SUF. 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 labouring 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 eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man:

His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with

struggling;

His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportion'd beard made rough and
rugged,

Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd.
It cannot be but he was murder'd here;
The least of all these signs were probable.(3)
SUF. 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 vow'd duke Hum

phrey'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, 't was 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 term'd a kite? where are his talons?
SUF. 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, SOM. and others.

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,
And never of the Nevils' noble race.

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 meant'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 blood-sucker of sleeping men!

SUF. 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 arm'd, that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
[A noise without.

Q. MAR. What noise is this?

"The Contention: "

[Noise of a crowd without.

"O! dismall sight, see where he breathlesse lies, All smeard and weltred in his luke-warme blood, Sweete father, to thy murthred ghoast I sweare." B B

Re-enter SALISBURY.

SAL. [To those without.] Sirs, stand apart; the
king shall know your mind.-

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 ling'ring 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 slily glided towards your majesty,
It were but necessary you were wak'd;
Lest, being suffer'd 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, whêr 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. [Without.] An answer from the
king, my lord of Salisbury! [hinds,
SUF. "Tis like, the commons, rude unpolish'd
Could send such message to their sovereign:
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.
COMMONS. [Without.] An answer from the

king, or we will all break in! [me,
K. HEN. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from
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 !

a False Suffolk-] So "The Contention." The folio 1623, owing, probably, to the compositor having caught the word, Lord, from the preceding line, has "Lord Suffolke," &c.

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 :-
:-

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.— Come, Warwick,-come, good Warwick, go with

Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave:
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;
Mine hair be fix'd on end, as one distract;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban:
And even now my burden'd heart would break,
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
Their sweetest shade, a grove of cypress-trees!
Their chiefest prospect, murdering basilisks!
Their softest touch, as smart as lizard's stings!
Their music, frightful as the serpent's hiss;
And boding screech-owls make the concert full!
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell— [thyself;

Q. MAR. Enough, sweet Suffolk; thou torment'st
And these dread curses-like the sun 'gainst glass,
Or like an overcharged gun,-recoil,
And turn the force of them upon thyself. [leave?
SUF. You bade me ban, and will you bid me
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
And think it but a minute spent in sport.

(*) Old text, enemy.

b The mandrake's groan,-] See note (5), p. 220, Vol. I.

Q. MAR. 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 woeful monuments.
O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,

[Kisses his hand. That thou mightst think upon these by the seal, Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for

thee!

So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
"T is but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,
As one that surfeits, thinking on a want.
I will repeal thee, or, be well assur'd,
Adventure to be banished myself:
And banished I am, if but from thee.

Go, speak not to me :-even now be gone.-
O, go not yet!-Even thus two friends condemn'd,
Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,
Lother a hundred times to part than die.
Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee!

SUF. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,
Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee.
"Tis not the land I care for, wert thou hence ;*
A wilderness is populous enough,
So Suffolk had thy heavenly company:
For where thou art, there is the world itself,
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 liv'st.

Enter VAUX.

Q. MAR. Whither goes Vaux so fast? what news, I pr'ythee?

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. Sometime 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, That even now he cries aloud for him.

Q. MAR. 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?
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?

(*) First folio, thence.

a Myself no joy in nought-] Mr. Collier's annotator reads,-371

Now, get thee hence: the king, thou know'st, is coming;

If thou be found by me, thou art but dead.
SUF. 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,
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,
Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
And then it liv'd 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!

Q. MAR. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,

It is applied to a deathful wound.

To France, sweet Suffolk let me hear from thee;
For wheresoc'er thou art in this world's globe,
I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.
SUF. I go.

Q. MAR. And take my heart with thee.
SUF. A jewel, lock'd into the woeful'st cask
That ever did contain a thing of worth.
Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we;
This
way
fall I to death.
Q. MAR.

This way for me. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE III.-London. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S

Bed-chamber.

Enter KING HENRY, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and others. The CARDINAL in bed; Attendants with him.

K. HEN. How fares my lord? speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign. [treasure, CAR. If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's Enough to purchase such another island, So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.

K. HEN. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, Where death's approach is seen so terrible! WAR. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to

Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands upright, Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.

K. HEN. O, thou eternal mover of the heavens, Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch! O, beat away the busy meddling fiend That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul, And from his bosom purge this black despair! WAR. See how the pangs of death do make him grin!