I know,my sovereign,in my husband's love,Who now doth loyal service in his wars,Doth but so try the wife of Salisbury,Whither she will hear a wanton's tale or no,Lest being therein guilty by my stay,>From that,not from my liege,I turn away.
[Exit.]
KING EDWARD.
Whether is her beauty by her words dying,Or are her words sweet chaplains to her beauty?
Like as the wind doth beautify a sail,And as a sail becomes the unseen wind,So do her words her beauties,beauties words.
O,that I were a honey gathering bee,To bear the comb of virtue from this flower,And not a poison sucking envious spider,To turn the juice I take to deadly venom!
Religion is austere and beauty gentle;
Too strict a guardian for so fair a ward!
O,that she were,as is the air,to me!
Why,so she is,for when I would embrace her,This do I,and catch nothing but my self.
I must enjoy her;for I cannot beat With reason and reproof fond love a way.
[Enter Warwick.]
Here comes her father:I will work with him,To bear my colours in this field of love.
WARWICK.
How is it that my sovereign is so sad?
May I with pardon know your highness grief;
And that my old endeavor will remove it,It shall not cumber long your majesty.
KING EDWARD.
A kind and voluntary gift thou proferest,That I was forward to have begged of thee.
But,O thou world,great nurse of flattery,Why dost thou tip men's tongues with golden words,And peise their deeds with weight of heavy lead,That fair performance cannot follow promise?
O,that a man might hold the heart's close book And choke the lavish tongue,when it doth utter The breath of falsehood not charactered there!
WARWICK.
Far be it from the honor of my age,That I should owe bright gold and render lead;Age is a cynic,not a flatterer.
I say again,that if I knew your grief,And that by me it may be lessened,My proper harm should buy your highness good.
KING EDWARD.
These are the vulgar tenders of false men,That never pay the duty of their words.
Thou wilt not stick to swear what thou hast said;But,when thou knowest my grief's condition,This rash disgorged vomit of thy word Thou wilt eat up again,and leave me helpless.
WARWICK.
By heaven,I will not,though your majesty Did bid me run upon your sword and die.
KING EDWARD.
Say that my grief is no way medicinable But by the loss and bruising of thine honour.
WARWICK.
If nothing but that loss may vantage you,I would accompt that loss my vantage too.
KING EDWARD.
Thinkst that thou canst unswear thy oath again?
WARWICK.
I cannot;nor I would not,if I could.
KING EDWARD.
But,if thou dost,what shall I say to thee?
WARWICK.
What may be said to any perjured villain,That breaks the sacred warrant of an oath.
KING EDWARD.
What wilt thou say to one that breaks an oath?
WARWICK.
That he hath broke his faith with God and man,And from them both stands excommunicate.
KING EDWARD.
What office were it,to suggest a man To break a lawful and religious vow?
WARWICK.
An office for the devil,not for man.
KING EDWARD.
That devil's office must thou do for me,Or break thy oath,or cancel all the bonds Of love and duty twixt thy self and me;And therefore,Warwick,if thou art thy self,The Lord and master of thy word and oath,Go to thy daughter;and in my behalf Command her,woo her,win her any ways,To be my mistress and my secret love.
I will not stand to hear thee make reply:
Thy oath break hers,or let thy sovereign die.
[Exit.]
WARWICK.
O doting King!O detestable office!
Well may I tempt my self to wrong my self,When he hath sworn me by the name of God To break a vow made by the name of God.
What,if I swear by this right hand of mine To cut this right hand off?The better way Were to profane the Idol than confound it:
But neither will I do;I'll keep mine oath,And to my daughter make a recantation Of all the virtue I have preacht to her:
I'll say,she must forget her husband Salisbury,If she remember to embrace the king;I'll say,an oath may easily be broken,But not so easily pardoned,being broken;I'll say,it is true charity to love,But not true love to be so charitable;I'll say,his greatness may bear out the shame,But not his kingdom can buy out the sin;I'll say,it is my duty to persuade,But not her honesty to give consent.
[Enter Countess.]
See where she comes;was never father had Against his child an embassage so bad?
COUNTESS.
My Lord and father,I have sought for you:
My mother and the Peers importune you To keep in presence of his majesty,And do your best to make his highness merry.
WARWICK.
[Aside.]How shall I enter in this graceless arrant?
I must not call her child,for where's the father That will in such a suit seduce his child?
Then,'wife of Salisbury';shall I so begin?
No,he's my friend,and where is found the friend That will do friendship such indammagement?
[To the Countess.]
Neither my daughter nor my dear friend's wife,I am not Warwick,as thou thinkst I am,But an attorney from the Court of hell,That thus have housed my spirit in his form,To do a message to thee from the king.
The mighty king of England dotes on thee:
He that hath power to take away thy life,Hath power to take thy honor;then consent To pawn thine honor rather than thy life:
Honor is often lost and got again,But life,once gone,hath no recovery.
The Sun,that withers hay,doth nourish grass;The king,that would disdain thee,will advance thee.
The Poets write that great Achilles'spear Could heal the wound it made:the moral is,What mighty men misdo,they can amend.
The Lyon doth become his bloody jaws,And grace his forragement by being mild,When vassel fear lies trembling at his feet.
The king will in his glory hide thy shame;
And those that gaze on him to find out thee,Will lose their eye-sight,looking in the Sun.
What can one drop of poison harm the Sea,Whose huge vastures can digest the ill And make it loose his operation?
The king's great name will temper thy misdeeds,And give the bitter potion of reproach,A sugared,sweet and most delicious taste.
Besides,it is no harm to do the thing Which without shame could not be left undone.