Part 41
_Glou._ Unmanner’d dog! stand thou, when I command: [fab039] Advance thy halberd higher than my breast, [fab040] Or, by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot, And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness. [fab042]
_Anne._ What, do you tremble? are you all afraid? Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal, And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil. ·fab045· Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell! [fab046] Thou hadst but power over his mortal body, His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone. [fab048]
_Glou._ Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
_Anne._ Foul devil, for God’s sake, hence, and trouble us not; [fab050] For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell, Fill’d it with cursing cries and deep exclaims. If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds, Behold this pattern of thy butcheries. O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry’s wounds ·fab055· Open their congeal’d mouths and bleed afresh. Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity; For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells; [fab059] Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural, [fab060] Provokes this deluge most unnatural. O God, which this blood madest, revenge his death! O earth, which this blood drink’st, revenge his death! [fab063] Either heaven with lightning strike the murderer dead, [fab064] Or earth, gape open wide and eat him quick, [fab065] As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood, [fab066] Which his hell-govern’d arm hath butchered! [fab067]
_Glou._ Lady, you know no rules of charity, [fab068] Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses. [fab069]
_Anne._ Villain, thou know’st no law of God nor man: [fab070] No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
_Glou._ But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
_Anne._ O wonderful, when devils tell the truth! [fab073]
_Glou._ More wonderful, when angels are so angry. Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman, [fab075] Of these supposed evils, to give me leave, [fab076] By circumstance, but to acquit myself.
_Anne._ Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man, [fab078] For these known evils, but to give me leave, [fab079] By circumstance, to curse thy cursed self. ·fab080·
_Glou._ Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
_Anne._ Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make [fab083] No excuse current, but to hang thyself. [fab084]
_Glou._ By such despair, I should accuse myself. ·fab085·
_Anne._ And, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused [fab086] For doing worthy vengeance on thyself, Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others. [fab088]
_Glou._ Say that I slew them not?
_Anne._ Why, then they are not dead: [fab089] But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee. ·fab090·
_Glou._ I did not kill your husband.
_Anne._ Why, then he is alive. [fab091]
_Glou._ Nay, he is dead; and slain by Edward’s hand. [fab092]
_Anne._ In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw [fab093] Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood; [fab094] The which thou once didst bend against her breast, [fab095] But that thy brothers beat aside the point. [fab096]
_Glou._ I was provoked by her slanderous tongue, [fab097] Which laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders. [fab098]
_Anne._ Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind, Which never dreamt on aught but butcheries: [fab100] Didst thou not kill this king?
_Glou._ I grant ye. [fab101]
_Anne._ Dost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too [fab102] Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed! O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!
_Glou._ The fitter for the King of heaven, that hath him. [fab105]
_Anne._ He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
_Glou._ Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither; [fab107] For he was fitter for that place than earth.
_Anne._ And thou unfit for any place but hell.
_Glou._ Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it. [fab110]
_Anne._ Some dungeon.
_Glou._ Your bed-chamber. [fab111]
_Anne._ Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
_Glou._ So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
_Anne._ I hope so.
_Glou._ I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne, [fab114] To leave this keen encounter of our wits, [fab115] And fall somewhat into a slower method, [fab116] Is not the causer of the timeless deaths [fab117] Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward, As blameful as the executioner? [fab119]
_Anne._ Thou art the cause, and most accursed effect. [fab120]
_Glou._ Your beauty was the cause of that effect; Your beauty, which did haunt me in my sleep [fab122] To undertake the death of all the world, So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom. [fab124]
_Anne._ If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide, ·fab125· These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks. [fab126]
_Glou._ These eyes could never endure sweet beauty’s wreck; [fab127] You should not blemish it, if I stood by: [fab128] As all the world is cheered by the sun, [fab129] So I by that; it is my day, my life. ·fab130·
_Anne._ Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life! [fab131]
_Glou._ Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both. [fab132]
_Anne._ I would I were, to be revenged on thee.
_Glou._ It is a quarrel most unnatural, To be revenged on him that loveth you. [fab135]
_Anne._ It is a quarrel just and reasonable, To be revenged on him that slew my husband. [fab137]
_Glou._ He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband, [fab138] Did it to help thee to a better husband.
_Anne._ His better doth not breathe upon the earth. ·fab140·
_Glou._ He lives that loves you better than he could. [fab141]
_Anne._ Name him.
_Glou._ Plantagenet.
_Anne._ Why, that was he. [fab142]
_Glou._ The selfsame name, but one of better nature.
