I am a king and privileged to speak.

  123

  CLIFFORD

  My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here

  124

  Cannot be cured by words; therefore, be still.

  125

  RICHARD

  Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.

  126

  By Him that made us all, I am resolved

  127

  That Clifford’s manhood lies upon his tongue.

  128

  EDWARD

  Say, Henry, shall I have my right or no?

  129

  A thousand men have broke their fasts today

  130

  That ne’er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.

  131

  WARWICK

  If thou deny, their blood upon thy head,

  132

  For York in justice puts his armor on.

  133

  PRINCE EDWARD

  If that be right which Warwick says is right,

  134

  There is no wrong, but everything is right.

  135

 

  Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands,

  136

  For well I wot thou hast thy mother’s tongue.

  137

  QUEEN MARGARET

  But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam,

  138

  But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,

  139

  Marked by the Destinies to be avoided,

  140

  As venom toads or lizards’ dreadful stings.

  141

  RICHARD

  Iron of Naples, hid with English gilt,

  142

  Whose father bears the title of a king,

  143

  As if a channel should be called the sea,

  144

  Sham’st thou not, knowing whence thou art

  145

  extraught,

  146

  To let thy tongue detect thy baseborn heart?

  147

  EDWARD

  A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns

  148

  To make this shameless callet know herself.—

  149

  Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,

  150

  Although thy husband may be Menelaus;

  151

  And ne’er was Agamemnon’s brother wronged

  152

  By that false woman as this king by thee.

  153

  His father reveled in the heart of France,

  154

  And tamed the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;

  155

  And had he matched according to his state,

  156

  He might have kept that glory to this day.

  157

  But when he took a beggar to his bed

  158

  And graced thy poor sire with his bridal day,

  159

  Even then that sunshine brewed a shower for him

  160

  That washed his father’s fortunes forth of France

  161

  And heaped sedition on his crown at home.

  162

  For what hath broached this tumult but thy pride?

  163

  Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept,

  164

  And we, in pity of the gentle king,

  165

  Had slipped our claim until another age.

  166

  GEORGE

  But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,

  167

  And that thy summer bred us no increase,

  168

  We set the axe to thy usurping root;

  169

  And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,

  170

  Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,

  171

  We’ll never leave till we have hewn thee down

  172

  Or bathed thy growing with our heated bloods.

  173

  EDWARD

  And in this resolution, I defy thee,

  174

  Not willing any longer conference,

  175

  Since thou denied’st the gentle king to speak.—

  176

  Sound, trumpets! Let our bloody colors wave;

  177

  And either victory or else a grave!

  178

  QUEEN MARGARET Stay, Edward!

  179

  EDWARD

  No, wrangling woman, we’ll no longer stay.

  180

  These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.

  181

  They all exit.

 

  Alarum. Excursions. Enter Warwick,

 

  WARWICK,

  Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,

  1

  I lay me down a little while to breathe,

  2

  For strokes received and many blows repaid

  3

  Have robbed my strong-knit sinews of their strength;

  4

  And spite of spite, needs must I rest awhile.

  5

  Enter Edward, running.

  EDWARD

  Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death,

  6

  For this world frowns and Edward’s sun is clouded.

  7

  Enter

  WARWICK,

  How now, my lord, what hap? What hope of good?

  8

  GEORGE

  Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair;

  9

  Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.

  10

  What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?

  11

  EDWARD

  Bootless is flight; they follow us with wings,

  12

  And weak we are and cannot shun pursuit.

  13

  Enter Richard,

  RICHARD

  Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?

  14

  Thy brother’s blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,

  15

  Broached with the steely point of Clifford’s lance,

  16

  And in the very pangs of death he cried,

  17

  Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,

  18

  “Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death!”

  19

  So, underneath the belly of their steeds,

  20

  That stained their fetlocks in his smoking blood,

  21

  The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.

  22

  WARWICK

  Then let the earth be drunken with our blood!

  23

  I’ll kill my horse because I will not fly.

  24

  Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,

  25

  Wailing our losses whiles the foe doth rage,

  26

  And look upon, as if the tragedy

  27

  Were played in jest by counterfeiting actors?

