❧ THE tragedy OF GORBODUC, whereof three Acts were written by Thomas Norton, and the two last by Thomas Sackvile. ¶ Set forth as the same was showed before the queen's most excellent Majesty, in her highness Court of Whitehall, the xviii. day of january, Anno Domini. 1561. By the Gentlemen of th'Inner Temple in London.  
 
❧ IMPRINTED AT LONDON in Fleetstreet, at the Sign of the falcon by William Griffith: And are to be sold at his Shop in Saint Dunston's Churchyard in the West of London. Anno. 1565. Septemb. 22.   

¶ th'argument of the Tragedy.  
GORBODUC, king of Britain, divided his Realm in his life time to his Sons, Ferrex and Porrex. The Sons fell to division and dissension. The younger killed the elder. The Mother that more dearly loved thelder, for revenge killed the younger. The people moved with the Cruelty of the fact, rose in Rebellion and slew both father and mother. The Nobility assembled and most terribly destroyed the Rebels. And afterwards for want of Issue of the Prince whereby the Succession of the Crown became uncertain. They fell to Civil war in which both they and many of their Issues were slain, and the Land for a long time almost desolate and miserably wasted.  

W G    

¶ The names of the Speakers.  

Gorboduc, king of great Britain.  
Videna, Queen and wife to king Gorboduc.  
Ferrex, Elder Son to king Gorboduc.  
Porrex, Younger Son to king Gorboduc.  
Clotyn, Duke of Cornwall.  
Fergus, Duke of Albany.  
Mandud, Duke of Leagre.  
Gwenard, Duke of Cumberland.  
Eubulus, Secretary to the king Gorboduc.  
Arostus, A Counsellor of king Gorboduc.  
Dordan, A Counsellor assigned by the king to his Eldest Son Ferrex.  
Philander, A Counsellor assigned by the king to his younger Son Porrex. (Both being of the old (kings Counsel before.  
Hermon, A parasite remaining with Ferrex.  
Tyndar, A parasite remaining with Porrex.  
Nuntius, A Messenger of thelder Brothers death  
Nuntius, A Messenger of Duke Fergus rising in Arms.  
Marcella, A Lady of the queen's privy Chamber.  
Chorus, four ancient and Sage men of Britain.    

¶ The Order of the dumb show before the first Act, and the Signification thereof.  
¶ first the Music of Violenze began to play, during which came in upon the Stage six wild men clothed in leaves. Of whom the first bore in his neck a Faggot of small sticks, which they all both severally and together assayed with all their strengths to break, but it could not be broken by them. At the length one of them plucked out one of the sticks and broke it: And the rest plucking out all the other sticks one after another did easily break, the same being severed: which being conjoined they had before attempted in vain. After they had this done, they departed the Stage, and the Music ceased Hereby was signified, that a state knit in unity doth continue strong against all force. But being divided, is easily destroyed. As befell upon Duke Gorboduc dividing his Land to his two sons which he before held in Monarchy. And upon the dissension of the brethren to whom it was divided.   


Of Gorboduc. Actus primus. Scena prima.  Viden. Ferrex. Viden. 
THE silent night that brings the  
quiet pause,  
From painful travails of the  
weary Day:  
prolongs my careful thoughts  
and makes me blame  
The slow Aurore that so for love or shame  
Doth long delay to show her blushing face,  
And now the Day renews my griefful plaint.  Ferrex. 
My gracious Lady and mother dear,  
Pardon my grief, for your so grieved mind  
To ask what cause tormenteth so your heart.  Viden. 
So great a wrong and so unjust despite,  
Without all cause against all course of kind.  Ferrex. 
such causeless wrong and so unjust despite,  
May have redress, or at the least revenge.  Viden. 
Neither my Son, such is the froward will,  
The person such, such my mishap and thine.  Ferrex. 
Mine know I none, but grief for your distress:  Viden. 
Yes: mine for thine my son: A father? no:  
In kind a Father, but not in kindliness.  Ferrex. 
My Father: why? I know nothing at all,  
Wherein I have misdone unto his Grace.  Viden. 
Therefore, the more unkind to thee and me.  
For knowing well (my son) the tender love  
That I have ever borne and bear to thee,  
He grieved thereat, is not content alone,  
To spoil thee of my sight my chiefest joy,  
But thee, of the birth, right and Heritage  
Causeless, unkindly and in wrongful wise,  
Against all Law and right he will bereave,  
Half of his kingdom he will give away.  Ferrex. 
To whom?  Viden. 
even to Porrex his younger son  
Whose growing Pride I do so sore suspect,  
That being raised to equal Rule with thee,  
methinks I see his envious heart to swell  
Filled with Disdain and with ambitious Pride  
The end the Gods do know, whose Altars I  
Full oft have made in vain of Cattle slain,  
To send the sacred smoke to heavens Throne,  
For thee my son if things so succeed,  
As now my jealous mind misdeemeth sore.  Ferrex. 
madam leave care and careful plaint for me.  
Just hath my Father been to every wight,  
His first unjustice he will not extend  
To me I trust, that give no cause thereof.  
My brother's pride shall hurt himself, not me.  Viden. 
So grant the Gods: But yet thy father so  
Hath firmly fixed his unmoved mind  
That plaints & prayers can no whit avail,  
For those have I assayed, but even this day,  
He will endeavour to procure assent  
Of all his Counsel to his fond devise.  Ferrex. 
Their Ancestors from race to race have borne  
True faith to my forefathers and their seed,  
I trust they eke will bear the like to me.  Viden. 
There resteth all, but if they fail thereof,  
And if the end bring forth an evil success  
On them and theirs the mischief shall befall,  
And so I pray the Gods requite it them,  
And so they will, for so is wont to be  
When Lords and trusted Rulers under kings  
To please the present fancy of the Prince,  
With wrong transpose the course of governance  
Murders, mischief, or civil sword at length,  
Or mutual treason, or a just revenge,  
When right succeeding Line returns again  
By jove's just judgement and deserved wrath  
Brings them to civil and reproachful death,  
And roots their names & kindreds from the earth.  Ferrex. 
Mother content you, you shall see the end.  Viden. 
The end? thy end I fear, jove end me first.   

