A Yorkshire Tragedy
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William Shakespeare (Apocrypha) >> A Yorkshire Tragedy
SERVANT.
Sblood, you have undone us all, sir.
HUSBAND.
Tug at thy master!
SERVANT.
Tug at a Monster.
HUSBAND.
Have I no power? shall my slave fetter me?
SERVANT.
Nay, then, the Devil wrestles, I am thrown.
HUSBAND.
Oh, villain, now I'll tug thee,
[Overthrows him]
now I'll tear thee;
Set quick spurs to my vassail, bruize him, trample him.
So! I think thou wilt not follow me in haste.
My horse stands ready saddled. Away, away;
Now to my brat at nurse, my suckling begger.
Fates, I'll not leave you one to trample on.
SCENE VI. Court before the house.
[The Master meets him.]
MASTER.
How ist with you, sir? me thinks you look
Of a distracted colour.
HUSBAND.
Who? I, sir? tis but your fancy.
Please you walk in, Sir, and I'll soon resolve you:
I want one small part to make up the sum,
And then my brother shall rest satisfied.
MASTER.
I shall be glad to see it: sir, I'll attend you.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VII. The same as Scene V.
SERVANT.
Oh I am scarce able to heave up my self:
Ha's so bruizd me with his devilish weight,
And torn my flesh with his blood-hasty spur,
A man before of easy constitution
Till now hell's power supplied, to his soul's wrong.
Oh, how damnation can make weak men strong.
[Enter Master, and two servants.]
SERVANT.
Oh, the most piteous deed, sir, since you came.
MASTER.
A deadly greeting! has he somde up these
To satisfy his brother? here's an other:
And by the bleeding infants, the dead mother.
WIFE.
Oh, oh.
MASTER.
Surgeons, Surgeons! she recovers life.
One of his men all faint and bloodied.
1 SERVANT.
Follow, our murderous master has took horse
To kill his child at nurse: oh, follow quickly.
MASTER.
I am the readiest, it shall be my charge
To raise the town upon him.
[Exit Master and servants.]
1 SERVANT.
Good sir, do follow him.
WIFE.
Oh my children.
1 SERVANT.
How is it with my most afflicted Mistress?
WIFE.
Why do I now recover? Why half live?
To see my children bleed before mine eyes?
A sight able to kill a mothers breast
Without an executioner! what, art thou
Mangled too?
1 SERVANT.
I, thinking to prevent what his quick mischiefs
Had so soon acted, came and rusht upon him.
We struggled, but a fouler strength then his
O'er threw me with his arms; then did me bruize me
And rent my flesh, and robd me of my hair,
Like a man mad in execution;
Made me unfit to rise and follow him.
WIFE.
What is it has beguild him of all grace
And stole away humanity from his breast?
To slay his children, purpose to kill his wife,
And spoil his servants.
[Enter two guards.]
AMBO.
Sir, please you leave this most accursed place,
A surgeon waits within.
WIFE.
Willing to leave it!
Tis guilty of sweet blood, innocent blood:
Murder has took this chamaber with full hands,
And will ne'er out as long as the house stands.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VIII. A high road.
[Enter Husband as being thrown off his horse,
And falls.]
HUSBAND.
Oh stumbling Jade, the spavin overtake thee,
The fifty disease stop thee!
Oh, I am sorely bruisde; plague founder thee:
Thou runst at ease and pleasure. Hart of chance!
To Throw me now within a flight oth Town,
In such plain even ground, sfoot, a man
May dice up on't, and throw away the Meadows.
Filthy beast.
CRY WITHIN.
Follow, follow, follow.
HUSBAND.
Ha! I hear sounds of men, like hew and cry:
Up, up, and struggle to thy horse, make on;
Dispatch that little begger and all's done.
KNIGHT.
Here, this way, this way!
HUSBAND.
At my back? Oh,
What fate have I? my limbs deny me go,
My will is bated: beggery claims a part.
Oh, could I here reach to the infants heart.
[Enter Master of the College, 3. Gentlemen, and others with
Holberds.]
[Find him.]
ALL.
Here, here: yonder, yonder.
MASTER.
Unnatural, flinty, more than barbarous:
The Scythians or the marble hearted fates
Could not have acted more remorseless deeds
In their relentless natures, then these of thine:
Was this the answer I long waited on,
The satisfaction for thy prisoned brother?
HUSBAND.
Why, he can have no more on's then our skins,
And some of em want but fleaing.
1 GENTLEMAN.
Great sins have made him imprudent.
MASTER.
H'as shed so much blood that he cannot blush.
2 GENTLEMAN.
Away with him, bear him a long to the Justices;
A gentleman of worship dwells at hand;
There shall his deeds be blazed.
HUSBAND.
Why, all the better.
My glory tis to have my action known:
I grieve for nothing, but I mist of one.
MASTER.
There's little of a father in that grief:
Bear him away.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IX. A room in the house of a Magistrate.
[Enter a knight with two or three Gentlemen.]
KNIGHT.
Endangered so his wife? murdered his children?
1 GENTLEMAN.
So the Cry comes.
Knight.
I am sorry I ere knew him,
That ever he took life and natural being
From such an honoured stock, and faira descent;
Til this black minute without stain or blemish.
