PRINCE EDWARD

Defiance French man we rebound it back, Even to the bottom of thy Master's throat, And be it spoke with reverence of the King, My gracious father and these other Lords, I hold thy message but as scurrylous, And him that sent thee Like the lazy droane, Crept up by stealth unto the Eagles nest, From whence wele shake him with so rough a storm, As others shall be warned by his harm, Father range your battles, prate no more, These English fame would spend the time in wodrs, That night approaching, they might escape unfought. No deer Artoys, but choked with dust and smoke, And stepped aside for breath and fresher air. Now father this petition Edward makes, To thee whose grace hath been his strongest shield That as thy pleasure chosen me for the man, To be the instrument to show thy power, So thou wilt grant that many princes more, Bred and brought up within that little Isle, May still be famous for like victories: and for my partly, the bloody scars I bear, The weary nights that I have watched in field, The dangerous conflicts I have often had, The fearful menaces were proffered me, The heat and cold, and what else might displease I wish were now redoubled twenty fold, So that hereafter ages when they read The painful traffic of my tender youth Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve, as not the territories of France alone, But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else That justly would provoke fair England's ire, Might at their presence tremble and retire. As cheerful sounding to my youthful spleen, This tumult is of wars increasing broils, As at the Coronation of a king, The joyful clamours of the people are, When Ave C sar they pronounce aloud; Within this school of honour I shall learn, Either to sacrifice my foes to death, Or in a rightful quarrel spend my breath, Then cheerfully forward each a several way, In great affairs 'tis nought to use delay. Alas how much in vain my poor eyes gaze, For souccour that my sovereign should send; A continued sin Montague, I fear thou wants, The lively spirirt sharply to solicit, W that vehement suit the king in my behalf: Thou dost not tell him what a grief it is, To be the scornful captive to a Scot, Either to be wooed with broad untuned oaths, Or forced by rough insulting barbarism: Thou dost not tell him if he here prevail, How much they will deride us in the North, And in their vild vnseuill skipping gigs, Bray forth their Conquest, and our overthrow, Even in the barren, bleak and fruitless air, I must withdraw, the everlasting so, Comes to the wall, I'll closely step aside, And list their babble blunt and full of pride. kneel and kiss his father's hand First having done my duty as beseemed Lords I e greet you all with hearty thanks, And now behold after my winter's toil, My painful voyage on the boisterous sea, Of wars devouring gulfs and steely rocks, I bring my fraught unto the wished port, My Summer's hope, my travels sweet reward: And here with humble duty I present, This sacrifice, this first fruit of my sword, Cropped and cut down even at the gate of death: The king of Boheme father whom I slew, Whom you said, had entrenched me round about, And say as thick upon my battered crest, As on and Anu ll with their ponderous glaues, Yet marble courage, still did underprop, And when my weary arms with often blows, Like the continual labouring Woodmans Axe, That is enjoined to fell a load of Oaks, Began to falter, straight I would recover: My gifts you gave me, and my zealous vow, And then new courage made me fresh again, That in despite I c a worser my passage forth. And put the multitude to speedy flight: his Sword born by a Soldier. Lo this hath Edwards hand filled your request, And done I hope the duty of a Knight Herald of Philip greet thy Lord from me, All good that he can send I can receive, But thinkest thou not the unadvised boy, Hath wronged himself in this far tendering me, Happily he cannot pray without the book, I think him no divine extemporal, Then render back this common place of prayer, To do himself good in adversity, Beside, he knows not my sins quality, and therefore knows no prayers for my avail, Ere night his prayer may be to pray to God, To put it in my heart to hear his prayer, So tell the courtly wanton, and be gone. How confident their strength and number makes them, Now Audley found those silver wings of thine, And let those milk white messengers of time, Show thy times learning in this dangerous time, Thy self art busy, and bit with many broils, And stratagems soar passed with iron pens, Are texted in thine honourable face, Thou art a married man in this distress. But danger wooes