Actus primus. Scena secunda.  Gorboduc. Arostus. Philander. Eubulus. Gorboduc. 
MY Lords whose grave advise & faithful aid  
Have long upheld my Honour & my Realm  
And brought me from this age from tender years.  
Guiding so great estate with great renown:  
Now more importeth me the erst to use  
Your faith and wisdom whereby yet I reign,  
That when by death my lief and rule shall cease,  
The kingdom yet may with unbroken course,  
Have certain Prince, by whose undoubted right,  
Your wealth and peace, may stand in quiet stay,  
And eke that they whom Nature hath prepared,  
In time to take my place in Princely Seat,  
While in their Father's time their pliant youth  
Yields to the frame of skilful governance  
May so be taught and trained in noble Arts,  
As what their fathers which have reigned before  
Have with great fame derived down to them  
With honour they may leave unto their seed:  
And not be taught for their unworthy life,  
And for their lawless swerving out of kind,  
Worthy to lose what Law and kind them gave  
But that they may preserve the common peace,  
The cause that first began and still maintains  
The Lineal course of kings inheritance,  
For me, for mine, for you, and for the state  
Whereof both I and you have charge and care.  
Thus do I mean to use your wonted faith  
To me and mine, and to your native Land,  
My Lords be plain without all wry respect  
Or poisonous craft to speak in pleasing wise,  
Lest as the blame of ill succeeding things  
Shall light on you, so light the harms also.  Arostus. 
Your good acceptance so (most noble king)  
Of such your faithfulness as heretofore  
We have employed in duties to your Grace,  
And to this Realm whose worthy head you are,  
Well proves that neither you mistrust at all,  
Nor we shall need no boasting wise to show,  
Our truth to you, nor yet our wakeful care  
For you, for yours, and for our native Land,  
Wherefore (O king) I speak for one as all,  
sith all as one do bear you equal faith:  
Doubt not to use their Counsels and their aids  
Whose honours, goods & lives are whole avowed  
To serve, to aid, and to defend your Grace.  Gorboduc. 
My Lords I thank you all. This is the case  
Ye know, the Gods, who have the sovereign care  
For kings, for kingdoms, and for comen weals,  
Gave me two sons in my more lusty Age,  
Who now in my deceiving years are grown  
Well towards riper state of mind and strength,  
To take in hand some greater Princely charge,  
As yet they live and spend their hopeful days,  
With me and with their Mother here in Courts  
Their age now asketh other place and trade,  
And mine also doth ask another change,  
Theirs to more travail, mine to greater ease:  
When fatal death shall end my mortal life,  
My purpose is to leave unto them twain  
The Realm divided into two sundry parts:  
The one Ferrex mine elder son shall have,  
The other shall the other Porrex rule  
That both my purpose may more framely stand,  
And eke that they may better rule their charge,  
I mean forthwith to place them in the same:  
That in my life they may both learn to rule,  
And I may joy to see their ruling well.  
This is in sum, what I would have ye weigh:  
first whether ye allow my whole devise,  
And think it good for me, for them, for you,  
And for our Country, mother of us all:  
And if ye like it and allow it well,  
Than for their guiding and their governance,  
Show forth such means of circumstance,  
As ye think meet to be both known and kept:  
Lot, this is all, now tell me your advise.  Arostus. 
And this is much, and asketh great advise,  
But for my part my Sovereign Lord and king  
This do I think your Majesty doth know,  
How under you in justice and in peace,  
Great wealth and Honour, long we have enjoyed  
So as we can not seem with greedy minds  
To wish for change of Prince or governance,  
But if ye like your purpose and devise,  
Our liking must be deemed to proceed,  
Of rightful reason, and of heedful care,  
Not for ourselves, but for our comen state:  
sith our own state doth need no better change  
I think in all as erst your Grace hath said:  
first when you shall unload your aged mind,  
Of heavy care and troubles manifold,  
And lay the same upon my Lords your sons  
Whose growing years may bear the burden long  
And long I pray the Gods to grant it so:  
And in your life while you shall so behold  
Their rule, their virtues and their noble deeds,  
Such as their kind behighteth to us all,  
Great be the profits that shall grow thereof,  
Your age in quiet shall the longer last,  
Your lasting age shallbe their longer stay,  
For cares of kings, that rule as you have ruled  
For public wealth and not for private joy,  
Do waste man's life and hasten crooked age,  
With furrowed face and with enfeebled limbs,  
To draw on creeping Death a swifter pace.  
They two yet young shall bear the party reign  
With greater ease, than one now old alone  
Can weld the whole, for whom much harder is  
with lessened strength the double weight to bear  
Your eye, your Counsel, and the grave regard  
Of Fathers, yea of such a father's name,  
Now at beginning of their sundered reign,  
When it is hazard of their whole success,  
Shall bridle so their force of youthful heats,  
And so restrain the rage of insolence,  
Which most assails the young and noble minds,  
And so shall guide and train in tempered stay  
Their yet green bending wits with reverent awe  
And now enured with virtues at the first.  
Custom (O king) shall bring delightfulness  
By use of Virtue, Vice shall grow in hate,  
But if you so dispose it, that the day,  
Which ends your life, shall first begin their reign  
Great is the peril, what will be the end,  
When such beginning of such liberties  
Void of such states as in your lief do lie,  
Shall leave them to free random of their will  
An open pray to traitorous flattery,  
The greatest pestilence of noble youth:  
Which peril shallbe passed, if in your life,  
Their tempered youth with aged father's awe  
Be brought in ure of skilful staidness  
And in your life, their lives disposed so,  
Shall length your noble lief in joyfulness.  
Thus think I that your grace hath wisely thought  
And that your tender care of comen weal,  
Hath bred this thought, so to divide your Land  
And plant your sons to bear the present rule  
While you yet live to see their ruling well,  
That you may longer live by joy therein.  
What further means behoveful are and meet  
At great leisure may your Grace devise,  
When all have said, and when we be agreed  
If this be best to part the Realm in twain,  
And place your sons in present government  
Whereof as I have plainly said my mind,  
So would I here the rest of all my Lords.  Philander. 
In part I think as have been said before,  
In part again my mind is otherwise  
As for dividing of this Realm in twain  
And lotting out the same in equal parts,  
To either of my Lords your grace's sons,  
That think I best for this your realms behalf,  
For profit and advancement of your sons,  
And for your comfort and your honour eke:  
But so to place them while your life do last,  
To yield to them your Royal governance,  
To be above them only in the name  
Of father, not in kingly state also,  
I think not good for you, for them, nor us,  
This kingdom since the bloody civil field  
Where Morgan slain did yield his conquered part  
Unto his cousins sword in   
Containeth all that whilom did suffice,  
Three noble sons of your forefather Brute,  
So your two sons, it may also suffice,  
The more the stronger, if they 'gree in one:  
The smaller compass that the Realm doth hold  
The easier is the sway thereof to weld,  
The nearer justice to the wronged poor,  
The smaller charge, and yet enough for one.  
And when the Region is divided so  
That Brethren be the Lords of either part,  
Such strength doth nature knit between the both.  
In sundry bodies by conjoined love  
That not as two, but one of doubled force,  
Each is to other as a sure defence,  
The Nobleness and glory of the one  
Doth sharp the courage of the others mind  
With virtuous envy to contend for praise,  
And such an equalness hath nature made,  
Between the Brethren of one Father's seed,  
As an unkindly wrong it seems to be,  
To throw the other Subject under feet  
Of him, whose Peer he is by course of kind,  
And nature that did make this equalness,  
Oft so repineth at so great a wrong,  
That oft she raiseth up a grudging grief,  
In younger Brethren at the elders state:  
Whereby both towns & kingdoms have be rased  
And famous stocks of Royal blood destroyed:  
The Brother that should be the Brother's aid  
And have a wakeful care for his defence,  
Gapes for his death, & blames the lingering years  
That brings not forth his end with faster course  
And oft impatient of so long delays,  
With hateful slaughter he presents the fates  
And keeps a just reward for Brother's blood,  
With endless vengeance on his stock for aye:  
Such mischiefs here are wisely met withal:  
If equal state may nourish equal love,  
Where none hath cause to grudge at others good,  
But now the head to stoop beneath them both,  
x kind, x reason, x good order bears,  
And oft it hath been seen, that where Nature  
Hath been perverted in disordered wise,  
When Fathers cease to know that they should rule  
And Children cease to know they should obey,  
And often our unkindly tenderness,  
As Mother of unkindly Stubborns:  
I speak not this in envy or reproach,  
As if I grudged the glory of your sons,  
Whose honour I beseech the Gods to increase:  
Nor yet as if I thought there did remain,  
So filthy Cankers in their noble breasts,  
Whom I esteem (which is their greatest praise,  
Undoubted children of so good a king.  
Only I mean to show my certain Rules,  
Which kind hath graft within the mind of man  
That Nature hath her order and her course,  
Which (being broken) doth corrupt the state  
Of minds and things even in the best of all  
My Lords your sons may learn to rule of you  
Your own example in your noble Court  
Is fittest Guider of their youthful years,  
If you desire to seek some present joy  
By sight of their well ruling in your life,  
See them obey, so shall you see them rule,  
Who so obeyeth not with humbleness  
Will rule without rage and with insolence  
Long may they rule I do beseech the Gods,  
But long may they learn ere they begin to rule  
If kind and fates would suffer I would wish  
Them aged Princes and immortal kings:  
Wherefore most noble king I well assent,  
Between your sons that you divide your Realm.  
And as in kind, so match them in degree  
But while the God's prolong your Royal life  
Prolong your reign, for thereto live you here,  
And therefore have the Gods so long forborn  
To join you to themselves, that still you might  
Be Prince and father of our common weal:  
They when they see your children ripe to rule  
Will make them room, & will remove you hence,  
That yours in right ensuing of your life  
May rightly honour your mortal name.  Eubulus. 
Your wonted true regard of faithful hearts,  
Makes me (O king) the bolder to presume  
To speak what I conceive within my breast,  
Although the same do not agree at all  
With that which other here my Lords have said  
Nor which yourself have seemed best to like,  
Pardon I crave and that my words be deemed  
To flow from hearty zeal unto your Grace,  
And to the safety of your common weal:  
To part your Realm unto my Lords your sons  
I think not good for you, x yet for them,  
But worst of all, for this our Native Land:  
For with one Land, one single rule is best:  
Divided Reigns do make divided hearts.  
But Peace preserves the Country & the Prince.  
such is in man the greedy mind to reign,  
So great is his desire to climb aloft,  
In worldly Stage the stateliest parts to bear,  
That faith and justice and all kindly love,  
Do yield unto desire of Sovereignty:  
Where equal state doth raise an equal hope  
To win the thing that either would attain  
Your grace remembreth how in passed years  
The mighty Brute, first Prince of all this Land  
Possessed the same and ruled it well in one,  
He thinking that the compass did suffice  
For his three sons, three kingdoms eke to make  
Cut it in three, as you would now in twain:  
But how much Brutish blood hath sithence been spilled  
To join again the sundered unity?  
What Princes slain before their timely honour?  
What waste of towns and people in the Land?  
What Treasons heaped on murders & on spoils?  
Whose just revenge even yet is scarcely ceased,  
ruthful remembrance is yet had in mind:  
The Gods forbid the like to chance again  
And you (O king) give not the cause thereof:  
My Lord Ferrex your elder son, perhaps  
Whom kind and custom gives a rightful hope  
To be your Heir and to succeed your Reign,  
Shall think that he doth suffer greater wrong  
Than he perchance will bear, if power serve  
Porrex the younger so unpoised in state,  
Perhaps in courage will be raised also,  
If Flattery then which sails not to assail  
The tender minds of yet unskilful Youth,  
In one shall kindle and increase disdain:  
And Envy in the other's heart inflame,  
This fire shall waste their love, their lives, their land,  
And ruthful ruin shall destroy them both,  
A wish not this (O king) so to befall  
But fear the thing, that I do most abhor  
Give no beginning to so dreadful end,  
Keep them in order and obedience:  
And let them both by now obeying you,  
Learn such behaviour as beseems their state.  
The Older, mildness in his governance,  
The younger, a yielding contentedness:  
And keep them near unto your presence still,  
That they restrained by the awe of you,  
May live in compass of well tempered stay,  
And pass the perils of their youthful years,  
Your aged life draws on to feebler time,  
Wherein you shall less able be to bear  
The travails that in youth you have sustained  
Both in your persons and your realms defence  
If planting now your sons in further parts,  
You send them further from your present reach  
Less shall you know how they themselves demand  
Traitorous corrupters of their pliant youth,  
Shall have unspied a much more free access,  
And of ambition and inflamed disdain  
Shall arm the one, the other, or them both  
To rival war, or to usurping pride.  
Late shall you rue, that you ne recked before:  
Good is I grant of all to hope the best,  
But not to live still dreadless of the worst,  
So trust the one, that the other be foreseen,  
Arm not unskilfulness with princely power  
But you that long have wisely ruled the reigns  
Of royalty within your noble Realm  
So hold them, while the Gods for our avails  
Shall stretch the thread of your prolonged dales  
To soon he claimed, into the flaming Cart  
Whose want of skill did set the earth on fire,  
Time and example of your noble Grace,  
Shall teach your sons both to obey and rule:  
When time hath taught them, time shall make them pace  
The place that now is full: and so I pray  
Long it remain, to comfort of us all.  Gorboduc. 
I take your faithful hearts in thankful part  
But sith I see no cause to draw my mind,  
To fear the nature of my loving sons,  
Or to misdeem that Envy or disdain,  
Can there work hate, where nature planteth love  
In one self purpose do I still abide,  
My love extendeth equally to both,  
My Land sufficeth for them both also:  
Humber shall part the Marches of their Realms:  
The Southern part the elder shall possess,  
The Northern shall Porrex the younger rule,  
In quiet I will pass mine aged days,  
Free from the travail and the painful cares  
That hasten age upon the worthiest kings.  
But lest the fraud that ye do seem to fear  
Of flattering tongues, corrupt their tender youth  
And wrieth them to the ways of youthful lust,  
To climbing pride, or to revenging hate  
Or to neglecting of their careful charge  
Lewdly to live in wanton recklessness,  
Or to oppressing of the rightful cause  
Or not to wreak the wrongs done to the poor  
To tread down truth, or favour false deceit  
I mean to join to either of my sons  
Some one of those whose long approved faith  
And wisdom tried may well assure my heart:  
That mining fraud shall find no way to creep  
Into their fenced ears with grave advise:  
This is the end, and so I pray you all  
To bear my sons the love and loyalty  
That I have found within your faithful breasts.  Arostus. 
You, nor your sons, our sovereign Lord shall want  
Our faith & service while our lives do last.  Chorus. 

