William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (41 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare
BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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B. This passage comes between 4.5 and 4.6. If it originates with Shakespeare it implies that Grumio accompanies Petruccio at the beginning of 4.6.
SLY Sim, must they be married now?
LORD Ay, my lord.
Enter Ferando and Kate and Sander
SLY Look, Sim, the fool is come again now.
C. Sly interrupts the action of the play-within-play. This is at 5.1.102 of Shakespeare’s play.
Phylotus and Valeria runs away.
Then Sly speaks
SLY I say we’ll have no sending to prison.
LORD My lord, this is but the play. They’re but in jest.
SLY I tell thee, Sim, we’ll have no sending to prison, that’s flat. Why, Sim, am not I Don Christo Vary? Therefore I say they shall not go to prison.
LORD No more they shall not, my lord. They be run away.
SLY Are they run away, Sim? That’s well. Then gi’s some more drink, and let them play again.
LORD Here, my lord.
Sly drinks and then falls asleep
D. Sly is carried off between 5.1 and 5.2.
Exeunt omnes
Sly sleeps
LORD
Who’s within there? Come hither, sirs, my lord’s
Asleep again. Go take him easily up
And put him in his own apparel again,
And lay him in the place where we did find him
Just underneath the alehouse side below.
But see you wake him not in any case.
Asleep again. Go take him easily up
And put him in his own apparel again,
And lay him in the place where we did find him
Just underneath the alehouse side below.
But see you wake him not in any case.
BOY
It shall be done, my lord. Come help to bear him hence.
Exit
E. The conclusion.
Then enter two bearing of Sly in his own apparel again and leaves him where they found him and then goes out. Then enter the Tapster
TAPSTER
Now that the darksome night is overpast
And dawning day appears in crystal sky,
Now must I haste abroad. But soft, who’s this?
What, Sly! O wondrous, hath he lain here all night?
I’ll wake him. I think he’s starved by this,
But that his belly was so stuffed with ale.
What ho, Sly, awake, for shame!
And dawning day appears in crystal sky,
Now must I haste abroad. But soft, who’s this?
What, Sly! O wondrous, hath he lain here all night?
I’ll wake him. I think he’s starved by this,
But that his belly was so stuffed with ale.
What ho, Sly, awake, for shame!
SLY Sim, gi’s some more wine. What, ’s all the players gone? Am not I a lord?
TAPSTER
A lord with a murrain! Come, art thou drunken still?
SLY
Who’s this? Tapster? O Lord, sirrah, I have had
The bravest dream tonight that ever thou
Heardest in all thy life.
The bravest dream tonight that ever thou
Heardest in all thy life.
TAPSTER
Ay, marry, but you had best get you home,
For your wife will course you for dreaming here tonight.
For your wife will course you for dreaming here tonight.
SLY
Will she? I know now how to tame a shrew.
I dreamt upon it all this night till now,
And thou hast waked me out of the best dream
That ever I had in my life. But I’ll to my
Wife presently and tame her too,
An if she anger me.
I dreamt upon it all this night till now,
And thou hast waked me out of the best dream
That ever I had in my life. But I’ll to my
Wife presently and tame her too,
An if she anger me.
TAPSTER
Nay, tarry, Sly, for I’ll go home with thee
And hear the rest that thou hast dreamt tonight.
And hear the rest that thou hast dreamt tonight.
Exeunt omnes
THE FIRST PART OF THE CONTENTION
(2 HENRY VI)
WHEN Shakespeare’s history plays were gathered together in the 1623 Folio, seven years after he died, they were printed in the order of their historical events, each with a title naming the king in whose reign those events occurred. No one supposes that this is the order in which Shakespeare wrote them; and the Folio titles are demonstrably not, in all cases, those by which the plays were originally known. The three concerned with the reign of Henry VI are listed in the Folio, simply and unappealingly, as the
First, Second,
and
Third Parts of King Henry the Sixth
, and these are the names by which they have continued to be known. Versions of the
Second
and
Third
had appeared long before the Folio, in 1594 and 1595; their head titles read
The First Part of the Contention of the two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey and The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, and the Good King Henry the Sixth
. These are, presumably, full versions of the plays’ original titles, and we revert to them in preference to the Folio’s historical listing.
