and fame,
50That only virtue works, which never fades.

FINIS.

 Thomas Hughes.

Sat cito, si sat bene: utcumque

Quod non dat spes, dat optio.¹⁹⁸

 Here after follow such speeches as were penned by others, and pronounced instead of some of the former speeches penned by Thomas Hughes.

 A speech penned by William Fulbecke gentleman, one of the society of Gray’s Inn, and pronounced instead of Gorlois his first speech penned by Thomas Hughes, and set down in the first scene of the first act.

Alecto:¹⁹⁹ thou that hast excluded me
From fields Elysian,²⁰⁰ where the guiltless souls
Avoid the scourge of Rhadamanthus’²⁰¹ ire:
Let it be lawful (sith I am removed
5From blessed islands, to this cursed shore,
This loathed earth where Arthur’s table stands,
With ordure foul of harpies²⁰² fierce distained)
The fates and hidden secrets to disclose
Of black Cocytus and of Acheron,²⁰³
10The floods of death, the lakes of burning souls.
Where hellish frogs do prophecy revenge:
Where Tartar’s sprights²⁰⁴ with careful heed attend
The dismal summons of Alecto’s mouth.
Myself by precept of Proserpina,²⁰⁵
15Commanded was in presence to appear,
Before the synod of the damned sprights.
In fearful mood I did perform their hest,
And at my entrance in th’enchanted snakes,
Which wrap themselves about the Furies’ necks,
20Did hiss for joy: and from the dreadful bench²⁰⁶²⁰⁷
The supreme Fury thus assigned her charge.
“Gorlois,” quoth she, “thou thither must ascend,
Whence through the rancour of malicious foes
Wearied with wounds thou didst descend to us.
25Make Britain now the mark of thy revenge
On ruthless Britons and Pendragon’s race,
Disburse the treasure of thy hellish plagues.
Let blood contend with blood, father with son,
Subject with prince, and let confusion reign.”
30She therewithal enjoined the dusky clouds
Which with their darkness turned the earth to hell,
Convert to blood and pour down streams of blood.
Cornwall shall groan, and Arthur’s soul shall sigh;
Before the conscience of Guenevora
35The map of hell shall hang and fiends shall rage:
And Gorlois’ ghost exacting punishment.
With dreams, with horrors and with deadly trance
Shall gripe their hearts: the vision of his corse
Shall be to them, as was the terror vile
40Of flaming whips to Agamemnon’s son.²⁰⁸
And when the trumpet calls them from their rest
Aurora²⁰⁹ shall with wat’ry cheeks behold
Their slaughtered bodies prostrate to her beams.
And on the banks of Cambala²¹⁰ shall lie
45The bones of Arthur and of Arthur’s knights:
Whose fleet is now triumphing on the seas,
But shall be welcomed with a Tragedy.
Thy native soil shall be thy fatal gulf,
Arthur: thy place of birth, thy place of death.
50Mordred shall be the hammer of my hate
To beat the bones of Cornish lords to dust.
Ye ravening birds under Celeno’s²¹¹ power,
I do adjure you in Alecto’s name.

Follow the sword of Mordred where he goes.
55Follow the sword of Mordred for your food.
Aspiring Mordred, thou must also die.
And on the altar of Proserpina
Thy vital blood unto my ghost shall fume.
Heaven, Earth,and Hell, concur to plague the man.
60That is the plague of Heaven, Earth, and Hell.
Thou²¹² bids Alecto: I pursue my charge.
Let thy Cerastae²¹³ whistle in mine ears,
And let the bells of Pluto ring revenge.

 One other speech penned by the same gentleman, and pronounced instead of Gorlois his last speech penned by Thomas Hughes, and set down in the second scene of the fifth and last act.