  28

 

  Here on my knee I vow to God above

  29

  I’ll never pause again, never stand still,

  30

  Till either death hath closed these eyes of mine

  31

  Or Fortune given me measure of revenge.

  32

  EDWARD

  O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,

  33

  And in this vow do chain my soul to thine

  34

 

  And, ere my knee rise from the earth’s cold face,

  35

  I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,

  36

  Thou setter up and plucker down of kings,

  37

  Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands

  38

  That to my foes this body must be prey,

  39

  Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope

  40

  And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.

  41

 

  Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,

  42

  Where’er it be, in heaven or in earth.

  43

  RICHARD

  Brother, give me thy hand.—And, gentle Warwick,

  44

  Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.

  45

  I that did never weep now melt with woe

  46

  That winter should cut off our springtime so.

  47

  WARWICK

  Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.

  48

  GEORGE

  Yet let us all together to our troops

  49

  And give them leave to fly that will not stay,

  50

  And call them pillars that will stand to us;

  51

  And, if we thrive, promise them such rewards

  52

  As victors wear at the Olympian Games.

  53

  This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,

  54

  For yet is hope of life and victory.

  55

  Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.

  56

  They exit.

 

  Excursions. Enter, Richard
  the white rose,> and Clifford,

  RICHARD

  Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.

  1

  Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,

  2

  And this for Rutland, both bound to revenge,

  3

  Wert thou environed with a brazen wall.

  4

  CLIFFORD

  Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.

  5

  This is the hand that stabbed thy father York,

  6

  And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland,

  7

  And here’s the heart that triumphs in their death

  8

  And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother

  9

  To execute the like upon thyself.

  10

  And so, have at thee!

  11

  They fight; Warwick comes; Clifford flies.

  RICHARD

  Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase,

  12

  For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.

  13

  They exit.

 

  Alarum. Enter King Henry alone,

  KING HENRY

  This battle fares like to the morning’s war,

  1

  When dying clouds contend with growing light,

  2

  What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,

  3

  Can neither call it perfect day nor night.

  4

  Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea

  5

  Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;

  6

  Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea

  7

  Forced to retire by fury of the wind.

  8

  Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;

  9

  Now one the better, then another best,

  10

  Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,

  11

  Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd.

  12

  So is the equal poise of this fell war.

  13

  Here on this molehill will I sit me down.

  14

 

  To whom God will, there be the victory;

  15

  For Margaret my queen and Clifford too

  16

  Have chid me from the battle, swearing both

  17

  They prosper best of all when I am thence.

  18

  Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so,

  19

  For what is in this world but grief and woe?

  20

  O God! Methinks it were a happy life

  21

  To be no better than a homely swain,

  22

  To sit upon a hill as I do now,

  23

  To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,

  24

  Thereby to see the minutes how they run:

  25

  How many makes the hour full complete,

  26

  How many hours brings about the day,

  27

  How many days will finish up the year,

  28

  How many years a mortal man may live.

  29

  When this is known, then to divide the times:

  30

  So many hours must I tend my flock,

  31

  So many hours must I take my rest,

  32

  So many hours must I contemplate,

  33

  So many hours must I sport myself,

  34

  So many days my ewes have been with young,

  35

  So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean,

  36

  So many years ere I shall shear the fleece;

  37

  So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,

  38

  Passed over to the end they were created,

  39

  Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

  40

  Ah, what a life were this! How sweet, how lovely!

  41

  Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade

  42

  To shepherds looking on their silly sheep

  43

  Than doth a rich embroidered canopy

  44

  To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?

  45

  O yes, it doth, a thousandfold it doth.

  46

  And to conclude, the shepherd’s homely curds,

  47

  His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

  48

  His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,

  49

  All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

  50

  Is far beyond a prince’s delicates—

  51

  His viands sparkling in a golden cup,

  52

  His body couchèd in a curious bed—

  53

  When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.

  54

  Alarum. Enter at one door a Son that hath killed his

  Father,

  SON

  Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.

  55

  This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,

  56

  May be possessèd with some store of crowns,

  57

  And I, that haply take them from him now,

  58

  May yet ere night yield both my life and them

  59

  To some man else, as this dead man doth me.

  60