The Second Part Of King Henry The Sixth

1 Enter two or three Murderers running over the stage, from the murder of
2 Duke Humphrey.
3 1 MURDERER.
4 Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know
5 We have dispatched the Duke as he commanded.
6 2 MURDERER.
7 O that it were to do! What have we done?
8 Didst ever hear a man so penitent?
9 Enter Suffolk.
10 1 MURDERER.
11 Here comes my lord.
12 SUFFOLK.
13 Now, sirs, have you dispatched this thing?
14 1 MURDERER.
15 Ay, my good lord, he’s dead.
16 SUFFOLK.
17 Why, that’s well said. Go, get you to my house;
18 I will reward you for this venturous deed.
19 The King and all the peers are here at hand.
20 Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,
21 According as I gave directions?
22 1 MURDERER.
23 ’Tis, my good lord.
24 SUFFOLK.
25 Away, be gone!
26 [_Exeunt Murderers._]
27 Sound trumpets. Enter the King, the Queen, Cardinal Beaufort, Somerset
28 with attendants.
29 KING HENRY.
30 Go, call our uncle to our presence straight;
31 Say we intend to try his grace today
32 If he be guilty, as ’tis published.
33 SUFFOLK.
34 I’ll call him presently, my noble lord.
35 [_Exit._]
36 KING HENRY.
37 Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,
38 Proceed no straiter ’gainst our uncle Gloucester
39 Than from true evidence of good esteem
40 He be approved in practice culpable.
41 QUEEN MARGARET.
42 God forbid any malice should prevail
43 That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
44 Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!
45 KING HENRY.
46 I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.
47 Enter Suffolk.
48 How now? Why look’st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?
49 Where is our uncle? What’s the matter, Suffolk?
50 SUFFOLK.
51 Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.
52 QUEEN MARGARET.
53 Marry, God forfend!
54 CARDINAL.
55 God’s secret judgment! I did dream tonight
56 The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.
57 [_The King swoons._]
58 QUEEN MARGARET.
59 How fares my lord? Help, lords! the King is dead.
60 SOMERSET.
61 Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.
62 QUEEN MARGARET.
63 Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!
64 SUFFOLK.
65 He doth revive again. Madam, be patient.
66 KING HENRY.
67 O heavenly God!
68 QUEEN MARGARET.
69 How fares my gracious lord?
70 SUFFOLK.
71 Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!
72 KING HENRY.
73 What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
74 Came he right now to sing a raven’s note,
75 Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers,
76 And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
77 By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
78 Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
79 Hide not thy poison with such sugared words;
80 Lay not thy hands on me. Forbear, I say!
81 Their touch affrights me as a serpent’s sting.
82 Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
83 Upon thy eyeballs murderous tyranny
84 Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.
85 Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding.
86 Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,
87 And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight.
88 For in the shade of death I shall find joy,
89 In life but double death, now Gloucester’s dead.
90 QUEEN MARGARET.
91 Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
92 Although the Duke was enemy to him,
93 Yet he most Christian-like laments his death.
94 And for myself, foe as he was to me,
95 Might liquid tears or heart-offending groans
96 Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,
97 I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
98 Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
99 And all to have the noble Duke alive.
100 What know I how the world may deem of me?
101 For it is known we were but hollow friends.
102 It may be judged I made the Duke away;
103 So shall my name with slander’s tongue be wounded
104 And princes’ courts be filled with my reproach.
105 This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!
106 To be a queen, and crowned with infamy!
107 KING HENRY.
108 Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!
109 QUEEN MARGARET.
110 Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
111 What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
112 I am no loathsome leper. Look on me.
113 What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
114 Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn Queen.
115 Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?