When settled stay doth hold the royal throne,  
In steadfast place by known and doubtless right:  
And chiefly when dissent on one alone  
Make single and unparted reign to light.  
Each change of course unjoints the whole estate  
And yields it thrall to rain by debate.   

The strength that knit by last accord in one  
Against all foreign power of mighty foes,  
Could of itself defend itself alone,  
Disjoined once, the former force doth lose  
The sticks, that sundered broke so soon in twain  
In faggot bound attempted were in vain.   

Oft tender mind that leads the partial eye  
Of erring parents in their children's love,  
Destroys the wrongful loved child thereby:  
This doth the proud son of Apollo prove,  
Who rashly set in Chariot of his sire:  
Inflamed the perched earth with heavens fire.   

And this great king, that doth divide his land,  
And changed the course of his descending crown  
And yields the reign into his children's hand  
From blissful state of joy and great renown,  
A Mirror shall become to Princes all  
To learn to shun the cause of such a fall.     

¶ The order and signification of the dumb show before the second Act.  
¶ First the Music of cornets began to play, during which came in upon the Stage a king accompanied with a number of his nobility & Gentlemen. And after he had placed himself in a Chair of estate prepared for him: there came and kneeled before him a grave and aged Gentleman and offered up a Cup unto him of Wine in a glass, which the king refused. After him comes, a brave and lusty young Gentleman and presents the king with a Cup of Gold filled with poison, which the king accepted, & drinking the same, immediately fell down dead upon the stage, & so was carried thence away by his Lords and Gentlemen, & then the Music ceased. Hereby was signified, that as Glass by nature holdeth no pason, but is clear and may easily be seen through, x boweth by any Art: So a faithful Counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain & open, x yieldeth to any undiscrete affection, but giveth wholesome Counsel, which the ill advised Prince refuseth. The delightful gold filled with poison betokeneth Flattery, which under fair seeming of pleasant words beareth deadly poison, which destroyeth the Prince that receiveth it. As befell in the two brethren Ferrex and Porrex who refusing the wholesome advise of grave counsellors, credited these young parasites, & brought to themselves death and destruction thereby.   


Actus secundus. Scena prima.  Ferrex. Hermon. Dordan. Ferrex. 
I Marvel much what reason lead the king  
My father thus without all my desert  
To reave me half the kingdom which by course  
Of law and nature should remain to me.  Hermon. 
If you with stubborn and untamed pride  
Had stood against him in rebellious wise,  
Or if with grudging mind you had envied  
So slow a sliding of his aged years,  
Or sought before your time to haste the course  
Of fatal death upon his Royal head,  
Or stained your Stock with murder of your kin:  
Some face of reason might perhaps have seemed  
To yield some likely cause to spoil ye thus.  Ferrex. 
The wreakful God's power on my cursed head,  
Eternal plagues and never dying woes,  
The Hellish Prince, adjudge my dampned ghost  
To Tantalus thirst, or proud Ixion's wheel  
Or cruel Gripe to gnaw my growing heart  
To during torments and unquenched flames  
If ever I conceived so foul a thought,  
To wish his end of life, or yet of reign.  Dordan. 
x yet your father (O most noble Prince)  
Did ever think so foul a thing of you  
For he with more than father's tender love  
While yet the fates do lend him life to rule,  
(Who long might live to so your ruling well)  
To you my Lord, and to his other son  
Lo he resigns his Realm and Royalty  
Which never would so wise a Prince have done  
If he had ones misdemed that in your heart  
There ever lodged so unkind a thought.  
But tender love (my Lord) and settled trust  
Of your good nature, and your able mind  
Made him to place you thus in Royal throne  
And now to give you half his realm to guide  
Yea and that half within abounding store  
Of things that serve to make a wealthy Realm  
In stately Cities and in fruitful soil,  
In temperate breathing of the milder heaven,  
In things of needful use, which friendly Sea  
transports by traffic from the foreign Ports,  
In flowing wealth, in honour and in force,  
Doth pass the double value of the part  
That Porrex hath allotted to his reign,  
Such is your ease, such is your father's love.  Ferrex. 
Ah love, my friends, love wrongs not whom he loves.  Dordan. 
x yet he wrongeth you that giveth you  
So large a reign ere that the course of time  
Bring you to kingdom by descended right,  
Which time perhaps might end your time before.  Ferrex. 
Is this no wrong, say you, to reave from me  
My native right to half so great a realm,  
And thus to match his younger son with me  
In equal power, and in as great degree:  
Yea & what son? the son whose swelling pride  
Would never yield one point of reverence,  
When I the Elder and apparent heir  
Stood in the likelihood to possess the whole  
Yea and that son which from his childish age  
Envieth mine honour, and doth hate my life,  
What will he now do? when his pride, his rage,  
The mindful malice of his grudging heart  
Is armed with force, with wealth and kingly state  Hermon. 
Was this not wrong? yea ill advised wrong  
To give so mad a man so sharp a sword,  
To so great peril of so great mishap,  
Wide open thus to set so large a way.  Dordan. 
Alas my Lord, what griefful thing is this?  
That of your brother you can think so ill  
I never saw him utter likely sign  
Whereby a man might see or once misdeem  
Such hate of you, x such unyielding pride  
Ill is their counsel, shameful be their end,  
That raising such mistrustful fear in you,  
Sowing the seed of such unkindly hate,  
Travail by reason to destroy you both:)  
Wise is your brother and of noble hope,  
Worthy to weld a large and mighty Realm  
So much a stronger friend have you thereby,  
Whose strength is your strength, if you 'gree in one.  Hermon. 
If nature and the Gods had pinched so  
Their flowing bounty and their noble gifts  
Of Princely qualities from you my Lord  
And powered them all at ones in wasteful wise  
Upon your father's younger son alone:  
Perhaps there be that in your prejudice  
Would say that birth should yield to worthiness:  
But sith in each good gift and Princely Act  
Ye are his match, and in the chief of all  
In mildness and in sober governance  
Ye far surmount: And sith there is in you  
Sufficing skill and hopeful towardness  
To wield the whole, and match you Elders praise  
I see no cause why ye should lose the half,  
x would I wish you yield to such a loss:  
Lest your mild sufferance of so great a wrong  
Be deemed cowardish and simple dread:  
Which shall give courage to the fiery head  
Of your young Brother to invade the whole,  
Whiles yet therefore sticks in the people's mind  
The loathed wrong of your disheritance,  
And ere your Brother have by settled power,  
By guile full cloak of an alluring show,  
Got him some force and favour in this Realm  
And while the noble Queen your mother lives,  
To work and practice all for your avail  
Attempt redress by Arms, and wreak yourself  
Upon his life, that gaineth by your loss,  
Who now to shame of you, and grief of us  
In your own kingdom triumphs over you:  
Show now your courage meet for kingly estate  
That they which have avowed to spend their goods  
Their lands, their lives & honours in your cause,  
May be the bolder to maintain your part  
johan they do see that coward fear in you,  
Shall not betray x sail their faithful hearts.  
If ones the death of Porrex end the strife,  
And pay the price of his usurped Reign,  
Your Mother shall persuade the angry king,  
The Lords your friends eke shall appease his rage  
For they be wise, and well they can foresee,  
That ere long time your aged father's death  
will bring a time when you shall well requite  
Their friendly favour, or their hateful spite.  
Yea, or their slackness to advance your cause  
Wise men do not so hang on passing state  
Of present Princes, chiefly in their age.  
But they will further cast their reaching eye  
To view and weigh the times & reigns to come  
x is it likely though the king be wroth  
That he yet will, or that the Realm will bear  
Extreme revenge upon his only son:  
Or if he would, what one is he that dare  
Be ministre to such an enterprise.  
And here you be now placed in your own  
Amid your friends, your vassals & your strength  
We shall defend and keep your person safe  
Till either counsel turn his tender mind  
Or age, or sorrow end his weary days  
But if the fear of Gods and secret grudge  
Of Nature's Law, repining at the fact,  
Withhold your courage from so great attempt:  
Know ye that lust of kingdoms hath no Law  
The Gods do bear and well allow in kings  
The things they abhor in rascal routs.  
When kings on slender quarrels run to wars  
And than in cruel and unkindly wise,  
Command thefts, rapes, murder of Innocentes  
To spoil of towns, & reigns of mighty realms  
Think you such Princes do suppress themselves  
Subject to Laws of kind and fear of Gods,  
Yet none offence, but decked with glorious name  
Of noble Conquests in the hands of kings,  
Murders and violent thefts in private men  
Are heinous crimes and full of foul reproach:  
But if you like not yet so hot devise,  
x list to take such vantage of the time.  
But though with great peril of your state  
You will not be the first that shall invade,  
Assemble yet your force for your defence,  
And for your safety stand upon your guard.  Dordan. 
O heaven was there ever hard or known,  
So wicked Counsel to a noble Prince?  
Let me (my Lord) disclose unto your grace  
This heinous tale, what mischief it contains:  
Your father's death, your brothers and your owns  
your present murder and eternal shame:  
Hear me (O king) and suffer not to sink  
So high a treason in your Princely breast.  Ferrex. 
The mighty Gods forbid that ever I  
Should once conceive such mischief in my heart  
Although my Brother hath bereft my Realm  
And bear perhaps to me and hateful mind.  
Shall I revenge it, with his death therefore?  
Or shall I so destroy my father's life  
That gave me life? the Gods forbid I say,  
Cease you to speak so any more to me  
x you my friend with Answer once repeat  
So foul a tale, in silence let in die:  
What Lord or Subject shall have hope at all  
That under me they safely shall enjoy  
Their goods, their honours, lands and liberties,  
With whom, neither one only brother dear  
x father dearer, could enjoy their lives?  
But sith, I fear my younger brother's rage,  
And sith perhaps some other man may give  
Some like advise, to move his grudging head  
At mine estate: which counsel may perchance  
Take greater force with him, than this with me,  
I will in secret so prepare myself,  
As if his malice or his lust to reign  
Break forth with Arms or sudden violence  
I may withstand his rage and keep mine own.  Dordan. 
I fear the fatal time now draweth on  
When civil hate shall end the noble line  
Of famous Brute and of his Royal seed  
Great jove defend the mischiefs now at hand  
O that the Secretaries wise advise  
Had erst been hard when he besought the king  
Not to divide his land, nor send his sons  
To further parts from presence of his Court  
x yet to yield to them his governance  
Lo such are they now in the Royal throne  
As was rash Phaeton in Phoebus' Car  
x then the fiery steeds did draw the flame  
With wilder random through the kindled skies  
Then traitorous council now will whirl about  
The youthful heads of these unskilful kings,  
But I hereof their father will inform  
The reverence of him perhaps shall stay  
The growing mischiefs, while they yet are green  
If this help not, than woe unto themselves,  
The Prince, the people, the divided land.   

