• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

ARTES.

Ha, ha, ha!

EDOL.

Dost laugh, Erictho?

ARTES.

Yes, at thy poor invention.

Is there no better torture-monger?

DONO.

Burn her to dust.

ARTES.

That's a Phoenix death, and glorious.

EDOL.

I, that's to good for her.

PRINCE.

Alive she shall be buried, circled in a wall.

Thou murdress of a King, there starve to death.

ARTES.

The Ile starve death when he comes for his prey,

And i'th'mean time Ile live upon your curses.

EDOL.

I, 'tis diet good enough; away with her.

ARTES.

With joy, my best of wishes is before;

Thy brother's poison'd, but I wanted more.

(Exit.

PRINCE.

Why does our Prophet Merlin stand apart,

Sadly observing these our Ceremonies,

And not applaud our joys with thy hid knowledge?

Let thy divining Art now satisfie

Some part of my desires; for well I know,

'Tis in thy power to show the full event,

That shall both end our Reign and Chronicle.

Speak, learned Merlin, and resolve my fears,

Whether by war we shal expel the Saxons,

Or govern what we hold with beauteous peace

In Wales and Brittain?

MER.

Long happiness attend Pendragons Reign!

What Heaven decress, fate hath no power to alter:

The Saxons, sir, will keep the ground they have,

And by supplying numbers still increase,

Till Brittain be no more. So please your Grace,

I will in visible apparitions

Present you Prophecies which shall concern

Succeeding Princes which my Art shall raise,

Till men shall call these times the latter days.

PRINCE.

Do it, my Merlin,

And Crown me with much joy and wonder.

MERLIN strikes. Hoeboys. Enter a King in Armour, his Sheild

quarter'd with thirteen Crowns. At the other door enter divers

Princes who present their Crowns to him at his feet, and do him homage;

then enters Death and strikes him; he, growing sick, Crowns Constantine.

Exeunt.

MER.

This King, my Lord, presents your Royal Son,

Who in his prime of years shall be so fortunate,

That thirteen several Princes shall present

Their several Crowns unto him, and all Kings else

Shall so admire his fame and victories,

That they shall all be glad,

Either through fear or love, to do him homage;

But death (who neither favors the weak nor valliant)

In the middest of all his glories soon shall seize him,

Scarcely permitting him to appoint one

In all his purchased Kingdoms to succeed him.

PRINCE.

Thanks to our Prophet

For this so wish'd for satisfaction;

And hereby now we learn that always Fate

Must be observ'd, what ever that decree:

All future times shall still record this Story,

Of Merlin's learned worth and Arthur's glory.

(Exeunt OMNES.

FINIS.

KING EDWARD III

This play was printed anonymously in 1596 and is now believed to be partly written by Shakespeare. The play contains many gibes at Scotland and the Scottish people, which has led some critics to think that it is the work that incited George Nicolson, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Edinburgh, to protest against the portrayal of Scots on the London stage in a 1598 letter to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. This would explain why the play was not included in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603.

Like most of Shakespeare's history plays, the source is Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, while Jean Froissart's Chronicles is also a major source for this play.

The 1596 Quarto printing

King Edward III (1312-1377)

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I. SCENE I. London. A Room of State in the Palace. Flourish.

ACT I. SCENE II. Roxborough. Before the Castle.

ACT II. SCENE I. The Same. Gardens of the Castle.

ACT II. SCENE II. The Same. A Room in the Castle.

ACT III. SCENE I. Flanders. The French Camp.

ACT III. SCENE II. Picardy. Fields near Cressi.

ACT III. SCENE III. The same. Drums.

ACT III. SCENE IV. The Same.

ACT III. SCENE V. The Same.

ACT IV. SCENE I. Bretagne. Camp of the English.

ACT IV. SCENE II. Picardy. The English Camp before Calais.

ACT IV. SCENE III. Poitou. Fields near Poitiers.