Death hath his conquest; hell hath had his wish.
Gorlois his vow; Alecto her desire.
Sin hath his pay; and blood is quit with blood.
Revenge in triumph bears the struggling hearts.
5Now, Gorlois, pierce the craggy rocks of hell.
Through chinks whereof infernal sprites do glance,
Return this answer to the Furies’ court:
That Cornwall trembles with the thought of war,
And Tamer’s flood²¹⁴ with drooping pace doth flow,
10For fear of touching Cambal’s bloody stream.
Britain remember. Write it on thy walls,
Which neither time nor tyranny may race:
That rebels, traitors and conspirators,
The seminary of lewd Catiline,²¹⁵
15The bastard covey of Italian birds,²¹⁶
Shall feel the flames of ever flaming fire,
Which are not quenched with a sea of tears.
And since in thee some glorious star must shine,
When many years and ages are expired,
20Whose beams shall clear the mist of miscontent
And make the damp of Pluto’s pit retire,
Gorlois will never fray the Britons more.
For Britain then becomes an Angel’s land,
Both devils and sprites must yield to Angels’ power,
25Unto the goddess of the Angels’ land.²¹⁷
Vaunt Britain vaunt, of her renowned reign,
Whose face deters the hags of hell from thee;
Whose virtues hold the plagues of heaven from thee,
Whose presence makes the earth fruitful to thee;
30And with foresight of her thrice happy days,

Britain, I leave thee to an endless praise.

 Besides these speeches there was also penned a Chorus for the first act, and another for the second act, by Master Francis Flower, which were pronounced accordingly. The dumb shows were partly devised by Master Christopher Yelverton, Master Francis Bacon, Master John Lancaster and others, partly by the said Master Flower, who with Master Penruddock and the said Master Lancaster directed these proceedings at Court.

 1 The date is given as 1587, i.e. 1588 by modern reckoning, since the new year was counted as beginning in March.  

 2 Nicholas Trotte, member of Gray’s Inn from 1573. See Corrigan p. 3.

 3 Contracted form of the Latin videlicet, “namely”.

 4 Corrigan: “the Starry Maid,” the constellation Virgo, identified with the figure of Justice, who lived, according to Aratos, among men during the Golden Age, but fled to heaven during the Bronze Age.” She came to be associated with Elizabeth I; see Francis Yates, “Queen Elizabeth as Astraea,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 10 (1947): 27-82.

 5 Corrigan: “a legal term requiring one party to abide by the decision or judgment of a third party, as in an arbitration.”

 6 Unacquainted.

 7 Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses.

 8 In or into use, practice, or performance (OED, “ure,” n.1).

 9 More, besides.

 10 I.e. once devoted.

 11 To prove or show (a fact, statement, etc.) to be true (OED, “soothe,” v. cites this line from Arth. for this usage).

 12 Turbulent, mutinous (OED “mutine, adj.” cites these lines from Arth. for this usage).

 13 Artful, crafty, cunning (OED “practic, adj” 3).

 14 Corrigan glosses: “assure yourselves”. Collier instead punctuates as “And, sure, ye ladies are not secret all”.

 15 Collier has “Muse’s”, but the plural may be appropriate as there are three Muses on stage.

 16 Duty, effort.

 17 Avenging chthonic female deities in classical mythology, often conceived of as three in number, and called Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone; Alecto is named in Fulbeck’s alternative speeches for Gorlois, below. They are frequently associated with snakes; a previous Inns of Court play, Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc (1561), had featured Furies which arise as if from hell “girt with snakes”.

 18 Cupid, son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Generally pictured carrying a bow and arrow, with which he pierced his victims through the heart to inspire love in them.  

 19 Winged horse.

 20 HOWELL] Hoel Q

 21 Although Q has “Hoel” in the dramatis personae, he is “Howell” in the rest of the text.

 22 The phrase “Limbo lake” can be found in Phaer’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (1558, 3.386), Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1567, 10.13), Thomas Proctor’s Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578), and frequently in the English translations of Seneca printed together in 1581. As A.B. Taylor comments, “‘Limbo lake’ is used to translate any of the rivers in Hades, the Styx, Lethe, or Acheron, as well as being employed as a general term for the underworld itself. Clearly the phrase was a small part of the convention of referring to the pagan world in Christian terms which Elizabethan writers had inherited from medieval times” (“The Elizabethan Seneca and Two Notes on Shakespeare and Spenser”, Notes & Queries 34.2, 1987: 193-5 (195)).

