1    Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know
2    We have dispatch'd the duke, as he commanded.

3    O that it were to do! What have we done?
4    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

5    Here comes my lord.

6    Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?

7    Ay, my good lord, he's dead.

8    Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;
9    I will reward you for this venturous deed.
10   The king and all the peers are here at hand.
11   Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,
12   According as I gave directions?

13   'Tis, my good lord.

14   Away! be gone.

15   Go, call our uncle to our presence straight;
16   Say we intend to try his grace to-day.
17   If he be guilty, as 'tis published.

18   I'll call him presently, my noble lord.

19   Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,
20   Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester
21   Than from true evidence of good esteem
22   He be approved in practise culpable.

23   God forbid any malice should prevail,
24   That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
25   Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!

26   I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.
Re-enter SUFFOLK
27   How now! why look'st thou pale? why tremblest thou?
28   Where is our uncle? what's the matter, Suffolk?

29   Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.

30   Marry, God forfend!

31   God's secret judgment: I did dream to-night
32   The duke was dumb and could not speak a word.

33   How fares my lord? Help, lords! the king is dead.

34   Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.

35   Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!

36   He doth revive again: madam, be patient.

37   O heavenly God!

38   How fares my gracious lord?

39   Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry, comfort!

40   What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
41   Came he right now to sing a raven's note,
42   Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;
43   And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
44   By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
45   Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
46   Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words;
47   Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;
48   Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.
49   Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
50   Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny
51   Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.
52   Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:
53   Yet do not go away: come, basilisk,
54   And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;
55   For in the shade of death I shall find joy;
56   In life but double death, now Gloucester's dead.

57   Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
58   Although the duke was enemy to him,
59   Yet he most Christian-like laments his death:
60   And for myself, foe as he was to me,
61   Might liquid tears or heart-offending groans
62   Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,
63   I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
64   Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
65   And all to have the noble duke alive.
66   What know I how the world may deem of me?
67   For it is known we were but hollow friends:
68   It may be judged I made the duke away;
69   So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
70   And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.
71   This get I by his death: ay me, unhappy!
72   To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy!

73   Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!

74   Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
75   What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
76   I am no loathsome leper; look on me.
77   What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
78   Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.
79   Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
80   Why, then, dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
81   Erect his statue and worship it,
82   And make my image but an alehouse sign.
83   Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea
84   And twice by awkward wind from England's bank
85   Drove back again unto my native clime?
86   What boded this, but well forewarning wind
87   Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,
88   Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?
89   What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts
90   And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves:
91   And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,
92   Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock
93   Yet AEolus would not be a murderer,
94   But left that hateful office unto thee:
95   The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,
96   Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore,
97   With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:
98   The splitting rocks cower'd in the sinking sands
99   And would not dash me with their ragged sides,
100  Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
101  Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
102  As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
103  When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
104  I stood upon the hatches in the storm,
105  And when the dusky sky began to rob
106  My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,
107  I took a costly jewel from my neck,
108  A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,
109  And threw it towards thy land: the sea received it,
110  And so I wish'd thy body might my heart:
111  And even with this I lost fair England's view
112  And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart
113  And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,
114  For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.
115  How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue,
116  The agent of thy foul inconstancy,
117  To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did
118  When he to madding Dido would unfold
119  His father's acts commenced in burning Troy!
120  Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not false like him?
121  Ay me, I can no more! die, Margaret!
122  For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

123  It is reported, mighty sovereign,
124  That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murder'd
125  By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.
126  The commons, like an angry hive of bees
127  That want their leader, scatter up and down
128  And care not who they sting in his revenge.
129  Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,
130  Until they hear the order of his death.

131  That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
132  But how he died God knows, not Henry:
133  Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
134  And comment then upon his sudden death.

135  That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,
136  With the rude multitude till I return.

137  O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts,
138  My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul
139  Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!
140  If my suspect be false, forgive me, God,
141  For judgment only doth belong to thee.
142  Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
143  With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain
144  Upon his face an ocean of salt tears,
145  To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,
146  And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling:
147  But all in vain are these mean obsequies;
148  And to survey his dead and earthly image,
149  What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

150  Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.

