Thou baleful meffenger, out of my fight!
Upon thy eye-balls murd'rous tyranny
Sits in grim majefty to fright the world.
Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;
Yet do not go away; come, bafilisk,
And kill the innocent gazer with thy fight:
For in the fhade of death I fhall find joy;
In life, but double death, now Glo'fter's dead.
Q. Mar. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus? Although the Duke was enemy to him,
Yet he most chriftian-like laments his death.
As for my felf, foe as he was to me,
Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
Or blood-confuming fighs recall his life;
I would be blind with weeping, fick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking fighs,
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 fhall my name with flander's tongue be wounded,
And Princes Courts be filled with 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 Glofter, wretched man!
Q. Mar. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is!
What, doft thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathfome 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 fhut in Glofter'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 fign.
Was I for this nigh wreckt upon the fea,
And twice by adverfe winds from England's bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boaded this? but well fore-warning winds
Did feem to fay, feek not a fcorpion's neft,
Nor fet thy footing on this unkind fhoar.
What did I then, but curfe the gentle gufts,
And him that loos'd them from their brazen caves, And bid them blow towards England's bleffed fhoar, Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
Yet Eolus would not be a murtherer,
He left that hateful office unto thee, a
The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the finking fands,
And would not dash me with their ragged fides;
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 fhoar the tempest beat us back,
I ftood upon the hatches in the storm;
And when the dusky sky began to rob
My earnest-gaping fight of the land's view,
I took a coftly jewel from my neck,
(A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,)
And threw it tow'rds thy land; the fea receiv'd it,
And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.
And ev❜n with this I loft fair England's view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,
For lofing ken of Albion's wifhed coaft.
How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue
(The agent of thy foul inconftancy)
To fit and 'witch me, as Afcanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold
His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy!
Am I not witcht like her? +'art thou not falfe like him?
Ah me, I can no more: die, Margaret!
For Henry weeps that thou didst live fo long.
The pretty vaulting fea refus'd to drown me,
Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on fhoar
With tears as falt as fea, through thy unkindness.
The fplitting rocks &'c.
3 watch... old edit. Theob, emend.
Noife within. Enter Warwick, Salisbury, and many
Commons.
War. It is reported, mighty Sovereign,
That good Duke Humphry traiterously is murther'd
By Suffolk, and the Cardinal Beaufort's means:
The Commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, fcatter up and down,
And care not 'whom they fting in their revenge.
My felf 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, not Henry:
Enter his chamber, view his breathlefs corps,
And comment then upon his fudden death.
War. That I fhall do, my Liege: ftay, Salisbury, With the rude multitude, 'till I return. [Warwick goes in. K.Henry.Othou that judgest all things, ftay my thoughts! My thoughts, that labour to perfuade my foul Some violent hands were laid on Humphry's life: If my fufpect be falfe, forgive me, God! For judgment only doth belong to thee. Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips With twenty thoufand kiffes, and to drain Upon his face an ocean of falt tears: To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk, And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling : But all in vain are thefe mean obfequies.
[Bed with Gloucefter's body put forth.
And to furvey his dead and earthly image,
What were it but to make my forrow greater?
War. Come hither, gracious Sovereign, view this body. K. Henry. That is to fee how deep my grave is made: For with his foul fled all my worldly folace;
For feeing him, I fee my life is death.
War. As furely as my foul intends to live
With that dread King that took our ftate upon him,
VOL. IV.
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, fworn with a folemn tongue!
What inftance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
War. See how the blood is fettled in his face.
Oft have I feen a timely parted ghost
Of afhy femblance, meager, pale, and 'blood-left,`
Being all defcended to the lab'ring heart,
Who in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the fame for aidance 'gainst the enemy,
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.
But fee, his face is black and full of blood,
His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
Staring full ghaftly, like a strangled man; ;
His hair up-rear'd, his noftrils ftretch'd with struggling,
His hands abroad difplay'd, as one that grafpt
And tugg'd for life, and was by ftrength fubdu'd.
Look on the fheets; his hair, you fee, is fticking;
His well proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the fummer's corn by tempeft lodg'd;
It cannot be but he was murther'd here:
The leaft of all thefe figns were probable.
Suf. Why, Warwick, who fhould do the Duke to death? My felf and Beaufort had him in protection,
And we, I hope, Sirs, are no murtherers.
War. But both of you had vow'd Duke Humphry's death, And you forfooth had the good Duke to keep:
'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend, And 'tis well feen he found an enemy.
Q. Mar. Then you belike fufpect these Noblemen, As guilty of Duke Humphry's timeless death.
War. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh, And fees faft by a butcher with an ax,
But will fufpect 'twas he that made the flaughter?
Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest,
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite foar with unbloodied beak?
Even fo fufpicious is this tragedy.
Q. Mar. Are you the butcher, Suffolk ? where's the knife Is Beaufort term'd a kite? where are his talons? Suf. I wear no knife to flaughter fleeping men, But here's a 'vengeful fword, rufted with eafe, That fhall be fcoured in his ranc'rous heart, That flanders me with murther's crimson badge. Say if thou dar'ft, proud Lord of Warwickshire, That I am faulty in Duke Humphry's death.
War. What dares not Warwick, if falfe Suffolk dare him? Q. Mar. He dares not calm his contumelious fpirit, Nor ceafe to be an arrogant controller,
Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
War. Madam, be ftill; with rev'rence may I fay;
For ev'ry word you speak in his behalf,
Is flander to your royal dignity.
Suf. Blunt-witted Lord, ignoble in demeanour,
If ever Lady wrong'd her Lord fo much,
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor'd churl; and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree flip, whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevills noble race.
War. But that the guilt of murther bucklers thee,
And I should rob the death's-man of his fee,
Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand fhames,
And that my Sovereign's prefence makes me mild,
I would, falfe murd'rous coward, on thy knee
Make thee beg pardon for thy paffed fpeech,
And fay it was thy mother that thou meant'ft;
That thou thy felf was born in baftardy:
And after all this fearful homage done,
Give thee thy hire, and fend thy foul to hell,
Pernicious blood-fucker of fleeping men!
Suf. Thou shalt be waking while I fhed thy blood,
If from this prefence thou dar'ft go with me.
War. Away! ev'n now, or I will drag thee hence: Unworthy
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