116 Why, then, Dame Margaret was ne’er thy joy.
117 Erect his statue and worship it,
118 And make my image but an alehouse sign.
119 Was I for this nigh wracked upon the sea
120 And twice by awkward wind from England’s bank
121 Drove back again unto my native clime?
122 What boded this, but well forewarning wind
123 Did seem to say “Seek not a scorpion’s nest,
124 Nor set no footing on this unkind shore?”
125 What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts
126 And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves
127 And bid them blow towards England’s blessed shore
128 Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
129 Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,
130 But left that hateful office unto thee.
131 The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,
132 Knowing that thou wouldst have me drowned on shore
133 With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.
134 The splitting rocks cowered in the sinking sands
135 And would not dash me with their ragged sides,
136 Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
137 Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
138 As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
139 When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
140 I stood upon the hatches in the storm,
141 And when the dusky sky began to rob
142 My earnest-gaping sight of thy land’s view,
143 I took a costly jewel from my neck—
144 A heart it was, bound in with diamonds—
145 And threw it towards thy land. The sea received it,
146 And so I wished thy body might my heart.
147 And even with this I lost fair England’s view,
148 And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
149 And called them blind and dusky spectacles,
150 For losing ken of Albion’s wished coast.
151 How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue,
152 The agent of thy foul inconstancy,
153 To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did
154 When he to madding Dido would unfold
155 His father’s acts commenced in burning Troy!
156 Am I not witched like her? Or thou not false like him?
157 Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,
158 For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.
159 Noise within. Enter Warwick, Salisbury and many Commons.
160 WARWICK.
161 It is reported, mighty sovereign,
162 That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murdered
163 By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort’s means.
164 The commons, like an angry hive of bees
165 That want their leader, scatter up and down
166 And care not who they sting in his revenge.
167 Myself have calmed their spleenful mutiny,
168 Until they hear the order of his death.
169 KING HENRY.
170 That he is dead, good Warwick, ’tis too true;
171 But how he died God knows, not Henry.
172 Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
173 And comment then upon his sudden death.
174 WARWICK.
175 That shall I do, my liege.—Stay, Salisbury,
176 With the rude multitude till I return.
177 [_Warwick exits through one door; Salisbury and Commons exit through
178 another._]
179 KING HENRY.
180 O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts,
181 My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul
182 Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey’s life.
183 If my suspect be false, forgive me, God,
184 For judgment only doth belong to Thee.
185 Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
186 With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain
187 Upon his face an ocean of salt tears,
188 To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,
189 And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling;
190 But all in vain are these mean obsequies.
191 And to survey his dead and earthy image,
192 What were it but to make my sorrow greater?
193 Enter Warwick and others, bearing Gloucester’s body on a bed.
194 WARWICK.
195 Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.
196 KING HENRY.
197 That is to see how deep my grave is made,
198 For with his soul fled all my worldly solace;
199 For seeing him, I see my life in death.
200 WARWICK.
201 As surely as my soul intends to live
202 With that dread King that took our state upon Him
203 To free us from His Father’s wrathful curse,
204 I do believe that violent hands were laid
205 Upon the life of this thrice-famed duke.
206 SUFFOLK.
207 A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
208 What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
209 WARWICK.
210 See how the blood is settled in his face.
211 Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
212 Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
213 Being all descended to the labouring heart,
214 Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
215 Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy,
216 Which with the heart there cools and ne’er returneth
217 To blush and beautify the cheek again.
218 But see, his face is black and full of blood,
219 His eyeballs further out than when he lived,
220 Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
221 His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling,
222 His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
223 And tugged for life and was by strength subdued.
224 Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;
225 His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged,
226 Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodged.
227 It cannot be but he was murdered here;
228 The least of all these signs were probable.
229 SUFFOLK.
230 Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
231 Myself and Beaufort had him in protection,
232 And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.
233 WARWICK.
234 But both of you were vowed Duke Humphrey’s foes,
235 And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.
236 ’Tis like you would not feast him like a friend,
237 And ’tis well seen he found an enemy.
238 QUEEN MARGARET.
239 Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen
240 As guilty of Duke Humphrey’s timeless death.
241 WARWICK.
242 Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh
243 And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
244 But will suspect ’twas he that made the slaughter?
245 Who finds the partridge in the puttock’s nest
246 But may imagine how the bird was dead,
247 Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
248 Even so suspicious is this tragedy.
249 QUEEN MARGARET.
250 Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where’s your knife?
