Henry VIII by William Shakespeare — Read

I come no more to make you laugh: things now, / That bear a weighty and a serious brow, / Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, / Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, / We now present. Those that can pity, here / May, if they think it well, let fall a tear; / The subject will deserve it. Such as give / Their money out of hope they may believe, / May here find truth too. Those that come to see / Only a show or two, and so agree / The play may pass, if they be still and willing, / I'll undertake may see away their shilling / Richly in two short hours.

Only they / That come to hear a merry bawdy play, / A noise of targets, or to see a fellow / In a long motley coat guarded with yellow, / Will be deceived; for, gentle hearers, know, / To rank our chosen truth with such a show / As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting / Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring, / To make that only true we now intend, / Will leave us never an understanding friend. / Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known / The first and happiest hearers of the town, / Be sad, as we would make ye: think ye see / The very persons of our noble story / As they were living; think you see them great, / And follow'd with the general throng and sweat / Of thousand friends; then in a moment, see / How soon this mightiness meets misery: / And, if you can be merry then, I'll say / A man may weep upon his wedding-day.