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 towards thy land. The sea received it,
And so I wished thy body might my heart.
And even with this I lost fair England’s view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And called them blind and dusky spectacles
For losing ken of Albion’s wished coast.
How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue—
The agent of thy foul inconstancy—
To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold
His father’s acts, commenced in burning Troy!
Am I not witched like her? Or thou not false like him?
Ay me, I can no more. Die, Margaret,
For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.
Noise within. Enter the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury with many commons
WARWICK (to King Henry)
It is reported, mighty sovereign,
That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murdered
By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort’s means.
The commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, scatter up and down
And care not who they sting in his revenge.
Myself have calmed their spleenful mutiny,
Until they hear the order of his death.
KING HENRY
That he is dead, good Warwick, ’tis too true.
But how he died God knows, not Henry.
Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
And comment then upon his sudden death.
WARWICK
That shall I do, my liege.—Stay, Salisbury,
With the rude multitude till I return.
⌈Exeunt Warwick at one door, Salisbury and
commons at another⌉
KING HENRY
O thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts,
My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul
Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey’s life.
If my suspect be false, forgive me God,
For judgement 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,⌈Enter Warwick who draws apart the curtains and
shows⌉ Gloucester dead in his bed. Bed put forth
And to survey his dead and earthy image,
What were it but to make my sorrow greater?
WARWICK
Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.
KING HENRY
That is to see how deep my grave is made:
For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
For seeing him I see my life in death.
WARWICK
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.
SUFFOLK
A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
WARWICK
See how the blood is settled in his face.
Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost
Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
Being all descended to the labouring 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 eyeballs further out than when he lived,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
His hair upreared; his nostrils stretched with
struggling;
His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
And tugged for life and was by strength subdued.
Look on the sheets. His hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodged.
It cannot be but he was murdered here.
The least of all these signs were probable.
SUFFOLK
Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
Myself and Beaufort had him in protection,
And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.
WARWICK
But both of you were vowed Duke Humphrey’s foes,
(To Cardinal Beaufort)
And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.
’Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;
And ’tis well seen he found an enemy.
QUEEN MARGARET
Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen
As guilty of Duke Humphrey’s timeless death?
WARWICK
Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,
And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
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?
Even so suspicious is this tragedy.
QUEEN MARGARET
Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where’s your knife?
Is Beaufort termed a kite? Where are his talons?
SUFFOLK
I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men.
But here’s a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
That slanders me with murder’s crimson badge.
Say, if thou dar’st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey’s death.
⌈Exit Cardinal Beaufort assisted by Somerset⌉
WARWICK
What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
QUEEN MARGARET
He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
WARWICK
Madam, be still, with reverence may I say,
For every word you speak in his behalf
Is slander to your royal dignity.
SUFFOLK
Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour!
If ever lady wronged her lord so much,
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutored churl, and noble stock
Was graffed with crabtree slip, whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevilles’ noble race.
WARWICK
But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee
And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
And that my sovereign’s presence makes me mild,
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!
SUFFOLK
Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,
If from this
presence thou dar’st go with me.
WARWICK
Away, even now, or I will drag thee hence.
Unworthy though thou art, I’ll cope with thee,
And do some service to Duke Humphrey’s ghost.
Exeunt Suffolk and Warwick
KING HENRY
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
COMMONS (within) Down with Suffolk! Down with Suffolk!
QUEEN MARGARET What noise is this?
Enter Suffolk and Warwick with their weapons drawn
KING HENRY
Why, how now, lords? Your wrathful weapons drawn
Here in our presence? Dare you be so bold?
Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?
SUFFOLK
The trait’rous Warwick with the men of Bury
Set all upon me, mighty sovereign!
COMMONS (within) Down with Suffolk! Down with Suffolk!
Enter from the commons the Earl of Salisbury
SALISBURY (to the commons, within)
Sirs, stand apart. The King shall know your mind.
(To King Henry)
Dread lord, the commons send you word by me
Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
Or banished fair England’s territories,
They will by violence tear him from your palace
And torture him with grievous ling‘ring death.
They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died;
They say, in him they fear your highness’ death;
And mere instinct of love and loyalty,
Free from a stubborn opposite intent,
As being thought to contradict your liking,
Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
They say, in care of your most royal person,
That if your highness should intend to sleep,
And charge that no man should disturb your rest
In pain of your dislike, or pain of death,
Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,
Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue,
That slily glided towards your majesty,
It were but necessary you were waked,
Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,
The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
That they will guard you, whe’er you will or no,
From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is,
With whose envenomed and fatal sting
Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
They say, is shamefully bereft of life.