Actus secundus, Scena secunda.  Porrex. Tyndar. Philander. Porrex 
ANd is it thus? And doth he so prepare  
Against his Brother as his mortal foe?  
And now while yet his aged father lives:  
Neither regards be him? nor fears he me?  
War would he have? and he shall have it so.  Tyndar. 
I saw myself the great prepared store  
Of Horse, of Armours and of weapons there,  
x bring I to my Lord reported tales  
Without the ground of seen and searched truth  
Lo secret quarrels run about his Court  
To bring the name of you my Lord in hate  
Each man almost can now debate the cause  
And ask a reason of so great a wrong,  
While he so noble and so wise a Prince,  
Is as unworthy rest his Heritage.  
And why the king mislead by crafty means  
Divided thus his land from course of right.  
The wiser sort hold down their griefful heads  
Each man withdraws from talk and company,  
Of those that have been known to favour you,  
To hide the mischief of their meaning there.  
Rumours are spread of your preparing here.  
The Rascal numbers of the unskilful sorts  
Are filled with monstruous tales of you and yours  
In secret I was counseled by my friends  
To haste me thence, and brought you as you know  
Letters from those, that both can truly tell  
And would not write unless they knew it well.  Philander. 
My Lord, yet ere you now unkindly war,  
Send to your Brother to demand the cause.  
Perhaps some traitorous tales have filled his ears  
with false reports against your noble grace:  
Which once disclosed shall end the growing strife  
That else not stayed with wise foresight in time  
Shall hazard both your kingdoms & your lives:  
Send to your father eke, he shall appeal  
Your kindled minds, and rid you of this fear.  Porrex. 
Rid me of fear? I fear him not at all:  
x will to him, x to my father send  
If danger were for one to tarry there  
Think ye it safely to return again.  
In mischiefs such as Ferrex now intends  
The wanted courteous Laws to Messengers  
Are not observed, which in just war they use,  
Shall I so hazard any one of mine?  
Shall I betray my trusty friend to him?  
That hath disclosed his treason unto me?  
Let him entreat that fears, I fear him not:  
Or shall I to the king my father send?  
Yea and send now while such a mother lives  
That loves my Brother and that hateth me?  
Shall I give leisure by my fond delays  
To Ferrex to oppress me at unware?  
I will not, but I will invade his Realm  
And seek the Traitor Prince within his Court  
Mischief for mischief is a due reward.  
His wretched head shall pay the worthy price  
Of this his Treason and his hate to me  
Shall I abide, entreat and send and pray?  
And hold my yelden throat to Traitors knife?  
While I with valiant mind & conquering force  
Might rid myself of foes: and win a Realm,  
Yet rather when I have the wretch's head,  
Than to the king my father will I send,  
The bootless case may yet appease his wrath:  
If not I will defend me as I may.  Philander. 
Lo here the end of these two youthful kings  
The father's death, the reign of their two realms  
O most unhappy state of counsellors  
That light on so unhappy Lords and times  
That neither can their good advise be hard,  
Yet must they bear the blames of ill success  
But I will to the king their father haste  
Ere this mischief come to that likely end,  
That if the mindful wrath of wreakful Gods  
Since mighty Ilion's fall not yet appeased  
With these poor remnant of the Trojans name  
Have not determinedly unmoved fate  
Out of this Realm to raze the Brutish Line  
By good advise, by awe of father's name  
By force of wiser Lords, this kindled hate  
May yet be quenched, ere it consume us all.  Chorus. 

When youth not bridled with a guiding stay fray,  
Is left to random of their own delight  
And wields whole Realms, by force of sovereign  
Great is the danger of unmasted might  
Lest skills rage throw down with headlong fall  
Their lands, their states, their lives, themselves & all.   

When growing pride doth fill the swelling breast  
And greedy lust doth raise the climbing mind  
Oh hardly may the peril be repressed,  
x fear of angry Gods, x Laws kind,  
x Country care can fired hearts restrain  
When force hath armed Envy and disdain.   

When kings of foreset will neglect the read,  
Of best advise, and yield to pleasing tales  
That do their fancies noisome humour feed  
He reason, nor regard of right avails  
Succeeding heaps of plagues shall teach too late  
To learn the mischiefs of misguiding state.   

Foul fall the Traitor false that undermines  
The love of Brethren to destroy them both  
Woe to the Prince, that pliant ear inclines,  
And yields his mind to poisonous tale, that floweth  
From flattering mouth, & woe to wretched land  
That wastes itself with civil sword in hand.  
Lo, thus it is poison in gold to take,  
And wholesome drink in homely Cup forsake.     

¶ The order and signification of the dumb show before the third Act.  
¶ first the Music of Flutes began to play, during which came in upon the Stage a company of Mourners all clad in black betokening Death and sorrow to ensue upon the ill advised misgovernment and dissension of Brethren, as befell upon the Murder of Ferrex by his younger Brother. After the Mourners had passed thrice about the stage, they departed, and than the Music ceased.   


