Exeunt Murderers Sound trumpets. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN MARGARET, CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with Attendants KING HENRY VI Go, call our uncle to our presence straight;Say we intend to try his grace to-day.
If he be guilty, as 'tis published. SUFFOLK I'll call him presently, my noble lord.
Exit KING HENRY VI Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all, Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester Than from true evidence of good esteem He be approved in practise culpable. QUEEN MARGARET God forbid any malice should prevail, That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion! KING HENRY VI I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.
Re-enter SUFFOLK
How now! why look'st thou pale? why tremblest thou?
Where is our uncle? what's the matter, Suffolk? SUFFOLK Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead. QUEEN MARGARET Marry, God forfend! CARDINAL God's secret judgment: I did dream to-night The duke was dumb and could not speak a word.
KING HENRY VI swoons QUEEN MARGARET How fares my lord? Help, lords! the king is dead. SOMERSET Rear up his body; wring him by the nose. QUEEN MARGARET Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes! SUFFOLK He doth revive again: madam, be patient. KING HENRY VI O heavenly God! QUEEN MARGARET How fares my gracious lord? SUFFOLK Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry, comfort! KING HENRY VI What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
Came he right now to sing a raven's note, Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;And thinks he that the chirping of a wren, By crying comfort from a hollow breast, Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words;Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;
Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.
Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:
Yet do not go away: come, basilisk, And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;For in the shade of death I shall find joy;In life but double death, now Gloucester's dead. QUEEN MARGARET Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
Although the duke was enemy to him, Yet he most Christian-like laments his death:
And for myself, foe as he was to me, Might liquid tears or heart-offending groans Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life, I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans, Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs, 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 judged I made the duke away;
So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded, And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.
This get I by his death: ay me, unhappy!
To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy! KING HENRY VI Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man! QUEEN MARGARET Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper; look on me.
What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.
Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
Why, then, dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
Erect his statue and worship it, And make my image but an alehouse sign.
Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea And twice by awkward wind from England's bank Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boded this, but well forewarning wind Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest, Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?
What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves:
And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore, Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock Yet AEolus would not be a murderer, But left that hateful office unto thee:
The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me, Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore, With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:
The splitting rocks cower'd in the sinking sands And would not dash me with their ragged sides, Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they, Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs, When from thy shore the tempest beat us back, 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 wish'd 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 call'd 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 witch'd 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 WARWICK, SALISBURY, and many Commons WARWICK It is reported, mighty sovereign, That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murder'd 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 calm'd their spleenful mutiny, Until they hear the order of his death. KING HENRY VI 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.
Exit KING HENRY VI 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 judgment 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: