Act 4. Scene VII - Page 2

butcher.

SAY
You men of Kent,--

DICK
What say you of Kent?

SAY
Nothing but this; 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'

CADE
Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin.

SAY
Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.
Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,
Is term'd the civil'st place of this isle:
Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy;
Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.
I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy,
Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.
Justice with favour have I always done;
Prayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never.
When have I aught exacted at your hands,
But to maintain the king, the realm and you?
Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
Because my book preferr'd me to the king,
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,
Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits,
You cannot but forbear to murder me:
This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings
For your behoof,--

CADE
Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?

SAY
Great men have reaching hands: oft have I struck
Those that I never saw and struck them dead.

BEVIS
O monstrous coward! what, to come behind folks?

SAY
These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.

CADE
Give him a box o' the ear and that will make 'em red again.

SAY
Long sitting to determine poor men's causes
Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.

CADE
Ye shall have a hempen caudle, then, and the help of hatchet.

DICK
Why dost thou quiver, man?

SAY
The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.

CADE
Nay, he nods at us, as who should say, I'll be even
with you: I'll see if his head will stand steadier
on a pole, or no. Take him away, and behead him.

SAY
Tell me wherein have I offended most?
Have I affected wealth or honour? speak.
Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?
Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?
Whom have I injured, that ye seek my death?
These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,
This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.
O, let me live!

CADE
[Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words;
but I'll bridle it: he shall die, an it be but for
pleading so well for his life. Away with him! he
has a familiar under his tongue; he speaks not o'
God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike
off his head presently; and then break into his
son-in-law's house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off
his head, and bring them both upon two poles hither.

ALL
It