And now,-instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,—
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.a

But I,-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them ;-
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time;
Unless to spy* my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,-
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king,
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And, if king Edward be as true and just,
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd
About a prophecy, which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul! here Clarence

comes.

up,

Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY.

Brother, good day: what means this armed guard, That waits upon your grace?

CLAR.
His majesty,
Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed.
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
GLO. Upon what cause?
CLAR.
Because my name is George.
GLO. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;
He should for that commit your godfathers :-
O, belike his majesty hath some intent,
That you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.
But what's the matter, Clarence? may I know?
CLAR. Yea, Richard, when I know; for,‡ I
protest,

As yet I do not: but, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams;
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,

:

(*) First folio, see. (+) First folio, should. (1) First folio, but.

a Of a lute.] In the quartos, lute is misprinted lore. That tempers him to this extremity.] So the first quarto, 1597. The folio 1623 reads:

"That tempts him to this harsh extremity."

But the queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds

That trudge betwixt the king and mistress Shore.
Heard you not, what an humble suppliant
Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery?

GLO. Humbly complaining to her deity
Got my lord chamberlain his liberty.
I'll tell you what,-I think it is our way,
If we will keep in favour with the king,
To be her men, and wear her livery:
The jealous o'er-worn widow and herself,
Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,
Are mighty gossips in thist monarchy.

BRAK. I beseech your graces both to pardon

me;

His majesty hath straitly given in charge, That no man shall have private conference (Of what degree soever) with his brother.

GLO. Even so, an please your worship; Brakelbury,

You may partake of anything we say:
We speak no treason, man;—we say, the king
Is wise and virtuous; and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous :-
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing
tongue;

And that the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks:
How say you, sir? can you deny all this?

BRAK. With this, my lord, myself have nought

to do.

lord?

BRAK. What one, my
GLO. Her husband, knave:-wouldst thou
betray me?

BRAK. I beseech your grace to pardon me;
and, withal,

Forbear your conference with the noble duke. CLAR. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.

GLO. We are the queen's abjects, and must
obey.

Brother, farewell; I will unto the king;
And whatsoe'er you will employ me in,-
Were it to call king Edward's widow, sister—
I will perform it to enfranchise you.
Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood,
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.

CLAR. I know it pleaseth neither of us well. GLO. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;

I will deliver you, ort lie for you :*
Meantime, have patience.

CLAR.
I must perforce: farewell.
[Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and Guard.
GLO. Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er

return!

Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so,
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.—
But who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings!

Enter HASTINGS.

HAST. Good time of day unto my gracious lord! GLO. As much unto my good lord chamberlain ! Well are you welcome to this open air. How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment? HAST. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners

must:

But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks,
That were the cause of my imprisonment.

GLO. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence
too;

For they that were your enemies are his,
And have prevail'd as much on him as you.
HAST. More pity that the eagle should be
mew'd,

While kites and buzzards prey § at liberty.
GLO. What news abroad?

HAST. No news so bad abroad as this at
home ;-

The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.

GLO. Go you before, and I will follow you.
[Exit HASTINGS.
He cannot live, I hope; and must not die
Till George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;
And if I fail not in my deep intent,

Clarence hath not another day to live:
Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!
For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter:
What though I kill'd her husband and her father;
The readiest way to make the wench amends,
Is to become her husband and her father:
The which will I; not all so much for love
As for another secret close intent,

By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market :
Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and
reigns ;

When they are gone, then must I count my gains. [Exit.

SCENE II.-The same. Another Street.

Enter the corpse of KING HENRY the SIXTH, borne

upon a hearse, Gentlemen bearing halberds, to guard it; and LADY ANNE as mourner.

ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load,

d

If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,~-
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.-
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,
Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these
wounds!+

Lo, in those windows, that let forth thy life,
pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes :—

I

c Now, by Saint Paul, this news, &c.] So the quartos. The folio 1623 has,-"Now by S Iohn, that Newes," &c.

d Obsequiously lament-] That is, funereally lament.

515

LL 2

Curs'd be the hand, that made these fatal holes!
Curs'd be the heart, that had the heart to do it!a
[Cursed the blood, that let this blood from hence!"]
More direful hap betide that hated wretch,
That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspéct

May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
[And that be heir to his unhappiness!d]
If ever he have wife, let her be made
As miserable by the death of him,

As I am made by my young lord and thee!-
Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul's to be interred there;
And still, as you are weary of the weight,
Rest you, whiles I lament king Henry's corse.
[Bearers take up the corpse, and move forward.

Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries :—
O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.(2)—
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed,* inhuman and unnatural,

Provokes this deluge most unnatural.—
O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his
death!

O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!

Either, heaven, with lightning strike the murderer dead,

c Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,-] Thus the quartes; the folio reads,-"to Wolves, to Spiders," &c.

d And that be, &c.] A line omitted in the quartos. e And eat him quick,-] That is, swallow him alive.

f Why, then, they are not dead: &c.] The folio has,"Then say they were not slaine."

ANNE. Il rest betide the chamber where thou liest !

GLO. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
ANNE. I hope so.

GLO. I know so.-But, gentle lady Anne,-
To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
And fall somewhat § into a slower method ;-
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Plantagenets, Henry, and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner?

[effect. ANNE. Thou wast the cause, and most accurs'd GLO. Your beauty was the cause of that effect; Your beauty, which† did haunt me in my sleep, To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live || one hour in your sweet bosom. ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide, These nails should rend¶ that beauty from my cheeks.

GLO. These eyes could not endure that beauty's
wreck.b

You should not blemish it, if I stood by:
As all the world is cheered by the sun,

So I by that; it is my day, my life.

ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!

GLO. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.

ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee. GLO. It is a quarrel most unnatural,

To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.

ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable, To be reveng'd on him that slew* my husband. GLO. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband, Did it to help thee to a better husband. ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

GLO. He lives that loves yout better than he could. ANNE. Name him.

once;

For now they kill me with a living death. Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

Sham'd their aspect with store of childish drops:
[These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,—°
No, when my father York and Edward wept,
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made,
When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at
him:

Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
Told the sad story of my father's death,
And twenty times made pause, to sob, and weep,
That all the standers-by had wet their checks,
Like trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time,
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear ;
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with
weeping.]

I never sued to friend nor enemy;

(*) First folio, kill'd. (†) First folio, thee. (1) First folio, aspects "These eies could never endure sweet beauties wrack, You should not blemish them if I stood by."

e These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,-] This and the eleven following lines are omitted in the quarto copies.