Edward III William Shakespeare (books to read for 13 year olds .txt) đ
- Author: William Shakespeare
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As swift as ever yet thou didst bestride,
And therewithal he counsels thee to fly;
Else, death himself hath sworn that thou shalt die. Prince Edward
Back with the beast unto the beast that sent him;
Tell him I cannot sit a cowardâs horse.
Bid him to-day bestride the jade himself;
For I will stain my horse quite oâer with blood
And double-gild my spurs, but I will catch him.
So tell the carping boy, and get thee gone. Exit Herald.
Edward of Wales, Philip, the second son
To the most mighty christian king of France,
Seeing thy bodyâs living date expiâd,
All full of charity and christian love,
Commends this book, full fraught with holy8 prayers,
To thy fair hand, and, for thy hour of life,
Entreats thee that thou meditate therein
And arm thy soul for her long journey towards.
Thus have I done his bidding, and return.
Herald of Philip, greet thy lord from me;
All good, that he can send, I can receive:
But thinkâst thou not, the unadvised boy
Hath wrongâd himself in thus far tendâring me?
Haply, he cannot pray without the book;
I think him no divine extemporal:
Then render back this commonplace of prayer,
To do himself good in adversity.
Besides, he knows not my sinâs quality
And therefore knows no prayers for my avail;
Ere night his prayer may be to pray to God,
To put it in my heart to hear his prayer.
So tell the courtly wanton, and be gone.
How confident their strength and number makes them!â â
Now, Audley, sound those silver wings of thine,
And let those milk-white messengers of time
Show thy timeâs learning in this dangerous time;
Thyself art bruisâd and bit with many broils,
And stratagems forepast with iron pens
Are texted in thine honourable face;
Thou art a married man in this distress,
But danger woos me as a blushing maid:
Teach me an answer to this perilous time.
To die is all as common as to live;
The one in choice, the other holds in chase:
For from the instant we begin to live
We do pursue and hunt the time to die:
First bud we, then we blow, and after seed;
Then, presently, we fall; and, as a shade
Follows the body, so we follow death.
If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it?
If we fear it, why do we follow it?
If we do fear, how can we shun it?
If we do fear, with fear we do but aid
The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner:
If we fear not, then no resolved proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate:
For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom.
Ah, good old man, a thousand thousand armours
These words of thine have buckled on my back.
Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life,
To seek the thing it fears! and how disgracâd
The imperial victory of murdâring death!
Since all the lives, his conquering arrows strike,
Seek him, and he not them, to shame his glory.
I will not give a penny for a life,
Nor half a halfpenny to shun grim death,
Since for to live is but to seek to die,
And dying but beginning of new life.
Let come the hour when he that rules it will!
To live, or die, I hold indifferent. Exeunt.
The same. The French camp.
Enter King John and Charles. King JohnA sudden darkness hath defacâd the sky,
The winds are crept into their caves for fear,
The leaves move not, the world is hushâd and still,
The birds cease singing, and the wandâring brooks
Murmur no wonted greeting to their shores;
Silence attends some wonder and expecteth
That heaven should pronounce some prophecy:
Where or from whom proceeds this silence, Charles?
Our men with open mouths and staring eyes
Look on each other, as they did attend
Each otherâs words, and yet no creature speaks;
A tongue-tied fear hath made a midnight hour
And speeches sleep through all the waking regions.
But now the pompous sun, in all his pride,
Lookâd through his golden coach upon the world,
And on a sudden, hath he hid himself;
That now the under earth is as a grave,
Dark, deadly, silent, and uncomfortable. A clamour of ravens heard.
Hark! what a deadly outery do I hear!
Awake thy craven powers, and tell on
The substance of that very fear indeed,
Which is so ghastly printed in thy face:
What is the matter?
A flight of ugly ravens
Do croak and hover oâer our soldiersâ heads,
And keep in triangles and cornerâd squares
Right as our forces are embattled;
With their approach there came this sudden fog
Which now hath hid the airy floor of heaven
And made at noon a night unnatural
Upon the quaking and dismayed world:
In brief, our soldiers have let fall their arms
And stand like metamorphosâd images,
Bloodless and pale, one gazing on another.
Ay, now I call to mind the prophesy;
But I must give no entrance to a fear.â â
Return, and hearten up these yielding souls;
Tell them, the ravens, seeing them in armsâ â
So many fair against a famished fewâ â
Come but to dine upon their handiwork
And prey upon the carrion that they kill:
For when we see a horse laid down to die,
Although he be9 not dead, the ravenous birds
Sit watching the departure of his life;
Even so these ravens, for the carcases
Of those poor English that are markâd to die,
Hover about, and, if they cry to us,
âTis but for meat that we must kill for them.
Away, and comfort up my soldiers,
And sound the trumpets; and at once dispatch
This little business of a silly fraud. Exit Philip.
Behold, my liege, this knight and forty moâ â
Of whom the better part are slain and fledâ â
With all endeavour sought to break our ranks,
And make their way to the encompassâd prince;
Dispose of him as please your majesty.
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