_Anne._ Where is he? [fab144]
_Glou._ Here. [_She spitteth at him._] Why dost thou spit at me? [fab145]
_Anne._ Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!
_Glou._ Never came poison from so sweet a place. [fab147]
_Anne._ Never hung poison on a fouler toad. Out of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes. [fab149]
_Glou._ Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. ·fab150·
_Anne._ Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!
_Glou._ I would they were, that I might die at once; For now they kill me with a living death. [fab153] Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears, Shamed their aspect with store of childish drops: [fab155] These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear, [fab156] No, when my father York and Edward wept, [fab157] To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him; Nor when thy warlike father, like a child, [fab160] Told the sad story of my father’s death, And twenty times made pause to sob and weep, That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks, Like trees bedash’d with rain: in that sad time My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear; ·fab165· And what these sorrows could not thence exhale, Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping. I never sued to friend nor enemy; [fab168] My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing words; [fab169] But, now thy beauty is proposed my fee, ·fab170· My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak. [fab171] [_She looks scornfully at him._ Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made [fab172] For kissing, lady, not for such contempt. If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive, Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword; ·fab175· Which if thou please to hide in this true bosom, [fab176] And let the soul forth that adoreth thee, [fab177] I lay it naked to the deadly stroke, [fab178] And humbly beg the death upon my knee. [fab179] [_He lays his breast open: she offers at it with his sword._ Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry, [fab180] But ’twas thy beauty that provoked me. Nay, now dispatch; ’twas I that stabb’d young Edward, [fab182] But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on. [fab183] [_Here she lets fall the sword._ Take up the sword again, or take up me. [fab184]
_Anne._ Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death, ·fab185· I will not be the executioner. [fab186]
_Glou._ Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.
_Anne._ I have already.
_Glou._ Tush, that was in thy rage: [fab188] Speak it again, and, even with the word, [fab189] That hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love, [fab190] Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love; To both their deaths thou shalt be accessary. [fab192]
_Anne._ I would I knew thy heart. [fab193]
_Glou._ ’Tis figured in my tongue.
_Anne._ I fear me both are false. ·fab195·
_Glou._ Then never man was true. [fab196]
_Anne._ Well, well, put up your sword.
_Glou._ Say, then, my peace is made.
_Anne._ That shall you know hereafter. [fab199]
_Glou._ But shall I live in hope? [fab200]
_Anne._ All men, I hope, live so.
_Glou._ Vouchsafe to wear this ring. [fab202]
_Anne._ To take is not to give. [fab203]
_Glou._ Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger, [fab204] Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; [fab205] Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. [fab206] And if thy poor devoted suppliant may [fab207] But beg one favour at thy gracious hand, Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever. [fab209]
_Anne._ What is it? [fab210]
_Glou._ That it would please thee leave these sad designs [fab211] To him that hath more cause to be a mourner, [fab212] And presently repair to Crosby Place; [fab213] Where, after I have solemnly interr’d At Chertsey monastery this noble king, ·fab215· And wet his grave with my repentant tears, I will with all expedient duty see you: For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you, Grant me this boon.
_Anne._ With all my heart; and much it joys me too, ·fab220· To see you are become so penitent. Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me. [fab222]
_Glou._ Bid me farewell.
_Anne._ ’Tis more than you deserve; But since you teach me how to flatter you, Imagine I have said farewell already. [fab225] [_Exeunt Lady Anne, Tressel, and Berkeley._
_Glou._ Sirs, take up the corse.
_Gent._ Towards Chertsey, noble lord? [fab226]
_Glou._ No, to White-Friars; there attend my coming. [fab227] [_Exeunt all but Gloucester._ Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? [fab228] Was ever woman in this humour won? [fab229] I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long. ·fab230· What! I, that kill’d her husband and his father, [fab231] To take her in her heart’s extremest hate, [fab232] With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, The bleeding witness of her hatred by; [fab234] Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, [fab235] And I nothing to back my suit at all, [fab236] But the plain devil and dissembling looks, And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! [fab238] Ha! [fab239] Hath she forgot already that brave prince, ·fab240· Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since, Stabb’d in my angry mood at Tewksbury? A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, [fab243] Framed in the prodigality of nature, Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, [fab245] The spacious world cannot again afford: [fab246] And will she yet debase her eyes on me, [fab247] That cropp’d the golden prime of this sweet prince, [fab248] And made her widow to a woful bed? [fab249] On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety? [fab250] On me, that halt and am unshapen thus? [fab251] My dukedom to a beggarly denier, [fab252] I do mistake my person all this while: Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, Myself to be a marvellous proper man. ·fab255· I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass, [fab256] And entertain some score or two of tailors, [fab257] To study fashions to adorn my body: [fab258] Since I am crept in favour with myself, I will maintain it with some little cost. [fab260] But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave; [fab261] And then return lamenting to my love. Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, [fab263] That I may see my shadow as I pass. [_Exit._
## SCENE III. _The palace_.
_Enter_ QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, _and_ LORD GREY.