Actus tertius. Scena prima.  Gorboduc. Eubulus. Arostus. Philander. Nuntius. Gorboduc. 
O Cruel fates, O mindful wrath of Gods,  
whose vengeance neither Simois strained streams.  
Flowing with blood of Trojan Princes slain  
Nor Phrygian fields made rank with Corpses dead  
Of Asian kings and Lords can yet appease,  
He slaughter of unhappy Priam's race  
Nor Ilion's fall made level with the soil,  
Can yet suffice: but still continued rage,  
Pursue our lives, and from the farthest Seas  
Doth chaste the issues of destroyed Troy:  
Oh no man happy, till his end be seen,  
If any flowing wealth and seeming joy  
In present years might make a happy wight,  
Happy was Hecuba the woefullest wretch  
That ever lived to make a Mirror of  
And happy Priam with his noble sons,  
And happy I till now, Alas, I see  
And feel my most unhappy wretchedness:  
Behold my Lords, read ye this Letter here  
Lo it contains the ruin of our Realm  
If timely speed provide not hasty help  
Yet (O ye Gods) if ever woeful king  
Might move you kings of kings, wreak it on me  
And on my Sons, not on this guiltless Realm.  
Send down your wasting flames from wrathful skies  
To reave me & my sons the hateful breath  
Read, read my Lords: this is the matter why  
I called ye now to have your good advise.  
¶ The Letter from Dordan the Counsellor of the elder Prince.  Eubulus readeth the Letter. 
MY Sovereign Lord, what I am loath to write  
But loathest am to see, that I am forced  
By Letters now to make you understand  
My Lord Ferrex your eldest son mislead  
By Traitors framed of young untempered wits  
Assembleth force against your younger son,  
x can my Counsel yet withdraw the heat  
And furious pangs of his inflamed head:  
Disdain (saith he) of his inheritance  
Arms him to wreak the great pretended wrong  
With civil sword upon his Brother's life,  
If present help do not restrain this rage  
This flame will waste your sons, your land & you.  
Your majesties faithful and most humble Subject Dordan.  Arestus. 
O King, appease your grief & stay your plaint  
Great is the matter and a woeful case  
But timely knowledge may bring timely help  
Send for them both unto your presence here  
The reverence of your honour age and state  
Your grave advise, the awe of father's name  
Shall quickly knit again this broken piece:  
And if in either of my Lords your sons  
Be such untamed and unyielding pride  
As will not bend unto your noble Hests.  
If Ferrex the elder son can bear no peer.  
Or Porrex not content, aspires to more  
Than you him gave, above his Native right:  
join with the juster side, so shall you force  
Them to agree: and bold the Land in state.  Eubulus. 
What meaneth this? Lo yonder comes in haste  
Philander from my Lord your younger son.  Gorboduc. 
The Gods send joyful news.  Philander. 
The mighty jove  
Preserve your Majesty, O noble king.  Gorboduc. 
Philander, welcome: But how doth my son?  Philander. 
Your son, sir, lives and healthy I him left:  
But yet (O king) this want of lustful health  
Could not be half so grief-full to your Grace,  
As these most wretched tidings that I bring.  Gorboduc. 
O heavens yet more? no end of woes to me?  Philander. 
Tyndar, O king, came lately from the Court  
Of Ferrex, to my Lord your younger son,  
And made report of great prepared store  
Of war, and saith that it is whollic meant  
Against Porrex for high disdain that he  
Lives now a king and equal in degree  
With him, that claimeth to succeed the whole.  
As by due title of descending right  
Porrex is now so set on flaming fire,  
Partly with kindled rage of cruel wrath,  
Partly with hope to gain a Realm thereby,  
That he in haste prepareth to invade  
His Brother's Land, and with unkindly war  
Threatens the murder of your elder son,  
x could I him persuade that first he should  
Send to his Brother to demand the cause,  
Nor yet to you to stay his hateful strife.  
Wherefore sith there no more I can be hard.  
I come myself now to inform your Grace:  
And to beseech you, as you love the lief  
And safety of your Children and your Realm.  
Now to employ your wisdom and your force  
To stay this mischief ere it be too late.  Gorboduc. 
Are they in Arms? would he not send for me?  
Is this the honour of a Father's name?  
In vain we travail to assuage their minds  
As if their hearts whom neither Brother's love  
Nor Father's awe, nor kingdoms care can move  
Our Counsels could withdraw from raging heat  
jove slay them both, and end the cursed Line  
For though perhaps fear of such mighty force  
As I my Lords, joined with your noble Aides  
May yet raise, shall repress their present heat,  
The secret grudge and malice will remain  
The fire not quenched, but kept in close restraint  
Fead still within, breaks forth with double flame  
Their death and mine must pease the angry gods  Philander. 
Yield not, O king, so much to weak despair  
Your sons yet live, and long I trust, they shall:  
If fates had taken you from earthly life  
Before beginning of this civil strife:  
Perhaps your sons in their unmastered youth,  
Lose from regard of any living wight,  
Would run on headlong, with unbridled Race  
To their own death and ruin of this Realm.  
But sith the God that have the care for kings,  
Of things and times dispose the order so  
That in your life this kindled flame breaks forth  
While yet your life, your wisdom & your power,  
May stay the growing mischief, and repress  
The fiery blaze of their enkindled heat  
It seems, and so ye ought to deem thereof,  
That loving jove hath tempered so the time  
Of this debate to happen in your days  
That you yet living may the same appease.  
And add it to the glory of your latter age  
And they your sons may learn to live in peace  
Beware (O king) the greatest harm of all,  
Lest by your wailful plaints your hastened death  
Yield larger room unto their growing rage:  
Preserve your life, the only hope of stay:  
And if your highness herein list to use  
Wisdom or force, Counsel or knightly aid:  
Lo we our persons, powers and lives are yours.  
Use us till Death, O king, we are your own.  Eubulus. 
Lo here the peril that was erst foreseen  
When you, (O king) did first divide your Land  
And yield your present reign unto your sons.  
But now (O noble Prince) now is no time  
To wail and plain, and waste your woeful life,  
Now is the time for present good advise,  
Sorrow doth dark the judgement of the wit  
The Heart unbroken and the courage free  
From feeble faintness of bootless despair  
Doth either rise to safety or renown  
By noble valour of unvanquished mind  
Or yet doth perish in more happy sort  
Your Grace may send to either of your sons  
Some one both wise and noble parsonage,  
Which with good counsel & with weighty name  
Of father shall present before their eyes  
Your hest, your lief, your safety and their own  
The present mischief of their deadly strife  
And in the while, assemble you the force  
Which your Commandment and the speedy haste  
Of all my Lords here present can prepare:  
The terror of your mighty power shall stay  
The rage of both, or yet one at lest.  Nuntius. 
O King the greatest grief that ever Prince did here  
The ever woeful Messenger did tell,  
That ever wretched Land hath seen before  
I bring to you. Porrex your younger son  
With sudden force, invaded hath the land  
That you to Ferrex did allot to rule:  
And with his own most bloody hand he hath  
His Brother slain, and doth possess his Realm.  Gorboduc. 
O Heavens send down the flames of your revenge,  
Destroy I say with flash of wreakful fire  
The Traitor son, and than the wretched sire:  
But let us go, that yet perhaps I may  
Die with revenge, and pease the hateful gods.  Chorus. 
The lust of kingdoms knows no sacred faith  
No rule of Reason, no regard of right  
No kindly love, no fear of heavens wrath:  
But with contempt of Gods, and man's despite,  
Through bloody slaughter doth prepare the ways  
To fatal Sceptre and accursed reign.  
The son so loathes the father's lingering days.  
x dreads his hand in Brother's blood to stain  
O wretched Prince, x dost thou yet record  
The yet fresh Murders done within the Land  
Of thy forefathers, when the cruel sword  
Bereft Morgan his lief with cousins hand?  
Thus fatal plagues pursue the guilty race  
Whose murderous hand imbrued with guiltless blood  
Asks vengeance before the heavens face,  
With endless mischiefs on the cursed brood.  
The wicked child this brings to woeful sire  
The mournful plaints to waste his weary life:  
Thus do the cruel flames of civil fire  
Destroy the parted reign with hateful strife  
And hence doth spring the well from which doth flow:  
The dead black streams of mournings, plaints & woe.    

¶ The order and signification of the dumb show before the fourth Act.  
¶ First the Music of Oboes began to play. during which there came forth from under the Stage, as though out of Hell three Furies. Allecto, Megaera & Ctesiphone clad in black garments sprinkled with blood & flames, their bodies girt with snakes, their heads spread with Serpents in stead of hear, the one bearing in her hand a Snake, the other a whip, & the third a burning Firebrand: each driving before them a king and a Queen, which moved by Furies unnaturally bad slain their own Children. The names of the kings & Queens were these. Tantalus, Medea, Athamas, Ino, Cambises, Althaea, after that the Furies and these had passed about the Stage thrice, they departed & than the Music ceased: hereby was signified the unnatural Murders to follow, that is to say. Porrex slain by his own Mother. And of king Gorboduc and Queen Viden. killed by their own Subjects.   


Actus quartus. Scena prima.  Vidensola. Viden. 
Why sold I live and linger forth my tune  
In longer lief to double my distress?  
O me most woeful wight whom no mishap  
Long ere this day could have bereaved hence.  
Mought not these hands by fortune or by fate,  
Have pierced this breast and life with Iron reft,  
Or in this Palace here where I so long  
Have spent my days, could not that happy hour  
Ones, ones have happed I which these hugy frames  
With death by fall might have oppressed me  
Or should not this most hard and cruel soil,  
So eft where I have priest my wretched steps  
Sometime had ruth of mine accursed lief,  
To rend in twain and swallow me therein,  
So had my bones possessed now in peace  
Their happy grave within the closed ground  
And greedy worms had gnawn this pined heart  
Without my feeling pain: So should not now  
This living breast remain the ruthful tomb  
Wherein my heart yelden to death is graved:  
Nor dreary thoughts with pangs of pining grief  
My doleful mind had not afflicted thus,  
O my beloved son: O my sweet child,  
My tear Ferrex, my joy, my lives delight.  
Is my well-beloved son, is my sweet child,  
My dear Perrex, my joy, my lives delight  
Murdered with cruel death? O hateful wretch,  
O heinous Traitor both to heaven and earth,  
Thou Porrex, thou this damned deed hast wrought  
Thou Porrex, thou shalt dearly abye the same,  
Traitor to kin and kind, to Sire and me,  
To thine own flesh, and Traitor to thyself  
The Gods on the in hell shall wreak their wrath,  
And here in earth this hand shall take revenge  
On the Porrex, thou false and caitiff wight,  
If after blood, so eager were thy thirst  
And Murderous mind had so possessed thee,  
If such hard heart of Rock and stony Flint  
lived in thy breast, that nothing else could like  
Thy cruel tyrants thought but death & blood  
Wild savage beasts mought not the slaughter serve  
To feed thy greedy will, and in the midst  
Of their entrails to stain thy deadly hands  
With blood deserved, and drink thereof thy fill:  
Or if nought else but death and blood of man  
Mought please thy lust, could none in Britain land  
Whose heart be torn out of his loving breast  
With thine own hand, or work what death thou wouldest  
Suffice to make a Sacrifice to appease wouldest  
That deadly mind & murderous thought in thee?  
But he who in the self same womb was wrapped  
Where thou in dismal hour receivedst life?  
Or if needs, needs this hand must slaughter make  
Moughist thou not have reached a mortal wound  
And with thy sword have pierced this cursed womb?  
That the accursed Porrex brought to light?  
And given me a just reward therefore.  
So Ferrex, if sweet life mought have enjoyed  
And to his aged father comfort brought,  
with some young son in whom they both might live  
But whereunto waste I this ruthful speech?  
To the that hast thy brother's blood thus shed  
Shall I still think that from this womb thou sprung?  
That I thee bare? or take thee for my son?  
No Traitor, no: I the refuse for mine,  
Murderer I thee renounce, thou art not mine:  
Never, O wretch, this womb conceived thee,  
Nor never bode I painful throws for thee:  
Changeling to me thou art, and not my child  
Nor to no wight, that spark of pity knew,  
Ruthless, unkind, Monster of Nature's work.  
Thou never sucked the milk of woman's breast  
But from thy birth the cruel Tigers teats  
Have nursed, nor yet of flesh and blood  
Formed is thy heart, but of hard Iron wrought.  
And wild and desert woods bread thee to life:  
But canst thou hope to scape my just revenge?  
Or that these hands will not be wrooke on thee?  
Dost thou not know that Ferrex mother lives  
That loved him more dearly then herself?  
And doth she live, and is not venged on thee?   