151  That is to see how deep my grave is made;
152  For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
153  For seeing him I see my life in death.

154  As surely as my soul intends to live
155  With that dread King that took our state upon him
156  To free us from his father's wrathful curse,
157  I do believe that violent hands were laid
158  Upon the life of this thrice-famed duke.

159  A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
160  What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?

161  See how the blood is settled in his face.
162  Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
163  Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless,
164  Being all descended to the labouring heart;
165  Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
166  Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
167  Which with the heart there cools and ne'er returneth
168  To blush and beautify the cheek again.
169  But see, his face is black and full of blood,
170  His eye-balls further out than when he lived,
171  Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
172  His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretched with struggling;
173  His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
174  And tugg'd for life and was by strength subdued:
175  Look, on the sheets his hair you see, is sticking;
176  His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
177  Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.
178  It cannot be but he was murder'd here;
179  The least of all these signs were probable.

180  Why, Warwick, who should do the duke to death?
181  Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;
182  And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.

183  But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes,
184  And you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep:
185  'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;
186  And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.

187  Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen
188  As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.

189  Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh
190  And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
191  But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?
192  Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest,
193  But may imagine how the bird was dead,
194  Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
195  Even so suspicious is this tragedy.

196  Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?
197  Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?

198  I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
199  But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
200  That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
201  That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.
202  Say, if thou darest, proud Lord of Warwick-shire,
203  That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.

204  What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?

205  He dares not calm his contumelious spirit
206  Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
207  Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

208  Madam, be still; with reverence may I say;
209  For every word you speak in his behalf
210  Is slander to your royal dignity.

211  Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanor!
212  If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
213  Thy mother took into her blameful bed
214  Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
215  Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art,
216  And never of the Nevils' noble race.

217  But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee
218  And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
219  Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
220  And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,
221  I would, false murderous coward, on thy knee
222  Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech,
223  And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st
224  That thou thyself was born in bastardy;
225  And after all this fearful homage done,
226  Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,
227  Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men!

228  Thou shall be waking well I shed thy blood,
229  If from this presence thou darest go with me.

230  Away even now, or I will drag thee hence:
231  Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee
232  And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.

233  What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
234  Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
235  And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel
236  Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

237  What noise is this?

238  Why, how now, lords! your wrathful weapons drawn
239  Here in our presence! dare you be so bold?
240  Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?

241  The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury
242  Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

To the Commons, entering
243   Sirs, stand apart;
244  the king shall know your mind.
245  Dread lord, the commons send you word by me,
246  Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
247  Or banished fair England's territories,
248  They will by violence tear him from your palace
249  And torture him with grievous lingering death.
250  They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died;
251  They say, in him they fear your highness' death;
252  And mere instinct of love and loyalty,
253  Free from a stubborn opposite intent,
254  As being thought to contradict your liking,
255  Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
256  They say, in care of your most royal person,
257  That if your highness should intend to sleep
258  And charge that no man should disturb your rest
259  In pain of your dislike or pain of death,
260  Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,
261  Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue,
262  That slily glided towards your majesty,
263  It were but necessary you were waked,
264  Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,
265  The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal;
266  And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
267  That they will guard you, whether you will or no,
268  From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is,
269  With whose envenomed and fatal sting,
270  Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
271  They say, is shamefully bereft of life.

Within
272   An answer from the king, my
273  Lord of Salisbury!

274  'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,
275  Could send such message to their sovereign:
276  But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,
277  To show how quaint an orator you are:
278  But all the honour Salisbury hath won
279  Is, that he was the lord ambassador
280  Sent from a sort of tinkers to the king.

Within
281   An answer from the king, or we will all break in!

