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  • Title: Edward III (Quarto 1, 1596)
  • Editor: Sonia Massai

  • Copyright Sonia Massai. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Sonia Massai
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Edward III (Quarto 1, 1596)

    Edward the third.
    860Dar: Lets leaue him to his humor. Exunt.
    Ki: Thus from the harts aboundant speakes the tongue,
    Countesse for Emperour, and indeed why not?
    She is as imperator ouer me, and I to her
    Am as a kneeling vassaile that obserues,
    865The pleasure, or displeasure of her eye
    Enter Lodwike.
    Ki: What saies the more then Cleopatras match,
    To Caesar now?
    Lo: That yet my liege ere night,
    870She will resolue your maiestie.
    Ki: What drum is this that thunders forth this march,
    To start the tender Cupid in my bosome,
    Poore shipskin how it braules with him that beateth it:
    Go breake the thundring parchment bottome out,
    875And I will teach it to conduct sweete lynes,
    Vnto the bosome of a heauenly Nymph,
    For I wiii vse it as my writing paper,
    And so reduce him from a scoulding drum,
    To be the herald and deare counsaiie bearer,
    880Betwixt a goddesse, and a mighty king:
    Go bid the drummer learne to touch the Lute,
    Or hang him in the braces of his drum,
    For now we thinke it an vnciuill thing,
    To trouble heauen wrth such harsh resounds, Away. Exit.
    885The quarrell that I haue requires no armes,
    But these of myne, and these shall meete my foe,
    In a deepe march of penytrable grones,
    My eyes shall be my arrowes, and my sighes
    Shall serue me as the vantage of the winde,
    890To wherle away my sweetest artyllerie:
    Ah but alas she winnes the sunne of me,
    For that is she her selfe, and thence it comes,
    That Poets tearme, the wanton warriour blinde:
    But loue hath eyes as iudgement to his steps,
    895Till two much loued glory dazles them?
    3 How