Actus quartus. Scena secunda.  Gorboduc. Arostus Eubulus. Porrex. Marccilla. Gorboduc. 
WE marvel much whereto this lingering stay  
Falls out so long: Porrex unto our Court  
By order of our Letters is returned  
And Eubulus received from us by hest  
At his arrival here to give him charge  
Before our presence straight to make repair  
And yet we have no word whereof he stays.  Arostus 
Lo where he comes and Eubulus with him.  Eubulus. 
According to your highness hest to me  
Here have I Porrex brought even in such sort  
As from his wearied Horse he did alight,  
For that your Grace did will such haste therein.  Gorboduc. 
We like and praise this speedy will in you  
To work the thing that to your charge we gave  
Porrex, if we so far should serve from kind,  
And from these bounds which laws of Nature sets  
As thou hast done by vile and wretched deed  
In cruel murder of thy Brother's life,  
Our present hand could stay no longer time,  
But straight should bathe this blade in blood of thee  
As just revenge of thy detested crime.  
No. we should not offend the law of kind,  
If now this sword of ours did slay thee here:  
For thou hast murdered him whose heinous death  
Even Nature's force doth move us to revenge  
By blood again: But justice forceth us  
To measure Death for Death, thy due desert,  
Yet sithence thou art our child, and sith as yet  
In this hard case what word thou canst allege  
For thy defence, by us hath not been hard  
We are content to stay our will for that  
Which justice bids us presently to work:  
And give the leave to use thy speech at full  
If aught thou have to lay for thine excuse.  Porrex. 
Neither O king, I can or will deny  
But that this hand from Ferrex life hath reft:  
Which fact how much my doleful heart doth wail  
Oh would it mought as full appear to sight  
As inward grief doth power it forth to me,  
So yet perhaps if ever ruthful heart  
Melting in tears within a manly breast  
Through deep repentance of his bloody fact  
If ever grief, if ever woeful man  
Might move regreite with sorrow of his fault,  
I think the torment of my mournful case  
Known to your grace, as I do feel the same,  
Would force even wrath herself to pity me.  
But as the water troubled with the mud  
Shows not the face which else the eye should see,  
Even so your Ireful mind with stirred thought,  
Can not so perfectly discern my cause.  
But this unhap, amongst so many heaps  
I must content me with, most wretched man,  
That to myself I must refer my woe  
In pining thoughts of mine accursed fact:  
sithence I may not show here my smallest grief  
Such as it is, and as my breast endures,  
Which I esteem the greatest misery  
Of all mishaps that Fortune now can send.  
Not that I rest in hope with plaints and tears  
Should purchase life: for to the Gods I clepe  
For true record of this my faithful speech,  
Never this heart shall have the thoughtful dread  
To die the death that by your grace's doom  
By just desert, shallbe pronounced to me:  
Nor never shall this tongue ones spend this speech  
Pardon to crave, or seek by suit to live:  
I mean not this as though I were not touched  
With care of dreadful death, or that I held  
Life in contempt: but that I know, the mind  
stoops to no dread, although the flesh be frail,  
And for my gilt, I yield the same so great  
As in myself I find a fear to sue  
For grant of life.  Gorboduc. 
In vain, O wretch thou showed  
A woeful heart, Ferrex now lies in grave,  
Slain by thy hand.  Porrex. 
Yet this, O father, hear;  
And than I end: Your Majesty well knows,  
That when my Brother Ferrex and myself  
By your own hest were joined in governance  
Of this your grace's Realm of Britain Land  
I never sought nor travailed for the same,  
Nor by myself, or by no scend I wrought.  
But from your highness will alone it sprung,  
Of your most gracious goodness bent to me,  
But how my Brother's heart even than repined  
With swollen disdain against mine equal rule  
Sing that Realm, which by descent should grow  
Wholly to him, allotted half to me?  
even in your highness Court he now remains,  
And with my Brother than in nearest place  
Who can record, what proof thereof was showed  
And how my brother's envious heart appeared  
Yet I that judged it my part to seek  
His favour and good will, and loath to make  
Your highness know, the thing which should have brought  
Grief to your grace, & your offence to him  
Hoping by earnest suit should soon have won  
A loving heart within a Brother's breast  
Wrought in that sort that for a pledge of love  
And faithful heart, he gave to me his hand.  
This made me think, that he had banisshed quite  
All rancour from his thought and bore to me  
Such hearty love, as I did owe to him:  
But after once we left your grace's Court  
And from your highness presence lived apart  
This equal rule still, still did grudge him so  
That now those Envious sparks which erst lay raked  
In living cinders of dissembling breast,  
Kindled so far within his hate's disdain  
That longer could he not refrain from proof  
Of secret practice to deprive me life  
By Poisons force, and had bereft me so.  
If mine own Servant hired to this fact  
And moved by truth with hate to work the same,  
In time had not bewrayed it unto me:  
When thus I saw the knot of love unknit  
All honest League and faithful promise broke  
The Law of kind and troth thus rent in twain  
His heart on mischief set, and in his breast  
Black treason hid then, then did I despair  
That ever time could win him friend to me  
Than saw I how he smiled with slaying knife  
Wrapped under cloak, then saw I deep deceit  
Lurk in his face and death prepared for me:  
Even nature moved me than to hold my life  
More dear to me than his, and bade this hand  
Since by his life my death must needs ensue,  
And by his death my life to be preserved:  
To shed his blood, and seek my safety so.  
And wisdom willed me without protract  
In speedy wise to put the same in ure.  
Thus have I told the cause that moved me  
To work my Brother's death and so I yield  
My life, my death to judgement of your grace.  Gorboduc. 
Oh cruel wight, should any cause prevail  
To make the stain thy hands with brother's blood  
But what of thee we will resolve to do  
Shall yet remain unknown: Thou in the mean  
Shalt from our royal presence banished be  
Until our Princely pleasure further shall  
To the be showed, depart therefore our sight  
Accursed child. What cruel destiny  
What froward fate hath sorted us this chance  
That even in those, where we should comfort find  
Where our delight now in our aged days  
Should rest and be, even there our only grief  
And deepest sorrows to abridge our lief,  
Most pining cares and deadly thoughts do grave yours  Arostus. 
Your Grace should now in these grave years of  
Have found ere this the price of mortal joys,  
How short they be, how fading hear in earth  
How full of change, how Brittle our estate,  
Of nothing sure, save only of the Death,  
To whom both man and all the world doth owe  
Their end at last, neither shall nature's power  
In other sort against your heart prevail,  
Than as the naked hand whose stroke assays  
The Armed breast where force doth light in vain  Gorboduc. 
Many can yield right grave and sage advise  
Of patient sprite to others wrapped in woe,  
And can in speech both rule and conquer kind,  
Who if by proof, they might feel natures force,  
Would show themselves men as they are in deed,  
which now will needs be gods: but what doth mean  
The sorry cheer of her that here doth come?  Marcella. 
Oh where is ruth? or where is pity now?  
Whether is gentle heart and mercy fled?  
Are they exiled out of our stony breasts  
Never to make return? is all the world  
Drowned in blood, and sunk in cruelty?  
If not in women mercy may be found  
If not (alas) within the mother's breast  
To her own child, to her own flesh and blood  
If ruth be banisshed thence, if pity there  
May have no place, if there no gentle heart  
Do live and dwell, where should we seek it than?  Gorboduc. 
madam (alas) what means your woeful tale?  Marcella. 
O silly woman I, why to this hour,  
Have kind and fortune thus deferred my breath  
That I should live to see this doleful day  
Will ever wight believe that such hard heart  
Could rest within the cruel mother's breast,  
With her own hand to slay her only son?  
But out (alas) these eyes beheld the same,  
They saw the dreary sight, and are become  
Most ruthful records of the bloody fact.  
Porrex, (alas) is by his mother slain,  
And with her hand a woeful thing to tell,  
While slumbering on his careful bed he rests  
His heart stalled in with knife is reft of life.  Gorboduc. 
O Eubulus, oh draw this sword of ours,  
And pierce this heart with speed, O hateful light,  
O loathsome lief, O sweet and welcome Death,  
Dear Eubulus work this we thee beseech.  Eubulus. 
Patient your Grace, perhaps he liveth yet.  
With wound received, but not of certain death.  Gorboduc. 
O let us than repair, unto the place,  
And see if that Porrex, or thus be slain.  Marcella. 
Alas he liveth not, it is too true,  
That with these eyes of him a peerless Prince,  
Son to a King, and in the flower of youth,  
Even with a twink a senseless stock I saw.  Arostus 
O dampned deed.  Marcella. 
But hear this ruthful end.  
The noble Prince pierced with the sudden wound  
Out of his wretched slumber hastily start  
Whole strength now failing straight he overthrew  
When in the fall his eyes even new unclosed  
Beheld the Queen and cried to her for help  
We then, alas, the Ladies which that time  
Did there attend, saying that heinous deed  
And hearing him oft call the wretched name  
Of mother, and to cry to her for Aid  
Whose direful hand gave him the mortal wound  
Pitying, (alas, for nought else could we do)  
His ruthful end, ran to the woeful bed  
Despoiled straight his breast, and all we might  
wiped in vain with napkins next at hand,  
The sudden streams of blood that flushed fast  
Out of the gaping wound: O what a look,  
O what a ruthful steadfast eye methought  
He fixed upon my face, which to my death  
Will never part fro me, when with a bray  
A deep set sign he gave and therewith all  
Clasping his hands, to heaven he cast his sight.  
And straight pale death pressing within his face  
The flying ghost his mortal corpse forsook.  Arostus. 
Never did age bring forth so vile a fact.  Marcella. 
O hard and cruel hap, that thus assigned  
Unto so worthy a wight so wretched end  
But most hard cruel heart, that could consent  
To lend the hateful destinies that hand  
By which, alas, so heinous crime was wrought,  
O Queen of Adamant, O Marble breast  
If not the favour of his comely face,  
If not his Princely cheer and countenance,  
His valiant Active Arms, his manly breast.  
If not his fair and seemly parsonage  
His noble Limbs in such preparation cast  
As would have wrapped a silly woman's thought  
If this mought not have moved the bloody heart  
And that most cruel hand the wretched weapon  
Even to let fall, and kissed him in the face,  
With tears for ruth to reave such one by death  
Should nature yet consent to slay her son  
O mother, thou to murder thus thy child  
Even jove with justice must with lightening flames  
From heaven send down some strange revenge on thee.  
Ah noble Prince, how oft have I beheld  
Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling stead  
Shining in Armour bright before the tilt  
And with thy Mistress Sleeve tied on thy Helm  
And charge thy staff to please thy lady's eye  
That bowed the head piece of thy friendly foe,  
How oft in Arms on horse to bend the Mace  
How oft in Arms on foot to break the sword,  
Which never now these eyes men 〈◊〉 again.  Arostus. 
madam, alas, in vain these plaints are shed.  
Rather with me depart and help to assuage,  
The thoughtful griefs that in the aged kings  
Must needs by nature grow by death of this  
His only son, whom he did hold so dear.  Marcella. 
What wight is that which saw that I did see  
And could refrain to wail with plaint & tears  
Not I, alas, that heart is not in me,  
But let us go, for I am grieved anew,  
To call to mind the wretched father's woe.  Chorus. 

