Page 586 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

SAY

What of that?

CADE

Marry, thou ought’st not to let thy horse wear a cloak when honester men
than thou go in their hose and doublets.

DICK

And work in their shirt too - as myself, for example, [50] that am a
butcher.

SAY

You men of Kent -

DICK

What say you of Kent?

SAY

Nothing but this: ’tis ‘bona terra, mala gens’.

CADE

Away with him! Away with him! He speaks Latin. [55]

SAY

Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.
Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,
Is termed the civil’st place of all this isle:
Sweet is the country because full of riches,
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy; [60]
Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.
I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy,
Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.
Justice with favour have I always done;
Prayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never. [65]
When have I aught exacted at your hands,
Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you?
Large gifts have I bestowed on learnèd clerks
Because my book preferred me to the king.
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God, [70]
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,