1 GENTLEMAN.
Here come the men.
[Enter the master of the college and the rest, with the
prisoner.]
KNIGHT.
The serpent of his house! I'm sorry
For this time that I am in place of justice.
MASTER.
Please you, Sir.
KNIGHT.
Do not repeat it twice I know too much,
Would it had ne'er been thought on:
Sir, I bleed for you.
1 GENTLEMAN.
Your fathers sorrows are alive in me:
What made you shew such monstrous cruelty?
HUSBAND.
In a word, Sir, I have consumd all, played away long acre,
and I thought it the charitablest deed I could do to cussen
beggery and knock my house oth head.
KNIGHT.
Oh, in a cooler blood you will repent it.
HUSBAND.
I repent now, that ones left unkild,
My brat at nurse. Oh, I would full fain have weand him.
KNIGHT.
Well, I do not think but in to morrows judgement,
The terror will sit closer to your soul,
When the dread thought of death remembers you;
To further which, take this sad voice from me:
Never was act played more unnaturally.
HUSBAND.
Thank you, Sir.
KNIGHT.
Go, lead him to the Jail:
Where justice claims all, there must pity fail.
HUSBAND.
Come, come, away with me.
[Exit prisoner.]
MASTER.
Sir, you deserve the worship of your place.
Would all did so: in you the law is grace.
KNIGHT.
It is my wish it should be so.--Ruinous man,
The desolation of his house, the blot
Upon his predecessors honord name!
That man is nearest shame that is past shame.
[Exit.]
SCENE X. Before Calverly Hall.
[Enter Husband with the officers, The Master and gentlemen,
as going by his house.]
HUSBAND.
I am right against my house, seat of my Ancestors: I hear my
wife's alive; but much endangered. Let me intreat to speak
with her, before the prison gripe me.
[Enter his wife, brought in a chair.]
GENTLEMAN.
See here she comes of her self.
WIFE.
Oh my sweet Husband, my dear distressed husband,
Now in the hands of unrelenting laws!
My greatest sorrow, my extremest bleeding,
Now my soul bleeds.
HUSBAND.
How now? kind to me? did I not wound thee, left thee for dead?
WIFE.
Tut, far greater wounds did my breast feel:
Unkindness strikes a deeper wound than steel;
You have been still unkind to me.
HUSBAND.
Faith, and so I think I have:
I did my murthers roughly, out of hand,
Desperate and sudden, but thou hast deviz'd
A fine way now to kill me, thou hast given mine eyes
Seven wounds a piece; now glides the devil from me,
Departs at every joint, heaves up my nails.
Oh catch him new torments, that were near invented,
Bind him one thousand more, you blessed Angels,
In that pit bottomless; let him not rise
To make men act unnatural tragedies,
To spread into a father, and in fury,
Makes him his childrens executioners:
Murder his wife, his servants, and who not?
For that man's dark, where heaven is quite forgot.
WIFE.
Oh my repentant husband.
HUSBAND.
My dear soul, whom I too much have wrongd,
For death I die, and for this have I longd.
WIFE.
Thou sholdst not (be assurde) for these faults die,
I ft he law could forgive as soon as I.
HUSBAND.
What sight is yonder?
[Children laid out.]
WIFE.
Oh, our two bleeding boys
Laid forth upon the thresholds.
HUSBAND.
Here's weight enough to make a heart-string crack.
Oh, were it lawful that your pretty souls
Might look from heaven into your fathers eyes,
Then should you see the penitent glasses melt,
And both your murthers shoot upon my cheeks;
But you are playing in the Angels laps,
And will not look on me,
Who void of grace, kild you in beggery.
Oh that I might my wishes now attain,
I should then wish you living were again,
Though I did beg with you, which thing I feard:
Oh, twas the enemy my eyes so bleard.
Oh, would you could pray heaven me to forgive,
That will unto my end repentant live.
WIFE.
It makes me e'en forget all other sorrows
And live apart with this.
OFFICER.
Come will you go?
HUSBAND.
I'll kiss the blood I spilt and then I go:
My soul is bloodied, well may my lips be so.
Farewell, dear wife, now thou and I must part,
I of thy wrongs repent me with my heart.
WIFE.
Oh stay, thou shalt not go.
HUSBAND.
That's but in vain, you see it must be so.
Farewell, ye bloody ashes of my boys!
My punishments are their eternal joys.
Let every father look into my deeds,
And then their heirs may prosper, while mine bleeds.
WIFE.
More wretched am I now in this distress,
[Exeunt Husband with holberds.]
Then former sorrows made me.
MASTER.
Oh kind wife,
Be comforted. One joy is yet unmurdered:
You have a boy at nurse; your joy's in him.
WIFE.
Dearer then all is my poor husbands life:
Heaven give my body strength, which yet is faint
With much expence of blood, and I will kneel,
Sue for his life, number up all my friends,
To plead for pardon for my dear husbands life.
MASTER.
Was it in man to wound so kind a creature?
I'll ever praise a woman for thy sake.
I must return with grief; my answer's set:
I shall bring news ways heavier then the debt.--
Two brothers: one in bond lies overthrown,
This on a deadlier execution.
FINIS.