me as a blushing maid, Teach me and answer to this perilous time. A flight, a flight. A flight. A flight of ugly ravens Do croak and hover over our soldiers heads, And keep in triangles and cornered squares, Right as our forces are embattled, With their approach there came this sudden fog, Which now hath hid the airy flower of heaven, And made at noon a night unnatural, Upon the quaking and dismayed world; In brief, our soldiers have let fallen their arms, and stand Like metamorphosed images, Bloodless and pale, one gazing on another. My gracious father, here receive the gift, This wreathe of conquest, and reward of war, God with as much peril of our lives, as ere was thing of price before this day, Install your highness in your proper right, and here withal I render to your hands These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife. I have assembled my deer Lord and father, The choicest buds of all our English blood, For our affairs to France, and here we come, To take direction from your majesty. Successfully I thank the gracious heavens, Some of their strongest Cities we have won, As Harslen, Lie, Crotag, and Carentigne, And others wasted, leaving at our heals, A wide apparent field and beaten path, For sollitarines to progress in, Yet those that would submit we kindly pardned, For who in scorn refused our poffered peace, Endure the penalty of sharp revenge. Look not for cross invectives at our hands, Or railing execrations of despite, Let creeping serpents hide in hollow banks, Sting with their tongues; we have remorseless swords, And they shall plead for us and our affairs, Yet thus much briefly by my father's leave, As all the immodest poison of thy throat, Is scandalous and most notorious lies, And our pretended quarrel is truly joust, So end the battle when we meet to day, May either of us prosper and prevail, Or luckless cursed, receive eternal shame. I that approves thee tyrant what thou art, No father, king, or shepherd of thy realm, But one that tears her entrails with thy hands, And Like a thirsty tiger suckest her blood. Yes my good Lord, and not two oars ago, With full a hundred thousand fighting men, Upon the one side with the rivers bank, And on the other both his multitudes, I feared he would have cropped our smaller power, But happily perceiving your approach, He hath with drawn himself to Cressey plains, Where as it seems by his good array. He means to bid us battle presently, Ah good old man, a thousand thousand armours, These words of thine have buckled on my back, Ah what and idiot hast thou made of life, To seek the thing it fears, and how disgraced, The imperial victory of murdering death, Since all the lives his conquering arrows strike, Seek him, and he not them, to shame his glory, I will not give a penny for a life, Nor half a half penny to shun grim death, Since for to live is but to seek to die, And dying but beginning of new life, Let come the hour when he that rules it will, To live or die I hold indifferent. Courage Artoys, a fig for feathered shafts, When feathered fool's do bandy on our side, What needs we fight, and sweat, and keep a coil, outscolde our adversaries Up, up Artoys, the ground it self is armed, Fire containing flint, command our bows To hurl away their pretty coloured Ewe, and to it with stones, away Artoys, away, My soul does prophesy we win the day. Our multitudes are in themselves confounded, Dismayed, and distracted, swift starting fear Hath buzd a cold dismay through all our army, and every petty disadvantage promptes The fear possessed abject soul to fly, My self whose spirit is steel to their dull led, What with recalling of the prophesy, and that our native stones from English arms Rebel against us, find my self attainted With strong surprise of weak and yielding fear. Fly father fly, the French do kill the French, Some that would stand, let driven at some that fly, Our drums strike nothing but discouragement, Our trumpets found dishonour, and retire, The spirit of fear that fears nought but death, Cowardly works confusion on it self. Pluck out your eyes, and see not this days shame, And arm hath beat and army, one poor David Hath with a stone foiled twenty stout Goliath's, Some twenty naked starvelings with small flints, Hath driven back a puissant host of men, Arrayed and fenced in all accomplements, Now John in France, & lately John of France, Thy bloody Ensigns are my captive colours, and you high vaunting Charles of Normandy, That once to day sent me a horse to fly, are now the subjects of my clemency. Fie Lords, is it not a shame that English boys, Whose early days are yet not worth a beard, Should in the bosom of