251 Is Beaufort termed a kite? Where are his talons?
252 SUFFOLK.
253 I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men,
254 But here’s a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
255 That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
256 That slanders me with murder’s crimson badge.
257 Say, if thou dar’st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
258 That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey’s death.
259 [_Exeunt Cardinal, Somerset and others._]
260 WARWICK.
261 What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
262 QUEEN MARGARET.
263 He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
264 Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
265 Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
266 WARWICK.
267 Madam, be still, with reverence may I say;
268 For every word you speak in his behalf
269 Is slander to your royal dignity.
270 SUFFOLK.
271 Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour!
272 If ever lady wronged her lord so much,
273 Thy mother took into her blameful bed
274 Some stern untutored churl, and noble stock
275 Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
276 And never of the Nevilles’ noble race.
277 WARWICK.
278 But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee
279 And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
280 Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
281 And that my sovereign’s presence makes me mild,
282 I would, false murderous coward, on thy knee
283 Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech
284 And say it was thy mother that thou meant’st,
285 That thou thyself wast born in bastardy;
286 And after all this fearful homage done,
287 Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,
288 Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men!
289 SUFFOLK.
290 Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,
291 If from this presence thou dar’st go with me.
292 WARWICK.
293 Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.
294 Unworthy though thou art, I’ll cope with thee
295 And do some service to Duke Humphrey’s ghost.
296 [_Exeunt Suffolk and Warwick._]
297 KING HENRY.
298 What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
299 Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
300 And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
301 Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
302 [_A noise within._]
303 QUEEN MARGARET.
304 What noise is this?
305 Enter Suffolk and Warwick with their weapons drawn.
306 KING HENRY.
307 Why, how now, lords? Your wrathful weapons drawn
308 Here in our presence? Dare you be so bold?
309 Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?
310 SUFFOLK.
311 The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury
312 Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.
313 Enter Salisbury.
314 SALISBURY.
315 [_To the Commons, entering_.]
316 Sirs, stand apart; the King shall know your mind.—
317 Dread lord, the commons send you word by me,
318 Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
319 Or banished fair England’s territories,
320 They will by violence tear him from your palace
321 And torture him with grievous lingering death.
322 They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died;
323 They say, in him they fear your highness’ death;
324 And mere instinct of love and loyalty,
325 Free from a stubborn opposite intent,
326 As being thought to contradict your liking,
327 Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
328 They say, in care of your most royal person,
329 That if your highness should intend to sleep
330 And charge that no man should disturb your rest,
331 In pain of your dislike or pain of death,
332 Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,
333 Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue,
334 That slyly glided towards your majesty,
335 It were but necessary you were waked,
336 Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,
337 The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
338 And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
339 That they will guard you, whe’er you will or no,
340 From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is,
341 With whose envenomed and fatal sting
342 Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
343 They say, is shamefully bereft of life.
344 COMMONS.
345 [_Within_.] An answer from the King, my Lord of Salisbury!
346 SUFFOLK.
347 ’Tis like the commons, rude unpolished hinds,
348 Could send such message to their sovereign.
349 But you, my lord, were glad to be employed,
350 To show how quaint an orator you are.
351 But all the honour Salisbury hath won
352 Is that he was the lord ambassador
353 Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.
354 COMMONS.
355 [_Within_.] An answer from the King, or we will all break in!
356 KING HENRY.
357 Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me,
358 I thank them for their tender loving care;
359 And had I not been cited so by them,
360 Yet did I purpose as they do entreat.
361 For, sure, my thoughts do hourly prophesy
362 Mischance unto my state by Suffolk’s means.
363 And therefore, by His majesty I swear,
364 Whose far unworthy deputy I am,
365 He shall not breathe infection in this air
366 But three days longer, on the pain of death.
367 [_Exit Salisbury._]
368 QUEEN MARGARET.
369 O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!
370 KING HENRY.
371 Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!
372 No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,
373 Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
374 Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
375 But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
376 If, after three days’ space, thou here be’st found
377 On any ground that I am ruler of,
378 The world shall not be ransom for thy life.
379 Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;
380 I have great matters to impart to thee.
381 [_Exeunt all but Queen and Suffolk._]
382 QUEEN MARGARET.
383 Mischance and sorrow go along with you!
384 Heart’s discontent and sour affliction
385 Be playfellows to keep you company!
386 There’s two of you; the devil make a third!
387 And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!
388 SUFFOLK.
389 Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,
390 And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.
391 QUEEN MARGARET.
392 Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch!
