• I will reward you for this venturous deed.
• The king and all the peers are here at hand:
·

Have you laid fair the bed ? are all things well, • According as I gave directions ?

I '1. Mur. 'Tis, my good lord. ? Suf. Away, he gone! [Exeunt Murderers.

6

Enter King HENRY, Queen MARGARET, Cardinal

BEAUFORT, SOMERSET, Lords, and Others. K. Hen. Go, call our uncle to our presence

straight: “, "Say, we intend to try his grace to-day, • If he be guilty, as 'tis published. “Suf. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.

[Exit. • K. Hen. Lords, take your places ; And, I

pray you all, "Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloster, "Than from true, evidence, of good esteem, • He be approv'd in practice culpable. * Q. Mar. God forbid, any malice should pre

vail, * That faultless may condemn a nobleman! *Pray God, he inay acquit him of suspicion ! *K. Hen. I thank thee, Margaret; these words

content me much.

• How now? why look'st thou pale? why trem

blest thou ? • Where is our uncle? what is the matter, Suf,

folk?
Suf. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloster is

dead.
Q. Mar. Marry, God forefend!

nose.

*

* Gar. God's secret judgment: - I did dream

to- night, The duke was dumb, and could not speak a word.

[The king suoons. ' Q. Mar. How fares my lord?

.

Help, lords ! the king is dead. * Son, Rear up his body; wring him by the * Q. Mar. Run, go, help, help! - 0, Henry,

ope thine eyes ! Suf. He doth revive again ; Madam, be

patient. *K. Hen. O heavenly God! * Q. Mar. How fares my gracious lord! Suf. Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henryx

comfort! K. Hen. What, doth my lord of Suffolk com

fort me?
Came he right now to sing a taven's note,
* Whose dismal tune bereft

my
vital

powers; And thinks he, that the chirping of a w.ren, .. • By crying comfort from a hollow breast, •Can chase away the first-conceived sound ? * Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words., I * 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 majestý, to fright the world.co • Look pot upon me, for thine eyes are wound

ing: "Yet do not go away;

Come, basilisk, • And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight: * For in the shade of death I sball find joy; * In life, but double death, now, Gloster's dead. Q. Mar. Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk

.. thus? * Although the duke was enemy to him, Vol. V.

E

6

2

*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 judg’d, 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: Ah me, unhappy! *To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy! K. Hen. Ah, woe is me for Gloster, wretched

man!
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. ok What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf? * Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn queen. . * Is all thy comfort shut in Gloster's tomb ? * Why, then dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy: * Erect his statue then, and worship it, * And make my image but an ale-bouse sign. Was I, for this, nigh wreck'd upon the sea; And twice by aukward wind from England's

bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boded this, but well-fore-warning wind
Did seem to say,

Seek, not' a scorpion's nest,
*Nor set no footing on this unkind shore?
* What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gusts,

Q. Mar.

*

* And he that loos'd them from 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 bateful office unto thee;
* The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me;
* Knowing, that thou would'st have me drown'd

on shore
* With tears as salt aş sea through thy unkind-

ness : *The splitting rocks cowr'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 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 receiv'd

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, commenc'd in burning Troy? * Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not false like him?

ok

* Ah me, I can no more! Die, Margaret!
*For Henry weeps, that thou dost live so long.

Noise within. Enter WARWICK, and SALISBURY.

The Commons press to the door. • War. It is reported, mighty sovereign, "That good duke Humphrey traiterously is mur

der'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 ia his revenge.
• Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,
Until they hear the order of his death.
K. Hen. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis

too true;
But how he died, God knows, not Henry:
• Enter bis chainber, 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 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: * But all in vain are these mean obsequies ;