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 me; I have great matters to impart to thee.

[Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK. QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!

Heart's discontent and sour affliction

Be playfellows to keep you company!
There's two of you; the devil make a third!
And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!
SUF. Cease, gentle queen, these execrations
And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.

QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch !

Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemy? SUF. 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,
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;
Mine hair be fix'd 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!
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!
Their softest touch as smart as lizards' 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-

QUEEN. 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.

SUF. 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, And think it but a minute spent in sport. QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease. thy hand,

That I

Give me

may dew it with my mournful tears; Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place, To wash away my woful monuments.

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,
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.

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!

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 thence;
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 livest.
Enter VAUX.

QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? what news,
I prithee?

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.

QUEEN. 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? 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 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'

QUEEN. 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.

SUF. I go.

QUEEN.

And take my heart with thee.

SUF. 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 :

This way fall I to death.

QUEEN.

This way for me.

[Exeunt severally.

SCENE III.

A bedchamber.

Enter the KING, SALISBURY, WARWICK, to the
CARDINAL in bed.

KING. How fares my lord? speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.

CAR. If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's

treasure,

Enough to purchase such another island,
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.
KING. 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 thee.
CAR. Bring me unto my trial when you will.

F