 23 The Styx, the river which forms the boundary to the underworld; in Latin limbus is “border”, hence the association with “Limbo lake” in the line above. In Virgil’s Aeneid, “The Styx is like an unregulated river, intermittently marsh and lake” (Keith Maclennan, Virgil: Aeneid VI (Bristol Classical Press, 2006), p. 93).

 24 Charon was the ferryman who transported the souls of the dead across the Styx into the underworld.

 25 Pluto (from the Greek for “wealth”) was another name for Hades, ruler of the underworld.

 26 Q “Destnies” could be interpreted as either “Destinies’” or “Destiny’s”; if the former, it suggests the personified form of the three classical Destinies or Fates.

 27 Partner or mate; here Gorlois’ wife Igerna, since he is addressing himself in the second person. Corrigan: “The playwright uses the homophonic resonance of this word to play on the thematically significant motif of fearing one’s spouse”.

 28 29 the BL] thy Ht, Hv

 29 BL is corrected, with a printed “e” pasted over the “y”.

 30 39 powers, BL] powers Ht, Hv

 31 The added comma “is another example of an in-forme correction in BL” (Corrigan).

 32 Mother of Andromeda, turned into a constellation after death. Corrigan: “A brilliant star appeared in the Cassiopeian constellation in 1572. The star subsequently disappeared, but it was thought by many to portend a peaceful reign for Elizabeth. Throughout this speech Gorlois is addressing Elizabeth. The playwright casts his audience as a host of celestial spectators. The audience members thereby become the spirits waiting to be born in the time of Elizabeth I”.

 33 54 gem-bright] gempright Q

 34 Arth. is the earliest example cited in the OED of the compound adjective “gem-bright”.

 35 Corrigan: “a double entendre suggesting a) a lover whose devotion is turned to ridicule for the amusement of rivals, and b) a decoy set up to lure prey into a trap.”

 36 Medea, known for her cleverness, punished the unfaithful Jason by killing the two children they had together. She is the subject of tragedies by Euripides and Seneca.

 37 Spouse, husband.

 38 Loathes, is disgusted with.

 39 100 give] gine Q

 40 Drown.

 41 16 this] his Q

 42 Editors emend Q’s “his” to “this”, since Guenevora is now talking about killing herself.

 43 43 Or] On Q

 44 Corrigan: “a double entendre meaning a feat of valor, but also an evil deed or crime, the latter being the commonest sense during the sixteenth century.”

 45 Corrigan: “a poetic definition of the misused legal term cui bono. He who benefits from a crime is the presumed perpetrator.”

 46 Corrigan: “a poetic definition of the legal concept of joint feasors in pari delicto.”

 47 58 should BL] should should Ht, Hv

 48 In BL, the second “should” has been deleted by hand; Corrigan comments that “it seems to be the same ink used in the printing of Q, the cancellation, therefore, appears to have been done in Robinson’s shop.”

 49 Paris carried Helen, the wife of Menelaus, off with him to Troy; the Greeks launched a military expedition to get her back, leading ultimately to the fall of Troy.

 50 If Conan did not enter along with Mordred at the beginning of the scene, he must enter here.

 51 8 chance] Chance BL; Chaunce Ht, Hv

 52 A cancel slip reading “Chance” was pasted over ‘Chaunce’ in BL (its position is shown in the facsimile edition of 1911), but this has since been removed and pasted to the right of the line, so that both are visible.

 53 Speech prefix omitted in Q, but added by Corrigan.

 54 Speech prefix omitted in Q, but added by Corrigan.

 55 Endangered.

 56 Seldom.

 57 Compare Cicero’s well-known translation of a line from Euripides’ Phoenician Women: “Nam si violandum est ius, regnandi gratia” (De Officiis 3.82).

 58 Endures, persists.

 59 Manlius Curtius. According to a legend surrounding the Lacus Curtius (a pond in the Forum Romanum), a gulf opened up there which it was said could only be closed by casting into it the greatest treasure of Rome. Interpreting Rome’s greatest treasure as her courageous young citizens, Curtius cast himself into it and the problem was resolved.

