The Battle of Hastings, a Tragedy E-Book

Richard Cumberland

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 77

Beschreibung

The Battle of Hastings, a Tragedy is a classic play published at the end of the 18th century.

Das E-Book The Battle of Hastings, a Tragedy wird angeboten von Charles River Editors und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
william; play; drama

Leseprobe

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS, A TRAGEDY

..................

Richard Cumberland

LACONIA PUBLISHERS

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Copyright © 2016 by Richard Cumberland

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dramatis Personae.

PROLOGUE.

EPILOGUE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

ACT II. SCENE I.

ACT III. SCENE I.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

ACT V.

THE

BATTLE of HASTINGS

A

TRAGEDY.

By RICHARD CUMBERLAND, Esq;

AS IT IS ACTED AT THE

THEATRE-ROYAL

IN

DRURY-LANE.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

..................

MEN.

HAROLD, King of England,Mr. Bensley.

EDGAR ATHELING,Mr. Henderson.

Earl EDWIN,Mr. Palmer.

Earl WALTHEOF,Mr. Brereton.

Earl of MERCIA, Brother to Harold,Mr. Norris.

Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND,Mr. Aickin.

SIFFRIC,Mr. Farren.

REGINALD,Mr. Chaplin.

RAYMOND,Mr. Hurst.

DUNCAN, a Scottish Seer,Mr. Chambers.

WOMEN.

MATILDA, Daughter to Harold,Miss Younge.

EDWINA,Mrs. Yates.

SABINA,Mrs. Colles.

Attendants on Matilda, Guards, Foresters, Wardens, and various Attendants.

PROLOGUE.

..................

Spoken by Mr. HENDERSON.

To holy land in superstition’s day,

When bare foot pilgrims trode their weary way,

By mother church’s unremitting law

Scourg’d into grace, with shoulders red and raw;

Kneeling demure before the sacred shrine,

On the hard flint they begg’d the boon divine;

Pardon for what offending flesh had done,

And pity for the long long course they’d run,

Fines, pains and penalties, securely past,

Slow pac’d forgiveness met their prayer at last,

Full absolution from conceeding Rome,

Cancell’d all sin, past, present and to come.

Your Poet thus prophanely led aside

To range o’er Tragic land without a guide,

To pick perhaps, with no invidious aim,

A few cast fallings from the tree of fame.

Damn’d, tho’ untried, by the despotic rule

Of the stern Doctors in detraction’s school;

Lash’d down each column of a public page,

And driv’n o’er burning ploughshares to the stage,

Be rhim’d, be ridicul’d with doggrel wit,

Sues out a pardon from his Pope—the Pit.

Pensive he stands in penitential weeds,

With a huge rosary of untold beads;

Sentenc’d for past offences to rehearse,

Ave Apollo’s to the God of verse;

And sure there’s no one but an Author knows

The Penance, which an Author undergoes.

If then your worships a few stripes award

Let not your beadles lay them on too hard;

For in the world there’s not a thing so thin,

So full of feeling, as your Poet’s skin:

What if, perchance, he snatch’d a playful kiss

From that free hearted romp the Comic Miss;

That frolick’s past, he’s turn’d to years of grace,

And a young sinner now supplies his place.

Sure you’ll not grudge a little sober chat

With this demure old tabby Tragic cat;

No charge lies here of conversation crim

He hopes you’ll think her fame, no worse for him.

EPILOGUE.

..................

Spoken by Miss YOUNGE.

From ancient Thespis to the present age

The world hath oft been term’d a public stage,

A thread-bare metaphor, which in its time

Hath patch’d much prose and heel-piec’d many a rhime;

Ev’n the grave pulpit sometimes deigns to use

The emphatic terms of the proscribed Muse,

Calls birth our entry, death our exit calls,

And at life’s close exclaims—the curtain falls;

And so concludes upon the drama’s plan

That fretting, strutting, short-hour actor, man.

Are we all actors then?—yes, all from Adam,

And actresses?—I apprehend so Madam.

Some fill their cast with grace, others with none,

Some are shov’d off the stage, and some shov’d on;

Some good, some bad, still we all act a part,

Whilst we disguise the language of the heart;

Nature’s plain taste provides a simple treat,

But art, the Cook, steps in and mars the meat;

The comic blade makes ridicule his test,

And on his tomb proclaims that life’s a jest,

The swaggering braggart, in true tragic cast,

Bellows blank verse and daggers to the last;

Whilst clubs of neutral petit-maitres boast

A kind of opera company at most,

Whose dress, air, action, all is imitation,

A poor, insipid, servile, French translation;

Whose tame dull scene glides uniform along,

In comi—farei—pastoral—sing—song—

‘Till all awaken’d by the rattling die

Club wits, and make—a modern tragedy;

A tragedy alas! good friends, look round,

What have we left to tread but tragic ground?

