| ACT III SCENE II | Bury St. Edmund's. A room of state. | |
| [Enter certain Murderers, hastily] |
| First Murderer | Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know |
| We have dispatch'd the duke, as he commanded. |
| Second Murderer | O that it were to do! What have we done? |
| Didst ever hear a man so penitent? |
| [Enter SUFFOLK] |
| First Murder | Here comes my lord. | 5 |
| SUFFOLK | Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing? |
| First Murderer | Ay, my good lord, he's dead. |
| SUFFOLK | Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house; |
| I will reward you for this venturous deed. |
| The king and all the peers are here at hand. | 10 |
| Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well, |
| According as I gave directions? |
| First Murderer | 'Tis, my good lord. |
| SUFFOLK | Away! be gone. |
| [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; | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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! | 25 |
| 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! | 30 |
| 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! | 35 |
| 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? | 40 |
| 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? | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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; | 55 |
| 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, | 60 |
| 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. | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| 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? | 75 |
| 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. | 80 |
| 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? | 85 |
| 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: | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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, | 100 |
| 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 | 105 |
| 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: | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| 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? | 120 |
| 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. | 125 |
| 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. | 130 |
| 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, | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| 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, | 145 |
| And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling: |
| But all in vain are these mean obsequies; |
| And to survey his dead and earthly image, |
| What were it but to make my sorrow greater? |
| [
Re-enter WARWICK and others, bearing
GLOUCESTER'S body on a bed
] |
| WARWICK | Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body. | 150 |
| KING HENRY VI | 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 | 155 |
| 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? | 160 |
| 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, | 165 |
| 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 eye-balls further out than when he lived, | 170 |
| Staring full ghastly like a strangled man; |
| His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretched with struggling; |
| His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd |
| And tugg'd for life and was by strength subdued: |
| Look, on the sheets his hair you see, is sticking; | 175 |
| His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged, |
| Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged. |
| It cannot be but he was murder'd here; |
| The least of all these signs were probable. |
| SUFFOLK | Why, Warwick, who should do the duke to death? | 180 |
| Myself and Beaufort had him in protection; |
| And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers. |
| WARWICK | But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes, |
| And you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep: |
| 'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend; | 185 |
| 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, | 190 |
| 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. | 195 |
| QUEEN MARGARET | Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife? |
| Is Beaufort term'd 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 | 200 |
| That slanders me with murder's crimson badge. |
| Say, if thou darest, proud Lord of Warwick-shire, |
| That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death. |
| [Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others] |
| WARWICK | What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him? |
| QUEEN MARGARET | He dares not calm his contumelious spirit | 205 |
| 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. | 210 |
| SUFFOLK | Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanor! |
| If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much, |
| Thy mother took into her blameful bed |
| Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock |
| Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art, | 215 |
| And never of the Nevils' 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, | 220 |
| I would, false murderous 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 was born in bastardy; |
| And after all this fearful homage done, | 225 |
| Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell, |
| Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men! |
| SUFFOLK | Thou shall be waking well I shed thy blood, |
| If from this presence thou darest go with me. |
| WARWICK | Away even now, or I will drag thee hence: | 230 |
| Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee |
| And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost. |
| [Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK] |
| KING HENRY VI | What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! |
| Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, |
| And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel | 235 |
| Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. |
| [A noise within] |
| QUEEN MARGARET | What noise is this? |
| [
Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their
weapons drawn
] |
| KING HENRY VI | Why, how now, lords! your wrathful weapons drawn |
| Here in our presence! dare you be so bold? |
| Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here? | 240 |
| SUFFOLK | The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury |
| Set all upon me, mighty sovereign. |
| SALISBURY | [To the Commons, entering] Sirs, stand apart;
|
| the king shall know your mind. |
| Dread lord, the commons send you word by me, | 245 |
| 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 lingering death. |
| They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died; | 250 |
| 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. | 255 |
| 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, | 260 |
| Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue, |
| That slily glided towards your majesty, |
| It were but necessary you were waked, |
| Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber, |
| The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal; | 265 |
| And therefore do they cry, though you forbid, |
| That they will guard you, whether 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, | 270 |
| They say, is shamefully bereft of life. |
| Commons | [Within] An answer from the king, my
|
| Lord of Salisbury! |
| SUFFOLK | 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds, |
| Could send such message to their sovereign: | 275 |
| But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd, |
| 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. | 280 |
| Commons | [Within] An answer from the king, or we will all break in!
|
| KING HENRY VI | 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; | 285 |
| 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 | 290 |
| But three days longer, on the pain of death. |
| [Exit SALISBURY] |
| QUEEN MARGARET | O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk! |
| KING HENRY VI | 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. | 295 |
| Had I but said, I would have kept my word, |
| But when I swear, it is irrevocable. |
| If, after three days' space, thou here be'st found |
| On any ground that I am ruler of, |
| The world shall not be ransom for thy life. | 300 |
| Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me; |
| I have great matters to impart to thee. |
| [Exeunt all but QUEEN MARGARET and SUFFOLK] |
| QUEEN MARGARET | Mischance and sorrow go along with you! |
| Heart's discontent and sour affliction |
| Be playfellows to keep you company! | 305 |
| 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! | 310 |
| Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemy? |
| SUFFOLK | A plague upon them! wherefore should I curse them? |
| Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan, |
| I would invent as bitter-searching terms, |
| As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear, | 315 |
| Deliver'd 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; | 320 |
| Mine hair be fixed on end, as one distract; |
| Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban: |
| And even now my burthen'd heart would break, |
| Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink! |
| Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste! | 325 |
| Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees! |
| Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks! |
| Their softest touch as smart as lizards' sting! |
| Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss, |
| And boding screech-owls make the concert full! | 330 |
| 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. | 335 |
| SUFFOLK | You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave? |
| Now, by the ground that I am banish'd 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, | 340 |
| 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 woful monuments. | 345 |
| O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand, |
| That thou mightst think upon these 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, | 350 |
| 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 thee. |
| Go; speak not to me; even now be gone. | 355 |
| O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd |
| 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 banished; | 360 |
| 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, | 365 |
| 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 nought but that thou livest. |
| [Enter VAUX] |
| QUEEN MARGARET | Wither goes Vaux so fast? what news, I prithee? | 370 |
| 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. | 375 |
| Sometimes 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 overcharged soul; |
| And I am sent to tell his majesty | 380 |
| 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? | 385 |
| 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 sorrows? |
| Now get thee hence: the king, thou know'st, is coming; |
| If thou be found by me, thou art but dead. | 390 |
| 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 | 395 |
| Dying with mother's dug between its 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, | 400 |
| Or I should breathe it so into thy body, |
| And then it lived in sweet Elysium. |
| To die by thee were but to die in jest; |
| From thee to die were torture more than death: |
| O, let me stay, befall what may befall! | 405 |
| QUEEN MARGARET | Away! though parting be a fretful corrosive, |
| It is applied to a deathful wound. |
| To France, sweet Suffolk: let me hear from thee; |
| For wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe, |
| I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out. | 410 |
| SUFFOLK | I go. |
| QUEEN MARGARET | And take my heart with thee. |
| SUFFOLK | A jewel, lock'd into the wofull'st cask |
| That ever did contain a thing of worth. |
| Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we | 415 |
| This way fall I to death. |
| QUEEN MARGARET | This way for me. |
| [Exeunt severally] |
The Essential Student History Quiz (with answers and illustrations)