COMMONS (within) An answer from the King, my lord of Salisbury!
SUFFOLK
’Tis like the commons, rude unpolished hinds,
Could send such message to their sovereign.
But you, my lord, were glad to be employed,
To show how quaint an orator you are.
But all the honour Salisbury hath won
Is that he was the Lord Ambassador
Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.
COMMONS (within) An answer from the King, or we will all break in!
KING HENRY
Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me
I thank them for their tender loving care,
And had I not been ’cited so by them,
Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;
For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy
Mischance unto my state by Suffolk’s means.
And therefore by His majesty I swear,
Whose far unworthy deputy I am,
He shall not breathe infection in this air
But three days longer, on the pain of death.
⌈Exit Salisbury⌉
QUEEN MARGARET ⌈kneeling⌉
O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk.
KING HENRY
Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk.
No more, I say! If thou dost plead for him
Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
(To Suffolk) If after three days’ space thou here beest
found
On any ground that I am ruler of,
The world shall not be ransom for thy life.
Come, Warwick; come, good Warwick, go with me.
I have great matters to impart to thee.
Exeunt King Henry and Warwick with
attendants ⌈who draw the curtains as they
leave⌉. Queen Margaret and Suffolk remain
QUEEN MARGARET ⌈rising⌉
Mischance and sorrow go along with you!
Heart’s discontent and sour affliction
Be playfellows to keep you company!
There’s two of you, the devil make a third,
And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!
SUFFOLK
Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,
And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.
QUEEN MARGARET
Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch!
Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemies?
SUFFOLK
A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?
Could curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan,
I would invent as bitter searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Delivered strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced envy in her loathsome cave.
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;
My hair be fixed on end, as one distraught;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban.
And, even now, my burdened heart would break
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
Their chiefest prospect murd’ring basilisks!
Their softest touch as smart as lizards’ stings!
Their music frightful as the serpent’s hiss,
And boding screech-owls make the consort full!
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell—
QUEEN MARGARET
Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment‘st thyself,
And these dread curses, like the sun ’gainst glass,
Or like an overcharged gun, recoil
And turn the force of them upon thyself.
SUFFOLK
You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
Now by this ground that I am banished from,
Well could I curse away a winter’s night,
Though standing naked on a mountain top,
Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
And think it but a minute spent in sport.
QUEEN MARGARET
O let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand,
That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place
To wash away my woeful monuments.
⌈She kisses his palm⌉
O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand
That thou mightst think upon these lips by the seal,
Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for
thee!
So get thee gone, that I may know my grief.
’Tis but surmised whiles thou art standing by,
As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
I will repeal thee, or, be well assured,
Adventure to be banished myself.
And banished I am, if but from t
hee.
Go, speak not to me; even now be gone!
O, go not yet. Even thus two friends condemned
Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,
Loather a hundred times to part than die.
Yet now farewell, and farewell life with thee.
SUFFOLK
Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banishèd—
Once by the King, and three times thrice by thee.
’Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence,
A wilderness is populous enough,
So Suffolk had thy heavenly company.
For where thou art, there is the world itself,
With every several pleasure in the world;
And where thou art not, desolation.
I can no more. Live thou to joy thy life;
Myself no joy in naught but that thou liv’st.
Enter Vaux
QUEEN MARGARET
Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?
VAUX
To signify unto his majesty
That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death.
For suddenly a grievous sickness took him
That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,
Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth.
Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey’s ghost
Were by his side; sometime he calls the King,
And whispers to his pillow as to him
The secrets of his over-charged soul;
And I am sent to tell his majesty
That even now he cries aloud for him.
QUEEN MARGARET
Go tell this heavy message to the King. Exit Vaux
Ay me! What is this world? What news are these?
But wherefore grieve I at an hour’s poor loss
Omitting Suffolk’s exile, my soul’s treasure?
Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,
And with the southern clouds contend in tears—
Theirs for the earth’s increase, mine for my sorrow’s?
Now get thee hence. The King, thou know’st, is
coming. 390
If thou be found by me, thou art but dead.
SUFFOLK
If I depart from thee, I cannot live.
And in thy sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle babe
Dying with mother’s dug between his lips;
Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad,
And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth,
So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul
Or I should breathe it, so, into thy body—
⌈He kisseth her⌉
And then it lived in sweet Elysium.
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 34
