Cromwell - William Shakespeare (recommended reading .txt) 📗

we would not bide that penury.
Be merciful, kind master Friskiball.
My husband, children, and my self will eat
But one meal a day, the other will
We keep and sell
As part to pay the debt we owe to you:
If ever tears did pierce a tender mind,
Be pitiful, let me some favour find.

BAGOT.
Be not you so mad, sir, to believe her tears.

FRISKIBALL.
Go to, I see thou art an envious man.
Good mistress Banister, kneel not to me;
I pray rise up, you shall have your desire.
Hold; officers, be gone, there's for your pains.--
You know you owe to me a thousand pound:
Here, take my hand; if ear God make you able,
And place you in your former state again,
Pay me: but if still your fortune frown,
Upon my faith I'll never ask you crown:
I never yet did wrong to men in thrall,
For God doth know what to my self may fall.

BANISTER.
This unexpected favour, undeserved,
Doth make my heart bleed inwardly with joy.
Ne'er may ought prosper with me is my own,
If I forget this kindness you have shown.

MISTRESS BANISTER.
My children in their prayers, both night and day,
For your good fortune and success shall pray.

FRISKIBALL.
I thank you both; I pray, do dine with me.
Within these three days, if God give me leave,
I will to Florence, to my native home.
Bagot, hold; there's a Portague to drink,
Although you ill deserved it by your merit.
Give not such cruel scope unto your heart;
Be sure the ill you do will be requited.
Remember what I say, Bagot; farewell.
Come, Master Banister; you shall with me.
My fare is but simple, but welcome heartily.

[Exit all but Bagot.]

BAGOT.
A plague go with you; would you had eat your last!
Is this the thanks I have for all my pains?
Confusion light upon you all for me.
Where he had wont to give a score of crowns,
Doth he now foist me with a Portague?
Well, I will be revenged upon this Banister.
I'll to his creditors, buy all the debts he owes,
As seeming that I do it for good will.
I am sure to have them at an easy rate,
And when tis done, in christendom he stays not,
But I'll make his heart to ache with sorrow:
And if that Banister become my debtor,
By heaven and earth I'll make his plague the greater.

[Exit Bagot.]


ACT II.

[Enter Chorus.]

CHORUS.
Now, gentlemen, imagine that young Cromwell is
In Antwerp ledger for the English Merchants:
And Banister, to shun this Bagot's hate,
Hearing that he hath got some of his debts,
Is fled to Antwerp, with his wife and children;
Which Bagot hearing is gone after them:
And thither sends his bills of debt before,
To be revenged on wretched Banister.
What doth fall out, with patience sit and see,
A just requital of false treachery.

[Exit.]


ACT II. SCENE I. Antwerp.

[Cromwell in his study with bags of money before
him casting of account.]

CROMWELL.
Thus far my reckoning doth go straight & even,
But, Cromwell, this same ployding fits not thee:
Thy mind is altogether set on travel,
And not to live thus cloistered like a Nun.
It is not this same trash that i regard,
Experience is the jewel of my heart.

[Enter a Post.]

POST.
I pray, sir, are you ready to dispatch me?

CROMWELL.
Yes; here's those sums of money you must carry;
You go so far as Frankford, do you not?

POST.
I do, sir.

CROMWELL.
Well, prithee make all the hate thou canst,
For there be certain English gentlemen
Are bound for Venice, and my happily want,
And if that you should linger by the way:
But in hope that you'll make good speed,
There's two Angels to buy you spurs and wands.

POST.
I thank you, sir; this will add wings indeed.

[Exit Post.]

CROMWELL.
Gold is of power would make an Eagle speed.

[Enter Mistress Banister.]

What gentlewoman is this that grieves so much?
It seems she doth address her self to me.

MISTRESS BANISTER.
God save you, sir, sir; pray, is your name master Cromwell?

CROMWELL.
My name is Thomas Cromwell, gentlewoman.

MISTRESS BANISTER.
Know you not one Bagot, sir, that's come to Antwerp?

CROMWELL.
No, trust me, I never saw the man,
But here are bills of debt I have received,
Against one Banister, a Merchant fallen into decay.

MISTRESS BANISTER.
Into decay, indeed, long of that wretch.
I am the wife to woeful Banister:
And by that bloody villain am pursued
From London here to Antwerp.
My husband he is in the governour's hands,
And God no doubt will treble bless your gain.

CROMWELL.
Good mistress Banister, what I can, I will,
In any thing that lies within my power.

MISTRESS BANISTER.
O speak to Bagot, that same wicked wretch,
An Angel's voice may move a damned devil.

CROMWELL.
Why, is he come to Antwerp, as you here?

MISTRESS BANISTER.
I heard he landed some two hours since.

CROMWELL.
Well, mistress Banister, assure your self.
I'll speak to Bagot in your own behalf,
And win him to all the pity that I can.
Mean time, to comfort you in your distress,
Receive these Angels to relieve your need,
And be assured that what I can effect
To do you good, no way I will neglect.