 60 Laius was the father of Oedipus, who accidentally killed him and married Jocasta, his own mother. Thebes suffered from a plague until the origin of the pollution was identified as Oedipus himself. The children of Oedipus and Jocasta were Antigone, Ismene, Polynices, and Eteocles; the latter two fought civil wars over Thebes, which ended when they killed each other.

 61 The edge of this page in BL has been closely trimmed during the binding process, resulting in the loss of a few letters down the edge of the page; these can be supplied from the Harvard copy (Ht has likewise been over-enthusiastically trimmed).

 62 The Nuntius, or messenger.

 63 Arthur’s] Arthurs Hv; Arthur BL

 64 voweth] vovv-eth Hv; vov**eth BL

 65 In BL “to” is almost entirely cut off.

 66 mother] mo-ther Hv; mc*ther BL

 67 Speak together, confer, parley; in law “To have license to settle a litigation amicably; to obtain delay for adjustment” (OED, citing Wharton Law Lex.).

 68 after] aft*** BL

 69 princes] Princ** BL

 70 assistance] assistane Q

 71 house a] hous*** BL

 72 the] t** BL

 73 three] thr** BL

 74 This word has been almost entirely cut off in BL.

 75 orderly] orde*** BL

 76 This word has been almost entirely cut off in BL.

 77 Brutus, supposed to be a descendant of Aeneas who came to rule Britain, which in this narrative derives its name from him. This was a popular Tudor myth allowing the British to claim descent from the Trojans.

 78 Courage, valour.

 79 Mighty, powerful. Corrigan notes that it should be pronounced as a trisyllable, here and subsequently.

 80 Owed.

 81 53 this BL] this this Hv, Ht  

 82 The second “this” is cancelled in BL.

 83 MORDRED] ARTH. Q

 84 Editors emend to “grooms”; Corrigan cites line 84 below “where the author again uses the word groome to indicate subjects”.

 85 Editors emend to “many”.

 86 MORDRED] CONA. Q

 87 65 realm envies BL] commons grudge Ht, Hv

 88 Corrigan: “A cancel slip, apparently printed and attached in Robinson’s shop, is affixed to BL in such a manner that it may be folded back to reveal ‘commons grudge’ underneath.”

 89 “Must I to gain renown, incur my plague, / Or hoping praise sustain an exile’s life? / Must I for country’s ease disease myself, / Or for their love despise my own estate?” Ht, Hv

 90 Cancel slip in BL which can be folded back, as above.

 91 91 usurped] vsupred Q

 92 93 your BL] youe Ht, Hv

 93 Corrigan comments that “This is the only certain example of an in-forme press correction in Q”.

 94 96 hugest] hngest Q

 95 Q lists the speakers at the head of each scene; as he does not speak, Conan is not mentioned here, though it seems likely that he remains on stage throughout this scene.

 96 This is on the assumption that Conan has remained onstage throughout 3.3; if not, he re-enters here.

 97 River or estuary between Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

 98 Corrigan: “According to Bede, brothers who, with the British king Vortigern, led the original Anglo-Saxon settlers against the Picts between 446-454 A.D."

 99 Wages, reward, recompense.

 100 50 or BL] a Ht, Hv

 101 BL is corrected with a cancel slip.

 102 Exeunt all except for Mordred and Conan.

 103 Troy.

 104 The spellings “fowle”/“controwle” indicate the rhyme.

 105 A winged horse in Greek mythology, mount of Perseus, subsequently stellified. In the first dumb show the third Fury held “a Pegasus” in her left hand.

 106 First] Fyrste BL; second Ht, Hv

 107 In BL the error is corrected with a cancel slip.

 108 15 Arthur] Arthnr Q

 109 Q: “lowre”, which Corrigan interprets as “lower; become diminished or lessened” (n. ad loc.). However, “lour” (frown, look threateningly upon) also fits the context.

 110 The story of how Gaius Porcius Cato (neither the Elder nor the Younger) saved a thief from hanging, who afterwards was the only volunteer for the office of executioner when Cato himself was condemned to death, can be found for instance in The Book of the Knight of the Tower (translated into English by William Caxton, 1483).