_Riv._ Have patience, madam: there’s no doubt his majesty [fac001] Will soon recover his accustom’d health.
_Grey._ In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse: [fac003] Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort, And cheer his grace with quick and merry words. [fac005]
_Q. Eliz._ If he were dead, what would betide of me? [fac006]
_Riv._ No other harm but loss of such a lord. [fac007]
_Q. Eliz._ The loss of such a lord includes all harm. [fac008]
_Grey._ The heavens have bless’d you with a goodly son, To be your comforter when he is gone. ·fac010·
_Q. Eliz._ Oh, he is young, and his minority [fac011] Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester, [fac012] A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
_Riv._ Is it concluded he shall be protector? [fac014]
_Q. Eliz._ It is determined, not concluded yet: ·fac015· But so it must be, if the king miscarry. [fac016]
_Enter_ BUCKINGHAM and DERBY.
_Grey._ Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby. [fac017]
_Buck._ Good time of day unto your royal grace!
_Der._ God make your majesty joyful as you have been!
_Q. Eliz._ The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby, ·fac020· To your good prayers will scarcely say amen. [fac021] Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife, And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured I hate not you for her proud arrogance. [fac024]
_Der._ I do beseech you, either not believe [fac025] The envious slanders of her false accusers; [fac026] Or, if she be accused in true report, [fac027] Bear with her weakness, which, I think, proceeds From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.
_Riv._ Saw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby? [fac030]
_Der._ But now the Duke of Buckingham and I Are come from visiting his majesty. [fac032]
_Q. Eliz._ What likelihood of his amendment, lords? [fac033]
_Buck._ Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully. [fac034]
_Q. Eliz._ God grant him health! Did you confer with him? ·fac035·
_Buck._ Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement [fac036] Betwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers, [fac037] And betwixt them and my lord chamberlain; And sent to warn them to his royal presence. [fac039]
_Q. Eliz._ Would all were well! but that will never be: ·fac040· I fear our happiness is at the highest. [fac041]
_Enter_ GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, _and_ DORSET.
_Glou._ They do me wrong, and I will not endure it: Who are they that complain unto the king, [fac043] That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not? [fac044] By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly [fac045] That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours. [fac046] Because I cannot flatter and speak fair, [fac047] Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive and cog, [fac048] Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, I must be held a rancorous enemy. ·fac050· Cannot a plain man live and think no harm, But thus his simple truth must be abused [fac052] By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks? [fac053]
_Riv._ To whom in all this presence speaks your grace? [fac054]
_Glou._ To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace. [fac055] When have I injured thee? when done thee wrong? Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction? [fac057] A plague upon you all! His royal person-- [fac058] Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-- [fac059] Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while, ·fac060· But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
_Q. Eliz._ Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter. The king, of his own royal disposition, [fac063] And not provoked by any suitor else; [fac064] Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred, ·fac065· Which in your outward actions shows itself [fac066] Against my kindred, brothers, and myself, [fac067] Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather [fac068] The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.
_Glou._ I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad, ·fac070· That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch: [fac071] Since every Jack became a gentleman, There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.
_Q. Eliz._ Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester; You envy my advancement and my friends’: [fac075] God grant we never may have need of you!
_Glou._ Meantime, God grants that we have need of you: [fac077] Our brother is imprison’d by your means, Myself disgraced, and the nobility Held in contempt; whilst many fair promotions [fac080] Are daily given to ennoble those That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.
_Q. Eliz._ By Him that raised me to this careful height From that contented hap which I enjoy’d, I never did incense his majesty ·fac085· Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been An earnest advocate to plead for him. My lord, you do me shameful injury, Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects. [fac089]
_Glou._ You may deny that you were not the cause [fac090] Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.
