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And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
Yet Eolus 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 drowned on shore,
With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness,
The splitting rocks cowered 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 the 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 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?

Ah me, I can no more! Die, Margaret!

For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

Noise within.

Enter WARWICK and SALISBURY.
Commons press to the door.

War. 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.

The

K. Hen. 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.
War. That I shall do, my liege.-Stay, Salisbury,
With the rude multitude, till I return.

[WARWICK goes into an inner room, and
SALISBURY retires.

K. Hen. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts;

My thoughts, that labor 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:
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?

The folding doors of an inner chamber are thrown open, and GLOSTER is discovered dead in his bed; WARWICK and others standing by it.

War. Come hither, gracious sovereign; view this body. K. Hen. 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.

War. 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.

Suff. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue! What instance gives lord Warwick for his vow? War. 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 laboring 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.

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

War. But both of you were vowed duke Humphrey's foes; 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.

Q. Mar. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen As guilty of duke Humphrey's timeless death.

War. 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.

Q. Mar. Are you the butcher, Suffolk; where's your knife?

Is Beaufort termed a kite? where are his talons?
Suff. 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.

[Exeunt Cardinal, Soм., and others. War. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him? Q. Mar. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,

Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,

Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

War. Madam, be still; with reverence may I say;

For every word you speak in his behalf,

Is slander to your royal dignity.

Suff. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanor !

If ever lady wronged her lord so much,

Thy mother took into her blameful bed

Some stern, untutored churl, and noble stock

Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevils' noble race.

VOL. III.-4

War. 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, murderous coward, on thy knee
Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech,
And say it was thy mother that thou mean'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 bloodsucker of sleeping men!

Suff. Thou shalt be waking, while I shed thy blood,
If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.
War. 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. K. Hen. What stronger breast-plate 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.

Q. Mar. What noise is this?

[A noise within.

Re-enter SUFFOLK, and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn.

K. Hen. Why, how now, lords? your wrathful weapons

drawn

Here in our presence? Dare you be so bold ? —
Why, what tumultuous clamor have we here?

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

Noise of a crowd within. Re-enter SALISBURY.
Sal. Sirs, stand apart; the king shall know your mind.-
[Speaking to those within.
Dread lord, the commons send you word by me,
Unless false 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 :
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 slyly 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'r 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.

Suff. '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 honor 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'll all break in.

K. Hen. 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. Q. Mar. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk! K. Hen. 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.-

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