 111 Foreseeing, anticipating, knowing in advance.

 112 OED “gog, n.2”: “to set on gog, to stir up, excite, make eager”.

 113 139 Fortune] Fortuue Q

 114 Corrigan: “a legal formulation used to posit a point for debate.”

 115 Corrigan: “the sword of civil war, but also the sword of Damocles, hung by a hair over Damocles at a feast by Dionysus I. It is symbolic of uncertain fortune.”

 116 158 subjection] subiection BL; allegeance Ht, Hv

 117 The alteration is made in BL using a cancel slip.

 118 159 Doubt] Doube Q

 119 161 better] bettes Q

 120 Past tense formed from “abide”.

 121 The Cyclopes were one-eyed giants, whose violence Odysseus encountered in his travels; in Ovid and others they are said to forge the thunderbolts of Jupiter.

 122 Trumpet.

 123 Behest.

 124 “A pert, saucy, vain, or insolent boy or young man; a coxcomb” (OED “princock, n.).

 125 Irish warriors who fought on foot.

 126 Corrigan: “In Hunt and Harv, this is a composite question mark composed of a colon and an apostrophe (:’). The apostrophe has either fallen or been taken out of the form between the printing of Hunt and Harv and the printing of BL.”

 127 The story is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae, according to which Brutus was granted a vision by the goddess Diana revealing to him the land over which he was destined to rule.

 128 Ramparts.

 129 87 in] iu Q

 130 Corrigan: “a poetic description of the legal philosophy underlying the ancient English form of adjudication known as trial by combat.”

 131 With full strength, forcefully.

 132 Corrigan emends to “Exeunt Reges et Cohors”, meaning “Exit the kings and the cohort”, referring “not to King Arthur but to the kings under his command”. As he notes, “the original Regis can make sense, ‘The King’s cohort exits,’ except that Cohors is singular, making Exeunt improper”.

 133 34 rising Col.] rysiyg Q

 134 41 creep] ceeepe Q

 135 Variant form of “anent”, meaning “alongside”.

 136 Rolling, tossing.

 137 Passes over, omits, skips.

 138 Rigging, tackle of a ship.

 139 Burden, charge, load.

 140 Courtly Hv] Cou**ly BL

 141 Again, as Corrigan points out, “BL and Hunt have been clipped in the bindery”, and the letters missing at the edges of the page must be supplied from Hv.

 142 “On” has been trimmed off in BL and Hunt, and survives only in Harv.

 143 likewise Hv] likew*** BL, Ht

 144 soldiers] Souldi-ers Hv; Soul**ers BL, Ht

 145 Lady,] Lady, Hv; La*** BL, Ht.: La***

 146 In BL the initial curve of the “d” is visible.

 147 she] Shee Hv; Sh** BL, Ht

 148 they Hv] th** BL, Ht

 149 under] vnder Hv; v*der BL, Ht

 150 Drove.

 151 “By” has been trimmed off in BL and Hunt, and survives only in Harv.

 152 child;] childe; Hv; chil*** BL, Ht.: chil***

 153 In BL the initial curve of the “d” is visible; in Ht slightly more, so that it appears to read “chilc”.

 154 Seeing that, since.

 155 Corrigan: “a poetic definition of the legal term known as misfeasance.”

 156 Corrigan: “a multiple entendre meaning a) a token used for arithmetical operations, b) the type of a thing of no intrinsic value, or c) a Serjeant-at-Law, who could plead, ‘goe’, for one litigant, for thousands more (when pleading the crown’s case), or could choose not to plead at all.”

 157 In Greek mythology, a nymph who was punished for loquaciousness by being reduced to repeating only the final words spoken by others. Her unrequited love for Narcissus caused her to fade away until only her voice remained.