your kingdom thus, One against twenty beat you up together. and argument that heaven aides the right, See, see, Artoys does bring with him along, the late good counsel giver to my soul, Welcome Artoys, and welcome Philip to, Who now of you or I have needs to pray, Now is the proverb verified in you, Too bright a morning breeds a king day. But say, what grim discouragement comes here, Alas what thousand armed men of France, Have writ that note of death in Audleys face: Speak thou that wooest death with thy careless smile and lookest so merrily upon thy graven, As if thou Wertenberg enamored on thine end, What hungry sword hath so bereaved thy face, And lopped a true friend from my loving soul: Here is a note my gracious Lord of those, That in this conflict of our foes were slain, Eleven Princes of esteem, Four score Barons, A hundred and twenty knights, and thirty thousand Common soldiers, and of our men a thousand. Our God be praised, Now John of France I hope, Thou knowest King Edward for no wantonness, No love sick cockney nor his soldiers jades, But which way is the fearful king escaped? Towards Poyctiers noble father, and his sons, A Pelican my Lord, Wounding her bosom with her crooked beak, That so her nest of young ones might be fed, With drops of blood that issue from her heart, The motto Sic & vos, and so should you, Audley the arms of death embrace us round, And comfort have we none save that to die, We pay Sour earnest for a sweeter life, At Cressey field our Clouds of Warlike smoke, choked up those French mouths, & dissevered them But now their multitudes of millions hide Masking as it the beauteous burning Sun, Leaving no hope to us but sullen dark, And eye less terror of all ending night. Deaths name is much more mighty then his deeds, Thy parcelling this power hath made it more, As many sands as these my hands can hold, are but my handful of so many sands, Then all the world, and call it but a power: Easily taken up and quickly thrown away, But if I stand to count them sand by sand The number would confound my memory, And make a thousand millions of a task, Which briefly is no more indeed then one, These quarters, spuadrons, and these regiments, Before, behind us, and on either hand, Are but a power, when we name a man, His hand, his foot, his head hath several strength's, And being all but one self instant strength, Why all this many, Audely is but one, And we can call it all but one men strength: He that hath far to go, tells it by miles, If he should tell the steps, it kills his heart: The drops are infinite that make a flood, And yet thou knowest we call it but a Rain: There is but one France, one king of France, That France hath no more kings, and that same king Hath but the puissant legion of one king? And we have one, then apprehend no ods, For one to one, is fair equality. What tidings messenger, be plain and brief. What news with thee? No hope but death to bury up our shame, Dear Audley if my tongue ring out thy end: My arms shall be the graven, what may I do, To win thy life, or to revenge thy death, If thou wilt drink the blood of captive kings, Or that it were restoritiue, command A Heath of kings blood, and I'll drink to thee, If honour may dispense for thee with death, The never dying honour of this day, Share wholly Audley to thy self and live. Cheerly bold man, thy soul is all to proud, To yield her City for one little breach, Should be divorced from her earthly spouse, By the soft temper of a French men sword: Lo, to repair thy life, I give to thee, Three thousand Marks a year in English land. Renowned Audley, live and have from me, This gift twice doubled to these Esquires and thee But live or die, what thou hast given away, To these and theirs shall lasting freedom stay, Come gentlemen, I will see my friend bestowed, With in and easy Litter, then wele march, Proudly towards Calais with triumphant pace, Unto my royal father, and there bring, The tribute of my wars, fair France his king. This heaven that covers France contains the mercy That draws from me submissive orisons, That such base breath should vanish from my lips To urge the plea of mercy to a man, The Lord forbid, return and tell the king, My tongue is made of steel, and it shall beg My mercy on his coward burgonet. Tell him my colours are as read as his, My men as bold, our English arms as strong, return him my defiance in his face. Back with the beast unto the beast that sent him Tell him I cannot fit a cowards horse, Bid him to day bestride the jade himself, For I will stain my horse quite over with blood, And double guild my spurs, but I will catch him, So tell the capering boy, and get thee gone.