Enter GEORGE. GEO. Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair ; Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us : What counsel give you? whither shall we fly? Edw. Bootless is flight, they follow us with wings; And weak we are and cannot shun pursuit. Enter RICHARD. RICH. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself? Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk, WAR. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood: I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly. Why stand we like soft-hearted women here, Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors? Edw. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine; And in this vow do chain my soul to thine! And, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face, RICH. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Let me embrace thee in my weary arms; I, that did never weep, now melt with woe GEO. Yet let us all together to our troops, Forslow no longer, make we hence amain. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Another part of the field. Excursions. Enter RICHARD and Clifford. RICH. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone: Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York, And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge, CLIF. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone : This is the hand that stabb'd thy father York; And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland ; And here's the heart that triumphs in their death And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother To execute the like upon thyself; And so, have at thee! [They fight. WARWICK comes; CLIFFORD flies. RICH. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase; For I myself will hunt this wolf to death. [Exeunt. When dying clouds contend with growing light, Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, D So is the equal poise of this fell war. To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, How many years a mortal man may live. When this is known, then to divide the times: So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate; So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young; So To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him. Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his father, dragging in the dead body. SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody. This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight, May be possessed with some store of crowns; And I, that haply take them from him now, May yet ere night yield both my life and them To some man else, as this dead man doth me. Who's this? O God! it is my father's face, Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd. O heavy times, begetting such events! From London by the king was I press'd forth; My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man, Came on the part of York, press'd by his master; And I, who at his hands received my life, Have by my hands of life bereaved him. Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did! And pardon, father, for I knew not thee! |