 158 Unwonted.

 159 30 our] out Q

 160 Joined in battle.

 161 Pageants.

 162 In Greek mythology Helios (the Sun) was a Titan.

 163 Calls to arms.

 164 Monstrous mythological women; often three in number, including Medusa.

 165 Known.

 166 Sorrowful.

 167 Unequal, unlike (OED, “dispar, adj.”, citing Arth.).

 168 Eclipse.

 169 Roman goddess of war.

 170 1 were BL] wert Ht, Hv

 171 In BL the “t” of the printed “wert” has been altered manually to an “e” with pen and ink.

 172 To handle roughly, to toss about.

 173 Mad.

 174 Foresee, anticipate, know in advance.

 175 Trophies (of war).

 176 Shield.

 177 “Behold all that remains” (Latin).

 178 Spoils (of war).

 179 “Victor, or vanquished?” (Latin).

 180 Corrigan: “pyramid, probably referring to a pyramidal stanchion”.

 181 “We die for you” (Latin).

 182 “Where I conquered, I lost” (Latin).

 183 “Where I nourished, I perished” (Latin). The so-called Pelican portrait of Elizabeth I, associating her with this iconography, was painted in 1575.

 184 I.e. endured.

 185 Phaethon, son of Helios (the Sun) persuaded his father to let him take his place in driving the chariot of the sun. But the horses proved too strong for him, causing chaos as he swerved too close to the earth, leading at last to his own destruction.

 186 Eftsoon; a second time, again.

 187 144 rode] Rode BL; hode Ht, Hv

 188 BL has “R” printed as a cancel slip and pasted over the printed “h” to read “Rode”.

 189 The Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland.

 190 A province in the north of the Netherlands.

 191 Presumably here “departure” (OED n.1), though the meaning “produce, offspring, childbirth” (OED n.2) may also be relevant.

 192 Corrigan: “the sixth sign of the zodiac; a constellation otherwise known as the Virgin; she is identified with Justice. Hughes is referring to Elizabeth, the virgin queen. Once again the playwright likens his audience to celestial observers.”

 193 From Latin reducere, “bring back”.

 194 I.e. the Golden Age.

 195 Orcus, a chthonic deity, often used metonymically for the underworld.

 196 Avernus, a lake in Campania, with a cave was said to lead to the underworld.

 197 “He descends” (Latin).

 198 “Soon enough, if well enough: however, what hope does not provide, choice does.” Sat cito, si sat bene: a proverb attributed to Cato.

 199 Alecto, one of the Furies (or ‘Erinyes’ in Greek), avenging chthonic female deities. They came to be conceived as three in number, and assigned the names Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone (e.g. Virgil, Aeneid 6, 7, 12).

 200 The Elysian fields, where the souls of the blessed went after death in Greek mythology.

 201 One of the judges of dead souls in the underworld.

 202 In Greek mythology, monstrous bird-women who lured sailors to their deaths.

 203 Cocytus and Acheron were rivers in the underworld.

 204 The spirits of Tartarus, i.e. the underworld.

 205 Persephone (in Greek); daughter of Demeter, who was abducted by Hades or Pluto, reigning over the underworld as his queen for six months of the year.

 206 20 bench] benthe Q

 207 Editors emend Q’s “benthe” to “bench”, which, as Corrigan observes, refers to “the judge’s bench”.

 208 Orestes, pursued by the Furies for killing his mother in revenge for her murder of his father, Agamemnon.

 209 Goddess of the dawn.

 210 Geoffrey of Monmouth locates the final battle between Arthur and Mordred by the river Camel in Cornwall.

 211 Celeno, the name of a harpy.

 212 Corrigan emends to “Thus”, Collier instead emends to “Thou bidd’st”.

 213 Mythological horned serpents.

 214 The river Tamar, on the border between Cornwall and Devon.

 215 Lucius Sergius Catilina (c. 109-62 B.C.), known for his failed conspiracy to gain power in Rome, during which he became the enemy of Cicero, who did much to bring him down.

 216 Malcolm South demonstrates that in the 1570s and 80s “Catholics and missionary priests” were frequently referred to using avian imagery, e.g. for Perceval Wilburn, Jesuits are “byrdes once of the Popes Seminaries” (see “The ‘Vncleane Birds, in Seuenty-Seuen’: The Alchemist”, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 13.2 (1973): 331-43 (333-4)).

 217 Here Fulbeck is punning on angels/Angles; the land of the Angles, Angles’ land = England. The goddess of England is Elizabeth I.