_Riv._ She may, my lord, for-- [fac092]
_Glou._ She may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so? She may do more, sir, than denying that: She may help you to many fair preferments; [fac095] And then deny her aiding hand therein, And lay those honours on your high deserts. [fac097] What may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she,-- [fac098]
_Riv._ What, marry, may she? [fac099]
_Glou._ What, marry, may she! marry with a king, ·fac100· A bachelor, a handsome stripling too: [fac101] I wis your grandam had a worser match. [fac102]
_Q. Eliz._ My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs: By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty ·fac105· With those gross taunts I often have endured. [fac106] I had rather be a country servant-maid Than a great queen, with this condition, [fac108] To be thus taunted, scorn’d, and baited at: [fac109]
_Enter_ QUEEN MARGARET, _behind_.
Small joy have I in being England’s queen. ·fac110·
_Q. Mar._ And lessen’d be that small, God, I beseech thee! [fac111] Thy honour, state and seat is due to me.
_Glou._ What! threat you me with telling of the king? [fac113] Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said [fac114] I will avouch in presence of the king: [fac115] I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower. [fac116] ’Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot. [fac117]
_Q. Mar._ Out, devil! I remember them too well: [fac118] Thou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower, [fac119] And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury. ·fac120·
_Glou._ Ere you were queen, yea, or your husband king, [fac121] I was a pack-horse in his great affairs; A weeder out of his proud adversaries, A liberal rewarder of his friends: To royalise his blood I spilt mine own. [fac125]
_Q. Mar._ Yea, and much better blood than his or thine. [fac126]
_Glou._ In all which time you and your husband Grey Were factious for the house of Lancaster; And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband [fac129] In Margaret’s battle at Saint Alban’s slain? ·fac130· Let me put in your minds, if you forget, [fac131] What you have been ere now, and what you are; [fac132] Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
_Q. Mar._ A murderous villain, and so still thou art.
_Glou._ Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick; ·fac135· Yea, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--
_Q. Mar._ Which God revenge!
_Glou._ To fight on Edward’s party for the crown; And for his meed, poor lord, he is mew’d up. I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s; ·fac140· Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine: I am too childish-foolish for this world. [fac142]
_Q. Mar._ Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world, [fac143] Thou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.
_Riv._ My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days ·fac145· Which here you urge to prove us enemies, We follow’d then our lord, our lawful king: [fac147] So should we you, if you should be our king. [fac148]
_Glou._ If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar: [fac149] Far be it from my heart, the thought of it! [fac150]
_Q. Eliz._ As little joy, my lord, as you suppose [fac151] You should enjoy, were you this country’s king, As little joy may you suppose in me, [fac153] That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
_Q. Mar._ A little joy enjoys the queen thereof; [fac155] For I am she, and altogether joyless. I can no longer hold me patient. [_Advancing._ [fac157] Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out In sharing that which you have pill’d from me! [fac159] Which of you trembles not that looks on me? [fac160] If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects, [fac161] Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels? [fac162] O gentle villain, do not turn away! [fac163]
_Glou._ Foul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?
_Q. Mar._ But repetition of what thou hast marr’d; ·fac165· That will I make before I let thee go.
_Glou._ Wert thou not banished on pain of death? [fac167]
_Q. Mar._ I was; but I do find more pain in banishment Than death can yield me here by my abode. [fac169] A husband and a son thou owest to me; [fac170] And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance: The sorrow that I have, by right is yours, [fac172] And all the pleasures you usurp are mine. [fac173]
_Glou._ The curse my noble father laid on thee, When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper ·fac175· And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes, [fac176] And then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout Steep’d in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland,-- [fac178] His curses, then from bitterness of soul Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee; [fac180] And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed. [fac181]
_Q. Eliz._ So just is God, to right the innocent. [fac182]
_Hast._ O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe, And the most merciless that e’er was heard of! [fac184]
_Riv._ Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported. ·fac185·
_Dor._ No man but prophesied revenge for it.
_Buck._ Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
_Q. Mar._ What! were you snarling all before I came, Ready to catch each other by the throat, And turn you all your hatred now on me? [fac190] Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death, Their kingdom’s loss, my woful banishment, [fac193] Could all but answer for that peevish brat? [fac194] Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven? ·fac195· Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses! If not by war, by surfeit die your king, [fac197] As ours by murder, to make him a king! [fac198] Edward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales, [fac199] For Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales, [fac200] Die in his youth by like untimely violence! [fac201] Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen, Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self! Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s loss; [fac204] And see another, as I see thee now, [fac205] Deck’d in thy rights, as thou art stall’d in mine! [fac206] Long die thy happy days before thy death; And, after many lengthen’d hours of grief, [fac208] Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen! Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by, ·fac210· And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son [fac211] Was stabb’d with bloody daggers: God, I pray him, That none of you may live your natural age, [fac213] But by some unlook’d accident cut off! [fac214]