First, Second,
and
Third Parts of King Henry the Sixth
, and these are the names by which they have continued to be known. Versions of the
Second
and
Third
had appeared long before the Folio, in 1594 and 1595; their head titles read
The First Part of the Contention of the two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey and The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, and the Good King Henry the Sixth
. These are, presumably, full versions of the plays’ original titles, and we revert to them in preference to the Folio’s historical listing.
A variety of internal evidence suggests that the Folio’s
Part One
was composed after
The First Part of the Contention and Richard, Duke of York
, so we depart from the Folio order, though a reader wishing to read the plays in their narrative sequence will read
Henry VI
,
Part One
before the other two plays.
The dates of all three are uncertain, but Part One
is alluded to in 1592, when it was probably new.
The First Part of the Contention
probably belongs to 1590-1.
Part One
was composed after
The First Part of the Contention and Richard, Duke of York
, so we depart from the Folio order, though a reader wishing to read the plays in their narrative sequence will read
Henry VI
,
Part One
before the other two plays.
The dates of all three are uncertain, but Part One
is alluded to in 1592, when it was probably new.
The First Part of the Contention
probably belongs to 1590-1.
The play draws extensively on English chronicle history for its portrayal of the troubled state of England under Henry VI (1421-71). It dramatizes the touchingly weak King’s powerlessness against the machinations of his nobles, especially Richard, Duke of York, himself ambitious for the throne. Richard engineers the Kentish rebellion, led by Jack Cade, which provides some of the play’s liveliest episodes; and at the play’s end Richard seems poised to take the throne.
Historical events of ten years (11445-55) are dramatized with comparative fidelity within a coherent structure that offers a wide variety of theatrical entertainment. Though the play employs old-fashioned conventions of language (particularly the recurrent classical references) and of dramaturgy (such as the horrors of severed heads), its bold characterization, its fundamentally serious but often ironically comic presentation of moral and political issues, the powerful rhetoric of its verse, and the vivid immediacy of its prose have proved highly effective in its rare modern revivals.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
Of the King’s Party
KING HENRY VI
QUEEN MARGARET
William de la Pole, Marquis, later Duke, of SUFFOLK, the Queen’s lover
Duke Humphrey of GLOUCESTER, the Lord Protector, the King’s uncle
Dame Eleanor Cobham, the DUCHESS of Gloucester
CARDINAL BEAUFORT, Bishop of Winchester, Gloucester’s uncle and the King’s great-uncle
Duke of BUCKINGHAM
Duke of SOMERSET
Old Lord CLIFFORD
YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son
Of the Duke of York’s Party
Earl of SALISBURY
Earl of WARWICK, his son
The petitions and the combat
Two or three PETITIONERS
Thomas HORNER, an armourer
PETER Thump, his man
Three NEIGHBOURS, who drink to Horner
Three PRENTICES, who drink to Peter
The conjuration
Margery Jordan, a WITCH
Roger BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer
ASNATH, a spirit
The false miracle
Simon SIMPCOX
SIMPCOX’S WIFE
The MAYOR of Saint Albans
Aldermen of Saint Albans
A BEADLE of Saint Albans
Townsmen of Saint Albans
Eleanor’s penance
Gloucester’s SERVANTS
Two SHERIFFS of London
Sir John STANLEY
HERALD
The murder of Gloucester
Two MURDERERS
COMMONS
The murder of Suffolk
CAPTAIN of a ship
MASTER of that ship
The Master’s MATE
Walter WHITMORE
Two GENTLEMEN
The Cade Rebellion
Jack CADE, a Kentishman suborned by the Duke of York
Three or four CITIZENS of London
Alexander IDEN, an esquire of Kent, who kills Cade
Others
VAUX, a messenger
APOST
MESSENGERS
A SOLDIER
Attendants, guards, servants, soldiers, falconers
The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and LancasterFlourish of trumpets, then hautboys. Enter, at one door, King Henry and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Somerset, the Duke of Buckingham, Cardinal Beaufort,
⌈
and others
⌉
. Enter, at the other door, the Duke of York, and the Marquis of Suffolk, and Queen Margaret, and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick
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