393 Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemies?
394 SUFFOLK.
395 A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?
396 Could curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan,
397 I would invent as bitter searching terms,
398 As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
399 Delivered strongly through my fixed teeth,
400 With full as many signs of deadly hate,
401 As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave.
402 My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;
403 Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;
404 Mine hair be fixed on end, as one distract;
405 Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;
406 And even now my burdened heart would break
407 Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
408 Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
409 Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress-trees!
410 Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks;
411 Their softest touch as smart as lizards’ stings!
412 Their music frightful as the serpent’s hiss,
413 And boding screech-owls make the consort full!
414 All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell—
415 QUEEN MARGARET.
416 Enough, sweet Suffolk; thou torment’st thyself,
417 And these dread curses, like the sun ’gainst glass,
418 Or like an overcharged gun, recoil
419 And turns the force of them upon thyself.
420 SUFFOLK.
421 You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
422 Now, by the ground that I am banished from,
423 Well could I curse away a winter’s night,
424 Though standing naked on a mountain top
425 Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
426 And think it but a minute spent in sport.
427 QUEEN MARGARET.
428 O, let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand,
429 That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
430 Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place
431 To wash away my woeful monuments.
432 O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
433 That thou mightst think upon these by the seal,
434 Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for thee!
435 So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
436 ’Tis but surmised whiles thou art standing by,
437 As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
438 I will repeal thee, or, be well assured,
439 Adventure to be banished myself;
440 And banished I am, if but from thee.
441 Go; speak not to me, even now be gone!
442 O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemned
443 Embrace and kiss and take ten thousand leaves,
444 Loather a hundred times to part than die.
445 Yet now farewell, and farewell life with thee.
446 SUFFOLK.
447 Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,
448 Once by the King, and three times thrice by thee.
449 ’Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence.
450 A wilderness is populous enough,
451 So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;
452 For where thou art, there is the world itself,
453 With every several pleasure in the world;
454 And where thou art not, desolation.
455 I can no more. Live thou to joy thy life,
456 Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv’st.
457 Enter Vaux.
458 QUEEN MARGARET.
459 Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?
460 VAUX.
461 To signify unto his majesty
462 That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;
463 For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,
464 That makes him gasp and stare and catch the air,
465 Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth.
466 Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey’s ghost
467 Were by his side; sometime he calls the King
468 And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
469 The secrets of his overcharged soul.
470 And I am sent to tell his majesty
471 That even now he cries aloud for him.
472 QUEEN MARGARET.
473 Go tell this heavy message to the King.
474 [_Exit Vaux._]
475 Ay me! What is this world? What news are these!
476 But wherefore grieve I at an hour’s poor loss,
477 Omitting Suffolk’s exile, my soul’s treasure?
478 Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,
479 And with the southern clouds contend in tears,
480 Theirs for the earth’s increase, mine for my sorrows’?
481 Now get thee hence. The King, thou know’st, is coming;
482 If thou be found by me thou art but dead.
483 SUFFOLK.
484 If I depart from thee, I cannot live;
485 And in thy sight to die, what were it else
486 But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
487 Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
488 As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
489 Dying with mother’s dug between its lips;
490 Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad
491 And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
492 To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth.
493 So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,
494 Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
495 And then it lived in sweet Elysium.
496 To die by thee were but to die in jest;
497 From thee to die were torture more than death.
498 O, let me stay, befall what may befall!
499 QUEEN MARGARET.
500 Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,
501 It is applied to a deathful wound.
502 To France, sweet Suffolk! Let me hear from thee,
503 For whereso’er thou art in this world’s globe
504 I’ll have an Iris that shall find thee out.
505 SUFFOLK.
506 I go.
507 QUEEN MARGARET.
508 And take my heart with thee.
509 SUFFOLK.
510 A jewel, locked into the woefull’st cask
511 That ever did contain a thing of worth.
512 Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we.
513 This way fall I to death.
514 QUEEN MARGARET.
515 This way for me.
516 [_Exeunt severally._]