282  Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me.
283  I thank them for their tender loving care;
284  And had I not been cited so by them,
285  Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;
286  For, sure, my thoughts do hourly prophesy
287  Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means:
288  And therefore, by His majesty I swear,
289  Whose far unworthy deputy I am,
290  He shall not breathe infection in this air
291  But three days longer, on the pain of death.

292  O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!

293  Ungentle queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!
294  No more, I say: if thou dost plead for him,
295  Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
296  Had I but said, I would have kept my word,
297  But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
298  If, after three days' space, thou here be'st found
299  On any ground that I am ruler of,
300  The world shall not be ransom for thy life.
301  Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;
302  I have great matters to impart to thee.

303  Mischance and sorrow go along with you!
304  Heart's discontent and sour affliction
305  Be playfellows to keep you company!
306  There's two of you; the devil make a third!
307  And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!

308  Cease, gentle queen, these execrations,
309  And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.

310  Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch!
311  Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?

312  A plague upon them! wherefore should I curse them?
313  Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
314  I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
315  As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
316  Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
317  With full as many signs of deadly hate,
318  As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave:
319  My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;
320  Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;
321  Mine hair be fixed on end, as one distract;
322  Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban:
323  And even now my burthen'd heart would break,
324  Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
325  Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
326  Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
327  Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!
328  Their softest touch as smart as lizards' sting!
329  Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,
330  And boding screech-owls make the concert full!
331  All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell--

332  Enough, sweet Suffolk; thou torment'st thyself;
333  And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,
334  Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,
335  And turn the force of them upon thyself.

336  You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
337  Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,
338  Well could I curse away a winter's night,
339  Though standing naked on a mountain top,
340  Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
341  And think it but a minute spent in sport.

342  O, let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand,
343  That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
344  Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,
345  To wash away my woful monuments.
346  O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
347  That thou mightst think upon these by the seal,
348  Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for thee!
349  So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
350  'Tis but surmised whiles thou art standing by,
351  As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
352  I will repeal thee, or, be well assured,
353  Adventure to be banished myself:
354  And banished I am, if but from thee.
355  Go; speak not to me; even now be gone.
356  O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd
357  Embrace and kiss and take ten thousand leaves,
358  Loather a hundred times to part than die.
359  Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee!

360  Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished;
361  Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee.
362  'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;
363  A wilderness is populous enough,
364  So Suffolk had thy heavenly company:
365  For where thou art, there is the world itself,
366  With every several pleasure in the world,
367  And where thou art not, desolation.
368  I can no more: live thou to joy thy life;
369  Myself no joy in nought but that thou livest.

370  Wither goes Vaux so fast? what news, I prithee?

371  To signify unto his majesty
372  That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;
373  For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,
374  That makes him gasp and stare and catch the air,
375  Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth.
376  Sometimes he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost
377  Were by his side; sometime he calls the king,
378  And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
379  The secrets of his overcharged soul;
380  And I am sent to tell his majesty
381  That even now he cries aloud for him.

382  Go tell this heavy message to the king.
Exit VAUX
383  Ay me! what is this world! what news are these!
384  But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,
385  Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?
386  Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,
387  And with the southern clouds contend in tears,
388  Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?
389  Now get thee hence: the king, thou know'st, is coming;
390  If thou be found by me, thou art but dead.

391  If I depart from thee, I cannot live;
392  And in thy sight to die, what were it else
393  But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
394  Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
395  As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
396  Dying with mother's dug between its lips:
397  Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad,
398  And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
399  To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;
400  So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,
401  Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
402  And then it lived in sweet Elysium.
403  To die by thee were but to die in jest;
404  From thee to die were torture more than death:
405  O, let me stay, befall what may befall!

406  Away! though parting be a fretful corrosive,
407  It is applied to a deathful wound.
408  To France, sweet Suffolk: let me hear from thee;
409  For wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe,
410  I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.

411  I go.

412  And take my heart with thee.

413  A jewel, lock'd into the wofull'st cask
414  That ever did contain a thing of worth.
415  Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we
416  This way fall I to death.

417  This way for me.