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The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare
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Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso
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induct-2
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1991-04-10
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197 lines
Induction.
A Bedchamber in the Lord's House.
Enter, aloft, the drunkard SLY, with ATTENDANTS; some with apparel,
others with basin and ewer, and other appurtenances; and LORD.
Sly For God's sake, a pot of small ale!
1st Servant Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?
2nd Servant Will't please your honour taste of these conserves?
3rd Servant What raiment will your honour wear today?
Sly I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor 'lordship'.
I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any
conserves, give me conserves of beef. Ne'er ask me what
raiment I'll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs,
no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet -
nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes
look through the overleather.
Lord Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infusd with so foul a spirit!
Sly What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old
Sly's son of Burton-heath, by birth a pedlar, by education a
cardmaker, by transmutation a bearherd, and now by present
profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of
Wincot, if she know me not. If she say I am not fourteen
pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the
lying'st knave in Christendom. What, I am not bestraught!
Here's-
3rd Servant O, this it is that makes your lady mourn.
2nd Servant O, this is it that makes your servants droop.
Lord Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth;
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music?
[Music.
-hark, Apollo plays,
And twenty cagd nightingales do sing.
Or wilt thou sleep? - we'll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimmed up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk - we will bestrew the ground.
Or wilt thou ride? - thy horses shall be trapped,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? - thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
1st Servant Say thou wilt course - thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathd stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
2nd Servant Dost thou love pictures? - we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
Lord We'll show thee Io as she was a maid,
And how she was beguild and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
3rd Servant Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
Lord Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord.
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
1st Servant And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o'errun her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.
Sly Am I a lord, and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak,
I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things.
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,
And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again - a pot o'th'smallest ale.
2nd Servant Will't please your mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or, when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
Sly These fifteen years! By my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?
1st Servant O yes, my lord, but very idle words;
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no sealed quarts.
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
Sly Ay, the woman's maid of the house.
3rd Servant Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid,
Nor no such men, as you have reckoned up,
As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell,
And twenty more such names and men as these,
Which never were, nor no man ever saw.
Sly Now Lord be thankd for my good amends!
All Amen.
Enter PAGE as a lady, with ATTENDANTS.
Sly I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.
Page How fares my noble lord?
Sly Marry, I fare well, for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?
Page Here, noble lord; what is thy will with her?
Sly Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?
My men should call me 'lord'; I am your goodman.
Page My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.
Sly I know it well. - What must I call her?
Lord Madam.
Sly Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?
Lord Madam, and nothing else: - so lords call ladies.
Sly Madam wife, they say that I have dreamed
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
Page Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandoned from your bed.
Sly 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
[Exeunt all but PAGE and SLY.
Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.
Page Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two,
Or, if not so, until the sun be set;
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed.
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
Sly Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long; but I
would be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will
therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the blood.
Enter a MESSENGER.
Messenger Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
Sly Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a comonty a
Christmas gambol or a tumbling-trick?
Page No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.
Sly What, household stuff?
Page It is a kind of history.
Sly Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side
And let the world slip - we shall ne'er be younger.