Somerset, with Attendants.
K. Henry.
Go, call our Uncle to our presence strait.
Say, we intend to try his Grace to day,
If he be guilty, as 'tis published.
Suf.
I'll call him presently, my noble Lord.
[Exit.
K. Henry.
Lords, take your places. And, I pray you all,
Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Glo'ster,
Than from true evidence, of good esteem,
He be approv'd in practice culpable.
Q. Mar.
God forbid, any malice should prevail,
That faultless may condemn a Nobleman!
Pray God, he may acquit him of suspicion!
K. Henry.
I thank thee. Well, these words content me much.2 note
-- 59 --
Enter Suffolk.
How now? why look'st thou so pale? why tremblest thou?
Where is our Uncle? what is the matter, Suffolk?
Suf.
Dead in his bed, my Lord; Glo'ster is dead.
Q. Mar.
Marry, God forefend!
Car.
God's secret judgment. I did dream to night,
The Duke was dumb, and could not speak a word.
[King swoons.
Q. Mar.
How fares my Lord? help, Lords, the King is dead.
Som.
Rear up his body, wring him by the nose.
Q. Mar.
Run, go, help, help. Oh, Henry, ope thine eyes.
Suf.
He doth revive again. Madam, be patient.
K. Henry.
O heav'nly God!
Q. Mar.
How fares my gracious Lord?
Suf.
Comfort, my Sovereign; gracious Henry, comfort.
K. Henry.
What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
Came he 3 noteright now to sing a raven's note,
Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;
And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words;
Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;
Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
Upon thy eye-balls murd'rous tyranny
Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.
Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding!—
Yet do not go away—come, basilisk,
-- 60 --
And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;
For in the shade of death I shall find joy,
In life but double death now Glo'ster's dead.
Q. Mar.
Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
Although the Duke was enemy to him,
Yet he, most Christian-like, laments his death.
And for myself, foe as he was to me,
Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life;
I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
And all to have the noble Duke alive.
What know I, how the world may deem of me?
For, it is known, we were but hollow friends;
It may be judg'd, I made the Duke away;
So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
And Princes' Courts be fill'd with my reproach.
This get I by his death. Ah, me unhappy!
To be a Queen, and crown'd with infamy.
K. Henry.
Ah, woe is me for Glo'ster, wretched man!
Q. Mar.
4 noteBe woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper; look on me.
What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
Be pois'nous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.
Is all thy comfort shut in Glo'ster's tomb?
Why, then, dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
Erect his statue, and do worship to it,
And make my image but an ale-house sign.
Was I for this nigh wreckt upon the sea,
And twice by adverse winds from England's bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boaded this? but well-fore-warning winds
Did seem to say, seek not a scorpion's nest,
-- 61 --
Nor set no footing on this unkind shore.
What did I then? but curst the gentle gusts,
And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves,
And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock.
Yet Æolus would not be a murderer;
But left that hateful office unto thee.
The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,
Knowing, that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore
With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.
5 note
The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands,
And would not dash me with their ragged sides;
Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
Might in thy Palace perish Margaret.
As far as I could ken the chalky cliffs,
When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
I stood upon the hatches in the storm;
And when the dusky sky began to rob
My earnest-gaping sight of thy Land's view,
I took a costly jewel from my neck,
A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,
And threw it tow'rds thy Land; the sea receiv'd it,
And so, I wish'd, thy body might my heart.
And ev'n with this I lost fair England's view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,
-- 62 --
For losing ken of Albion's wished Coast.
How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue,
The agent of thy foul inconstancy,
6 note
To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold
His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy?
Am I not witcht like her? or thou not false like him?
Ah me, I can no more: die, Margaret!
For Henry weeps, that thou dost live so long.
Noise within. Enter Warwick, Salisbury, and many Commons.
War.
It is reported, mighty Sovereign,
That good Duke Humphry traiterously is murder'd
By Suffolk, and the Cardinal Beauford's means.
The Commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, scatter up and down;
And care not whom they sting in their revenge.
Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,
Until they hear the order of his death.
K. Henry.
That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
But how he died, God knows, * notenot Henry.
Enter his chamber, view his breathless corps,
And comment then upon his sudden death.
-- 63 --
War.
That I shall do, my Liege.—Stay, Salisbury,
With the rude multitude, till I return.
[Warwick goes in.
K. Henry.
O thou, that judgest all things, stay my thoughts,
My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul,
Some violent hands were laid on Humphry's life.
If my suspect be false, forgive me, God!
For judgment only doth belong to thee.
Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain
Upon his face an ocean of salt tears;
To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,
And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling.
But all in vain are these mean obsequies.
[Bed with Glo'ster's body put forth.
And to survey his dead and earthy image,
What were it, but to make my sorrow greater?
War.
Come hither, gracious Sovereign, view this body.
K. Henry.
That is to see how deep my grave is made,
For, with his soul fled all my worldly solace;
7 note
For seeing him, I see my life in death.
War.
As surely as my soul intends to live
With that dread King, that took our state upon him,
To free us from his father's wrathful curse,
I do believe, that violent hands were laid
Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.
Suf.
A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
-- 64 --
War.
See, how the blood is settled in his face.
8 note
Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
Of ashy semblance, meager, pale, and bloodless;
Being all descended to the lab'ring heart,
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.
But see, his face is black and full of blood;
His eye-balls further out, than when he liv'd;
Staring full-ghastly, like a strangled man;
His hair up-rear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling:
His hands abroad display'd, as one that graspt
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
Look on the sheets; his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd.
It cannot be, but he was murder'd here;
The least of all these signs were probable.
Suf.
Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
Myself and Beauford had him in protection;
And we, I hope, Sirs, are no murderers.
War.
But both of you have vow'd Duke Humphry's death,
And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.
-- 65 --
'Tis like, you would not feast him like a friend;
And 'tis well seen, he found an enemy.
Q. Mar.
Then you, belike, suspect these Noblemen,
As guilty of Duke Humphry's timeless death.
War.
Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,
And sees fast by a butcher with an ax,
But will suspect, 'twas he that made the slaughter?
Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest,
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
Ev'n so suspicious is this tragedy.
Q. Mar.
Are you the butcher, Suffolk? where's your knife?
Is Beauford term'd a kite? where are his talons?
Suf.
I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
But here's a 'vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
That shall be scoured in his ranc'rous heart
That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.
Say, if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
That I am faulty in Duke Humphry's death.
War.
What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
Q. Mar.
He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
War.
Madam, be still. With rev'rence may I say;
For ev'ry word, you speak in his behalf,
Is slander to your royal Dignity.
Suf.
Blunt-witted Lord, ignoble in demeanour,
If ever lady wrong'd her Lord so much,
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art;
And never of the Nevil's noble Race.
War.
But that the guilt of murder buckler's thee,
And I should rob the death's man of his fee,
Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
And that my Sovereign's presence makes me mild,
-- 66 --
I would, false murd'rous Coward, on thy knee
Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech,
And say, it was thy mother that thou meant'st,
That thou thyself wast born in bastardy;
And, after all this fearful homage done,
Give thee thy hire, and send thy soul to hell,
Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men!
Suf.
Thou shalt be waking, while I shed thy blood,
If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.
War.
Away ev'n now, or I will drag thee hence;
Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee;
And do some service to Duke Humphry's ghost.
[Exeunt.
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