When greedy lust in Royal seat to reign  
Hath reft all care of gods and eke of men,  
And cruel heart, wrath, Treason and disdain  
Within the ambitious breast are lodged then  
Behold how mischief wide herself displays  
And with the brother's hand the brother slays.  
When blood thus shed, doth stain this heavens face  
Crying to jove for vengeance of the deed,  
The mighty God even moveth from his place  
With wrath to wreak, then sends he forth with speed  
The dreadful furies, daughters of the night  
With Serpents girt, carrying the whip of Ire,  
With hear of stinging snakes and shining bright  
With flames and blood, and with a brand of fire:  
These for revenge of wretched Murder done  
Do make the Mother kill her only son.   

Blood asketh blood, & death must death requite  
jove by his just and everlasting doom  
justly hath ever so requited it  
These times before record, and times to come,  
Shall find it true, and so doth present proof,  
Present before our eyes for our behoof.   

O happy wight that suffres not the snare  
Of murderous mind to tangle him in blood:  
And happy he that can in time beware  
By other harms and turn it to his good  
But woe to him that fearing not to offend  
Doth serve his lust, and will not see the end.     

¶ The order and signification of the dumb show before the fifth Act.  
¶ first the Drums and Flutes, began to sound, during which there came forth upon the Stage a company of harquebusiers and of Armed men all in order of Battle. These after their Pieces discharged, and that the Armed men had three times marched about the Stage, departed, and then the Drums and flutes did cease. Hereby was signified tumults, rebellions, Arms and civil wars to follow, as fell in the Realm of great Britain, which by the space of fifty years and more continued in civil war between the nobility after the death of king Gorboduc, & of his Issues, for want  
of certain limitation in the Succession of the  
Crown, till the time of Dunwalle Molmutius,  
who reduced the Land to Monarch.   


Actus quintus. Scena prima.  Clotyn. Mandud. Gwenard. Fergus. Eubulus. Clotyn. 
DId ever age bring forth such tyrants hearts  
The Brother hath bereft the Brother's life,  
The Mother she hath died her cruel hands  
In blood of her own son, and now at last  
The people lo forgetting truth and love,  
contemning quite both Law and loyal heart  
Even they have slain their sovereign Lord and Queen.  Mandud. 
Shall this their traitorous crime unpunished rest  
Even yet they cease not, carried out with rage,  
In their rebellious routs, to threaten still  
A new blood shed unto the PRINCE's kin  
To slay them all, and to uproot the race  
Both of the king and Queen, so are they moved  
With Porrex death, wherein they falsely charge  
The guiltless king without desert at all  
And traitorously have murdered him therefore,  
And eke the Queen.  Gwenard. 
Shall Subjects dare with force  
To work revenge upon their PRINCE's fact?  
Admit the worst that may: as sure in this  
The deed was foul, the Queen to slay her son  
Shall yet the Subject seek to take the sword?  
Arise against his Lord, and slay his king?  
O wretched state, where those rebellious hearts  
Are not rent out even from their living breasts  
And with the body thrown unto the Fowls  
As Carrion food, for terror of the rest.  Fergus. 
There can no punishment be thought too great  
For this so grievous crime: let speed therefore  
Be used therein for it behoveth so.  Eubulus. 
Ye all my Lords I see consent in one  
And I as one consent with ye in all:  
I hold it more than need with the sharpest Law  
To punish the tumultuous bloody rage  
For nothing more may shake the comen state  
Than sufferance of Uproars without redress  
Whereby how some kingdoms of mighty power  
After great Conquests made, and flourishing  
In fame and wealth have been to ruin brought  
I pray to jove that we may rather wail  
Such hap in them than witness in ourselves  
Eke fully with the Duke my mind agrees  
That no cause serves, whereby the Subject may  
Call to account the doings of his Prince.  
Much less in blood by sword to work revenge  
No more than may the hand cut of the head,  
In Act nor speech, no: not in secret thought  
The Subject may rebel against his Lord  
Or judge of him that sits in Caesar's Seat.  
With grudging mind do damn those Hemislikes  
Though kings forget to govern as they ought,  
Yet Subjects must obey as they are bound:  
But now my Lords before ye farther wade  
Or spend your speech, what sharp revenge shall fall  
By justice plague on these rebellious wights  
methinks ye rather should first search the way  
By which in time the rage of this uproar  
Mought be repressed, & these great tumults ceased  
Even yet the life of Britain Land doth hang.  
In Traitors Balance of unequal weight  
Think not my Lords the death of Gorboduc  
Nor yet Videna's blood will cease their rage:  
Even our own lives, our wives and children,  
Our Country dearest of all in danger stands,  
Now to be spoiled, now, now made desolate,  
And by ourselves a conquest too ensue:  
For give one's sway unto the people's lusts,  
To rush forth on, and stay them not in time,  
And as the stream that rolleth down the hill,  
So will they headlong run with raging thoughts  
From blood to blood, from mischief unto more,  
To ruin of the Realm, themselves and all  
So giddy are the common people's minds,  
So glad of change, more wavering than the Sea  
Ye see (my Lords) what strength these Rebels have,  
What hugy number is assembled still,  
For though the traitorous fact, for which their rose  
Be wrought and done, yet lodge they still in field  
So that how far their furies yet will stretch  
Great cause we have to dread, that we may seek  
By present Battle to repress their power.  
Speed must we use to levy force therefore,  
For either they forthwith will mischief work  
Or their rebellious roars forthwith will cease:  
These violent things may have no lasting loud  
Let us therefore use this for present help  
Persuade by gentle speech, and offer grace  
With gift of pardon save unto the chief,  
And that upon condition that forthwith  
They yield the Captains of their enterprise  
To bear such guerdon of their traitorous fact  
As may be both due vengeance to themselves,  
And wholesome terror to posterity.  
This shall I think: flatter the greatest part  
That now are holden with desire of home,  
Wearied in field with could of Winter's nights,  
And some (no doubt) stricken with dread of Law  
When this is ones proclaimed, it shall make  
The Captains to mistrust the multitude  
Whose safety bids them to betray their heads  
And so much more because the rascal routs,  
In things of great and perilous attempts,  
Are never trusty to the noble race.  
And while we treat & stand on terms of grace,  
We shall both stay their furies rage the while,  
And eke gain time, whose only help sufficeth  
Withouten war to vanquish Rebels power  
In the meanwhile, make you in readiness  
Such band of Horsemen as ye may prepare:  
Horsemen (you know) are not the Commons strength  
But are the force and store of noble men  
Whereby the unchosen and unarmed sort  
Of sk●●●she Rebels, whom none other power  
But number makes to be of dreadful force  
With sudden brunt may quickly be oppressed  
And if this gentle mean of proffered grace  
With stubborn hearts cannot so far avail  
As to assuage their desperate courages.  
Than do I wish such slaughter to be made,  
As present age and eke posterity  
May be adread with horror of revenge,  
That justly then shall on these rebels fall:  
This is my Lords the sum of mine advise.  Clotyn. 
Neither this case admits debate at large,  
And though it did: this speech that hath been said  
Hath well abridged the tale I would have told:  
Fully with Eubulus do I consent  
In all that he hath said: and if the same  
To you my Lords, may seem for best advise,  
I wish that it should straight be put in ure.  Mandud. 
My Lords than let us presently depart  
And follow this that liketh us so well.  Fergus. 
If ever time to gain a kingdom here  
Were offered man, now it is offered me:  
The Realm is reft both of their king & Queen  
The offspring of the Prince is slain and dead  
No issue now remains, the Heir unknown,  
The people are in Arms and mutinies  
The Nobles they are busied how to cease  
These great rebellious tumults and uproars  
And Britain Land now desert left alone  
Amid these broils uncertain where to rest  
Offers herself unto that noble heart  
That will or dare pursue to bear her Crown:  
Shall I that am the Duke of Albany  
Descended from that Line of noble blood.  
Which hath so long flourished in worthy fame  
Of valiant hearts, such as in noble Breasts  
Of right should rest above the baser sort,  
Refuse to adventure lief to win a Crown,  
Whom shall I find enemies that will withstand  
My fact herein, if I attempt by Arms  
To seek the Fame now in these times of broil  
These Duke's power can hardly well appease  
The people that already are in Arms.  
But if perhaps my force be ones in field  
Is not my strength in power above the best  
Of all these Lords now left in Britain Land.  
And though they should match me with power of men  
Yet doubtful is the chance of battles joined  
If Victors of the field we may depart,  
Ours is the Sceptre than of great Britain,  
If slain amid the plain this body be  
Mine enemies yet shall not deny me this,  
But that I died giving the noble charge  
To hazard life for conquest of a Crown.  
Forthwith therefore will I in post depart  
To Albany and raise in Armour there  
All power I can: and here my secret friends,  
By secret practice shall solicit still,  
To seek to win to me the people's hearts.   