MISTRESS BANISTER.
That mighty God, that knows each mortal's heart,
Keep you from trouble, sorrow, grief, and smart.

[Exit Mistress Banister.]

CROMWELL.
Thanks, courteous woman, for thy hearty prayer.
It grieves my soul to see her misery,
But we that live under the work of fate,
May hope the best, yet knows not to what state
Our stars and destinies hath us assigned.
Fickle is fortune and her face is blind.

[Exit.]


ACT II. SCENE II. A street in Antwerp.

[Enter Bagot solus.]

BAGOT.
So all goes well; it is as I would have it.
Banister he is with the Governour
And shortly shall have guives upon his heels.
It glads my heart to think upon the slave;
I hope to have his body rot in prison,
And after here his wife to hang her self,
And all his children die for want of food.
The Jewels that I have brought to Antwerp
Are recond to be worth five thousand pound,
Which scarcely stood me in three hundreth pound.
I bought them at an easy kind of rate;
I care not which way they came by them
That sold them me, it comes not near my heart:
And least thy should be stolen--as sure they are--
I thought it meet to sell them here in Antwerp,
And so have left them in the Governour's hand,
Who offers me within two hundreth pound
Of all my price. But now no more of that:
I must go see and if my bills be safe,
The which I sent to master Cromwell,
That if the wind should keep me on the sea,
He might arrest him here before I came:

[Enter Cromwell.]

And in good time, see where he is. God save you sir.

CROMWELL.
And you: pray pardon me, I know you not.

BAGOT.
It may be so, sir, but my name is Bagot,
The man that sent to you the bills of debt.

CROMWELL.
O, the man that pursues Banister.
Here are the bills of debt you sent to me:
As for the man, you know best where he is.
It is reported you have a flinty heart,
A mind that will not stoop to any pity,
An eye that knows not how to shed a tear,
A hand that's always open for reward;
But, master Bagot, would you be ruled by me,
You should turn all these to the contrary.
Your heart should still have feeling of remorse,
Your mind according to your state be liberal
To those that stand in need and in distress;
Your hand to help them that do stand in want,
Rather than with your poise to hold them down;
For every ill turn show your self more kind;
Thus should I do; pardon, I speak my mind.

BAGOT.
Aye, sir, you speak to hear what I would say,
But you must live, I know, as well as I:
I know this place to be extortion,
And tis not for a man to keep him,
But he must lie, cog with his dearest friend,
And as for pity, scorn it, hate all conscience.
But yet I do commend your wit in this,
To make a show of what I hope you are not;
But I commend you and tis well done:
This is the only way to bring your gain.

CROMWELL.
My gain! I had rather chain me to an oar,
And like a slave there toil out all my life,
Before I'd live so base a slave as thou:
I, like an hypocrite, to make a show
Of seeming virtue and a devil within!
No, Bagot, would thy conscience were as clear:
Poor Banister ne'er had been troubled here.

BAGOT.
Nay, good master Cromwell; be not angry, sir.
I know full well you are no such man;
But if your conscience were as white as Snow,
It will be thought that you are other wise.

CROMWELL.
Will it be thought that I am other wise?
Let them that think so know they are deceived.
Shall Cromwell live to have his faith misconstered?
Antwerp, for all the wealth within thy Town,
I will not stay here not two hours longer.
As good luck serves, my accounts are all made even;
Therefore I'll straight unto the treasurer.
Bagot, I know you'll to the governour;
Commend me to him, say I am bound to travail,
To see the fruitful parts of Italy,
And as you ever bore a Christian mind,
Let Banister some favour of you find.

BAGOT.
For your sake, sir, I'll help him all I can--
[Aside.] To starve his heart out ere he get a groat.
So, master Cromwell, do I take my leave,
For I must straight unto the governour.

[Exit Bagot.]

CROMWELL.
Farewell, sir; pray you remember what I said.--
No, Cromwell, no; thy heart was ne'er so base,
To live by falsehood or by brokery!
But 't falles out well, I little it repent;
Hereafter, time in travel shall be spent.

[Enter Hodge, his father's man.]

HODGE.
Your son Thomas, quoth you: I have been Thomast!
I had thought it had been no such matter to a gone by
water: for at Putney I'll go you to Parish-garden for
two pence, sit as still as may be, without any wagging
or jolting in my guts, in a little boat too: here we were
scarce four mile in the great green water, but I--thinking
to go to my afternoon's urgings, as twas my manner at
home--but I felt a kind of rising in my guts. At last one
a the Sailors spying of me, be a good cheer, says he, set
down thy victuals, and up with it, thou hast nothing but an
Eel in thy belly. Well toot went I, to my victuals went the
Sailors, and thinking me to be a man of better experience
than any in the ship, asked me what Wood the ship was
made of: they all swore I told them as right as if I had
been acquainted with the Carpenter that made it. At last
we grew near land, and