Four authors leagu’d to shake the human soul,

Unsheath the dagger, and infuse the bowl,

At length descending to the least, and last,

We hope the terror of the time is past,

Full sated now with battle, blood, and murder,

England is conquer’d—fate can reach no further,

Bid then the weeping Pleiads dry their eyes,

And turn to happier scenes and brighter skies.

THE

BATTLE of HASTINGS,

A TRAGEDY.

ACT I. SCENE I.

..................

The Outside of a stately antient Castle. The Gate closed, and the Bugle in the Slings.

Time before Break of Day.

(EarlEDWINenters.)

EDWIN.

Whether ’tis now the secret witching hour,

When the smart imps work their malignant spells

Unfriendly to man’s health, or that Heaven sends

These warnings, these misgivings to forerun

And harbinger some strange calamity,

I know not; but there’s something passing here

Beyond the mind’s conjecture ominous.

(RAYMOND speaks from the Walls.)

RAYMOND.

Stand! Who goes there?

EDWIN.

A friend.

RAYMOND.

May none but friends

Approach these gates? what wakeful man art thou,

Whom busy care provokes thus early forth,

Ere the grey twilight glimmers in the east?

EDWIN.

Know’st thou not me; and needs there light for that?

Sounds not this voice familiar to thine ear,

Or have the darkling wizzards of the night

Confounded thy clear organs? Thee I know;

Raymond, descend and open to thy Lord.

RAYMOND.

My Lord, my Master!—(He disappears).

EDWIN alone.

Venerable pile,

Whose plain rough features shew like honesty▪

Cradle of loyalty from earliest time;

Ye antique towers, courts, banner-bearing halls,

Trophies and tombs of my renown’d forefathers;

And you, surrounding oaks, fathers and sons,

And old old grandsires, chroniclers of time,

By which the forest woodman marks his tale,

If fate will doom you to a Norman master,

Farewell, ye perish in your country’s fall.

(Raymond comes out from the castle.)

RAYMOND.

See, Lord, your castle opens wide it’s arms,

Your porters, warders, foresters shall rouse:

Herald, provoke the bugle: spread the joy.

(Herald goes to sound the bugle.)

EDWIN.

What joy? forbear: there is no joy for Edwin.

RAYMOND.

Are we then lost; is Normandy victorious?

EDWIN.

No: in the swoln and pregnant womb of fate

Lies the yet unborn hour.—Dismiss the herald,

And gently close the gate.—

(Raymond closes the gate.)

Ye, who have bosoms,

Unscarr’d by sharp vexation’s thorny scourge,

Sleep while you may. ‘tis well; come hither, Raymond;

Nay, I account thee as a friend—be nearer:

Pass’d all things quiet on thy watch this night?

RAYMOND.

All things were quiet.

EDWIN.

Far, as well as near;

Wide as thine ear could carry? no rude straggler

Scowring the night? no neighing at the gate?

No trampling heard? no talking, as of parties

Met by assignment?

RAYMOND.

Hah! in very truth

To all these questions, no.

EDWIN.

I must believe thee;

The more I’m lost in wonder: but confess,

At my last question wherefore didst thou start,

And arch thy brow significantly? speak;

Thou may’st reveal thy thoughts.

RAYMOND.

Nay, good my Lord,

My thoughts are little worth.

EDWIN.

I see thou’rt cautious,

So let it pass—How fares our sister? blooms

The rose of health fresh on Edwina’s cheek,

As it was wont?

RAYMOND.

It brightens, as it blows.

EDWIN.

Yes, Raymond, she is fair; Heaven for the sins

Of this offending country made her fair;

Oh, I had treasur’d up such thoughts!—But mark,

Edmund; the youth whom I have father’d, he,

Who in the beating surge of black despair,

But for my saving arm, had sunk outright

And perish’d fathoms deep, last night i’th’ camp,

Soon as the guard had gone it’s stated round,

Vaulted the trench like Perseus on his steed,

Then fled, as if he’d overtake the wind,

Whither heav’n knows.

RAYMOND.

Fled; death to honour, fled!

EDWIN.

Fled at this glorious crisis. Oh, it cuts

My heart’s best hope asunder!

RAYMOND.

Heavenly vengeance

O’ertake and strike him—!

EDWIN.

Peace!—You must not curse him.

RAYMOND.

Hah! wherefore not?

EDWIN.

Because—expect a wonder—

Because he is thy king.

RAYMOND.

Uphold me, heaven!

EDWIN.

Mine and thy king; of Alfred’s line a king;

Edgar, call’d Atheling; the rightful lord

Of this ingrateful realm, which Kentish Harold

Audaciously usurps—

RAYMOND.

What do I hear?

Alas I thought him poor, an orphan youth

The child of hard misfortune.

EDWIN.

Think so still,

Or keep these thoughts untold.

RAYMOND.

Had I known this,

I wou’d have serv’d him hourly on my knees:

O noble sir, direct me where to seek him,

How to restore him to these peaceful shades.

EDWIN.

Not for the world; no, if we meet again,