Actus quintus. Scena secunda.  Eubulus. Clotyn. Mandud. Gwenard. Arostus Nuntius. Eubulus. 
O jove, How are these people's hearts abused  
what blind Fury, thus headlong carries them?  
That though so many books, so many rolls  
Of Ancient time record what grievous plagues,  
Light on these Rebels aye and though so oft  
Their ears have hard their aged fathers tell  
What just reward these Traitors still receive.  
Yea though themselves have seen deep death and blood  
By strangling cord & slaughter of the sword  
To such assigned, yet can they not beware:  
Yet can they not stay their rebellious hands,  
But suffering to foul treason to distain  
Their wretched minds, forget their loyal heart,  
Reject all truth and rise against their Prince,  
A ruthful case that those, whom duties bound  
Whom grafted Law by nature truth and faith  
Bound to preserve their Country and their king  
Borne to defend their Common wealth & Prince,  
Even they should give consent thus to subvert  
The Britain Land, & from the womb should bring  
(O native soil) those, that will needs destroy  
And ruin thee and eke themselves in fine:  
For lo, when one's the Duke had offered Grace  
Of pardon sweet (the multitude mislead  
By traitorous fraud of their ungracious heads)  
One sort that saw the dangerous success  
Of stubborn standing in rebellious war  
And knew the difference of PRINCE's power  
From headless number of tumultuous routs,  
Whom comen countries care and private fear  
Taught to repent the terror of their rage  
Laid hands upon the Captains of their band,  
And brought them bound unto the mighty Dukes  
another sort not trusting yet so well  
The truth of Pardon or mistrusting more  
Their own offence than that they could conceive  
Such hope of pardon for so foul misdeed:  
Or for that they their Captains could not yield  
Who fearing to be yielded, flayed before,  
Stale home by silence of the secret night,  
The third unhappy and unraged sort  
Of desperate hearts, who stained in PRINCE's blood  
From traitorous furor could not be withdrawn  
By love, by law, by grace, x yet by fear,  
By proffered life, x yet by threatened Death,  
With minds hopeless of lief, dreadless of Death,  
Careless of Country, and aweless of God:  
Stood bent to fight as Furies did them move  
With violent death to close their traitorous life:  
These all by power of Horsemen were oppressed  
And with revenging sword slain in the field,  
Or with the strangling Cord hanged on the trees  
Where yet the carrion Carcases do proche  
The fruits that Rebels reap of their uproars,  
And of the murder of their sacred Prince,  
But lo, where do approach the noble Dukes,  
By whom these tumults have been thus appeased.  Clotyn. 
I think the world will now at length beware  
And fear to put on arms against their Prince.  Mandud. 
If not: those traitorous hearts that dare rebel  
Let them behold the wide and hugy fields  
With blood & body spread with rebels slain,  
The lusty trees clothed with corpses dead  
That strangled with the cord do hang therein.  Arostus. 
A just reward such as all times before  
Have ever lotted to those wretched folks.  Gwenard. 
But what means he that cometh here so fast.  Nuntius. 
My Lords, as duty and my troth doth move  
And of my Country work and care in me  
That if the spending of my breath avail  
To do the Service that my heart desires,  
I would not shun to embrace a present death,  
So have I now in that wherein I thought  
My travail mought perform some good effects  
Ventured my lief to bring these tidings here.  
Fergus the mighty Duke of Albany  
Is now in Arms and lodgeth in the field  
With twenty thousand men, hither he bends  
His speedy mark, & minds to invade the Crown  
Daily he gathereth strength and spreads abroad  
That to this Realm no certain Heir remains,  
That Britain Land is left without a guide,  
That he the Sceptre seeks, for nothing else  
But to preserve the people and the Land  
Which now remain as ship without a Stern  
Lo this is that which I have hereto said.  Clotyn. 
Is this his faith? and shall he falsely thus  
Abuse the vantage of unhappy times?  
O wretched Land, if his outrageous pride,  
His cruel and untempered wilfulness  
His deep dissembling shows of false pretence  
Should once attain the Crown of Britain land  
Let us my Lords, with timely force resist  
The new attempt of this our common foe  
As we would quench the flames of comen fire.  Mandud. 
Though we remain without a certain Prince  
To wield the Realm or guide the wandering rule  
Yet now the comen Mother of us all,  
Our Native Land, our Country that contains  
Our wives, children, kindred, ourselves and all  
That ever is or may be dear to man  
Cries unto us to help ourselves and her:  
Let us advance our powers to repress  
This growing foe of all our liberties.  Gwenard. 
Yea let us so my Lords with hasty speed,  
And ye (O God's) send us the welcome death,  
To shed our blood in field and leave us not,  
In loath some life to longer out our lives  
To see the hugy heaps of these unhaps,  
That now roll down upon the wretched Land  
Where empty place of Princely governance  
No certain stay now left of doubtless heir,  
Thus leave this guideless Realm an open prey,  
To endless storms and waste of civil war.  Arostus. 
That ye (my Lords) do so agree in one  
To save your Country from the violent reign  
And wrongfully usurped tyranny  
Of him that threatens conquest of you all  
To save your realm, & in this realm yourselves  
From foreign thraldom of so proud a Prince,  
Much do I praise, and I beseech the Gods,  
With happy honour to requite it you.  
But (O my Lords) sith now the heavens wrath  
Hath reft this Land the issue of their Prince:  
sith of the body of our late Sovereign Lord  
Remains no more, since the young kings be slain  
And of the Title of the descended Crown,  
Uncertainly the diverse minds do think  
Even of the Learned sort, and more uncertainly  
Will partial fancy and affection deem:  
But most uncertain will climbing pride  
And hope of Reign withdraw from sundry parts  
The doubtful right and hopeful lust to reign.  
When ones this noble service is achieved  
For Britain Land the Mother of ye all,  
When one's ye have with armed force repressed,  
The proud attempts of this Albanian Prince,  
That threatens thraldom to your Native Land,  
When ye shall vanquishers return from field  
And find the Princely state an open pray.  
To greedy lust and to usurping power,  
Then, then (my Lords) if ever kindly care  
Of ancient Honour of your ancestors,  
Of present wealth and noblesse of your stocks:  
Yea of the lives and safety yet to come  
Of your dear wives, your children & yourselves,  
Might move your noble hearts with gentle ruth,  
Then, then have pity on the torn estate,  
Then help to salve the well near hopeless sore  
Which ye shall do, if ye yourselves with hold  
The slaying knife from your own mother's throat  
Her shall you save, and you, and yours in her  
If ye shall all with one assent forbear  
Ones to lay hand or take unto yourselves  
The Crown by colour of pretended right,  
Or by what other means soever it be  
Till first by comen counsel of you all  
In Parliament the Regal Diadem  
Be set in certain place of governance,  
In which your Parliament and in your choice,  
Preserve the right (my Lords,) without respect  
Of strength of friends, or whatsoever cause  
That may set forward any others part,  
For right will last, and wrong can not endure,  
Right mean I his or hers, upon whose name  
The people rest by mean of Native line,  
Or by the virtue of some former Law,  
Already made their title to advance:  
Such one (my Lords) let be your chosen king  
Such one so borne within your Native Land  
Such one prefer, and in no wise admit.  
The heavy yoke of foreign governance,  
Let foreign Titles yield to Public wealth,  
And with that heart wherewith ye now prepare  
Thus to withstand the proud invading foe,  
With that same heart (my Lords) keep out also  
Unnatural thraldom of strangers reign,  
x suffer you against the rules of kind  
Your Mother Land to serve a Foreign Prince.  Eubulus. 
¶ Lo here the end of Brutus' royal Line,  
And lo the entry to the woeful wrack  
And utter ruin of this noble Realm.  
The royal king, and eke his sons are slain,  
No Ruler rests within the Regal Seat:  
The Heir, to whom the Sceptre longs, unknown  
That to each force of Foreign PRINCE's power  
Whom vantage of your wretched state  
By sudden Arms to gain so rich a Realm  
And to the proud and greedy mind at home  
Whom blinded lust to reign leads to aspire.  
Lo Britain Realm is left an open pray,  
A present spoil by Conquest to ensue,  
Who seeth not now how many rising minds  
Do feed their thoughts, with hope to reach a Realm  
And who will not by force attempt to win  
So great a gain that hope persuades to have:  
A simple colour shall for title serve.  
Who wins the Royal crown will want no right  
Nor such as shall display by long descent  
A lineal race to prove himself a king,  
In the meanwhile these civil arms shall rage,  
And thus a thousand mischiefs shall unfold  
And far & near spread thee (O Britain Land)  
All right and Law shall cease, and he that had  
Nothing to day, to morrow shall enjoy  
Great heaps of good, & he that flowed in wealth,  
Leo he shall be reft of life and all,  
And happiest he that then possesseth least.  
The wives shall suffer rape, the maids deflowered  
And children fatherless shall weep and wail:  
With fire & sword thy Native folk shall perish.  
One kinsman shall bereave another life,  
The father shall unwitting slay the son,  
The son shall slay the sire and know it not:  
Women and maids the cruel Soldiers sword  
Shall pierce to death, and silly children lo  
That playing in the streets & fields are found  
By violent hand shall close their latter day.  
Whom shall the fierce and bloody Soldier  
Reserve too lief, whom shall he space from death  
Even thou (O wretched mother) half alive  
Thou shalt behold thy dear and only child  
Slain with the sword while he yet sucks thy breast:  
Lo, guiltless blood shall thus each where be shed:  
Thus shall the wasted soil yield forth no fruit  
But dearth and famine shall possess the Land.  
The Towns shall be consumed & brent with fire,  
The peopled Cities shall war desolate,  
And thou (O Britain Land) whilom in renown  
Whilom in wealth and fame shalt thus be torn,  
Dismembered thus, and thus be rent in twain,  
Thus wasted and defaced, spoiled and destroyed:  
These be the fruits your civil wars will bring.  
Hereto it comes when kings will not consent,  
To grave advise, but follow wilful will:  
This is the end, when in young princes' hearts  
Flattery prevails, and sage read hath no place:  
These are the plagues, when murder is the mean  
To make new Heirs unto the Royal Crown.  
Thus wreak the Gods, when the the mother's wrath  
Nought but the blood of her own child may suage.  
These mischiefs springs when Rebels will arise,  
To work revenge and judge their PRINCE's fact:  
This, this ensues when noble men do fail  
In loyal truth, and subjects will be kings.  
And this doth grow when lo unto the Prince,  
Whom death or sudden hap of lief bereaves,  
No certain Heir remains, such certainty  
As not all only is the rightful Heir,  
But to the Realm is so made unknown to be  
And troth thereby vested in subjects hearts,  
To owe faith there, where right is known to rest  
Alas, in Parliament what hope can be,  
When is of Parliament no hope at all,  
Which though it be assembled by consent,  
Yet is it not likely with consent to end:  
While each one for himself, or for his friend  
Against his foe, shall travail what he may,  
While now the state left open to the man,  
That shall with greatest force invade the same,  
Shall fill ambitious minds with gaping hope:  
When will they ones with yielding hearts agree?  
Or in the while, how shall the Realm he used?  
No, no: then Parliament should have been holden  
And certain Heirs appointed to the Crown  
To stay their title of established right:  
And plant the people in obedience  
While yet the Prince did live, whose name and power  
By lawful summons and authority  
Might make a Parliament to be of force,  
And might have set the state in quiet stay:  
But now (O happy man) whom speedy death  
Deprives of life, x is enforced to see  
These hugy mischiefs and these miseries,  
These civil wars, these murders & these wrongs  
Of justice, yet must jove in fine restore  
This noble Crown unto the lawful Heir:  
For right will always live, and rise at length,  
But wrong can never take deep root to last.   
¶ The end of the Tragedy of King Gorboduc.