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Enter Soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD. *K. Edw. Bring forth the gallant, let us hear him speak:

* What! can so young a thorn begin to prick? Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make, For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects, * And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to 3? Prince. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York!

Suppose, that I am now my father's mouth; Resign thy chair, and, where I stand, kneel thou, Whilst I propose the self-same words to thee, Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.

Q. Mar. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd! 'Glo. That you might still have worn the petticoat, And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.

Prince. Let Esop* fable in a winter's night; His currish riddles sort not with this place.

Glo. By heaven, brat, I'll plague you for that word. Q. Mar. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men. Glo. For God's sake, take away this captive scold. Prince. Nay, take away this scolding crook-back rather.

'K. Edw. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm5 your tongue.

Clar. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.

Prince. I know my duty, you are all undutiful: Lascivious Edward,-and thou perjur'd George, And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all,

I am your better, traitors as ye are:

* And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.
3 We have nearly the same words in The Tempest:-
O, my heart bleeds,

To think of the teen that I have turn'd you to.'

4 The prince calls Richard Æsop for his crookedness; and the poet following nature makes Richard highly incensed at the reproach.

5 See King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 1, p. 213, note 10.

K. Edw. Take that, the likeness of this railer

here 6. [Stabs him. *Glo. Sprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy

agony.

* Cla. And there's for twitting me with perjury.

Q. Mar. O, kill me too!
Glo. Marry, and shall.
'K. Edw. Hold, Richard,
done too much.

[GLO. stabs him.

[CLA. stabs him.

[Offers to kill her.

hold, for we have

Glo. Why should she live, to fill the world with words??

K. Edw. What! doth she swoon? use means for

her recovery.

Glo. Clarence, excuse me to the king my brother: < I'll hence to London on a serious matter:

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Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.
Clar. What? what?

Glo. The Tower, the Tower!

[Exit.

'Q. Mar. O, Ned, sweet Ned! speak to thy mo

ther, boy!

Canst thou not speak?—O traitors! murderers!They, that stabb'd Cæsar, shed no blood at all, Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame, * If this foul deed were by, to equal it. 'He was a man; this, in respect, a child; And men ne'er spend their fury on a child. 'What's worse than murderer, that I may *No, no; my heart will burst, an if I speak;* And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.

name it?

6 That is, thou who art the likeness,' &c. The old copies describe Edward as striking the first blow, and Gloster the next; and this is according to history, which informs us that Edward smote the prince with his gauntlet, on which the rest dispatched

him.

7 i. e. dispute, contention. Thus in one of the former parts of King Henry VI. :

'Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me.'

*Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals!

* How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd! You have no children, butchers! if you had, The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse : But, if you ever chance to have a child,

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Look in his youth to have him so cut off.

As, deathsmen! you have rid9 this sweet young prince!

K. Edw. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.

Q. Mar. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch me here;

Here sheath thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death: What! wilt thou not?-then, Clarence, do it thou. Clar. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease. Q. Mar. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.

Clar. Didst thou not hear me swear, I would not do it?

Q. Mar. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself; "Twas sin before 10, but now 'tis charity.

"What! wilt thou not? where is that devil's butcher, Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou? Thou art not here: Murder is thy alms-deed; Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.

K.Edw. Away, I say; I charge ye, bear her hence. Q. Mar. So come to you, and yours, as to this prince! [Exit, led out forcibly. K. Edw. Where's Richard gone?

Clar. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,

To make a bloody supper in the Tower.

K. Edw. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.

8 The same sentiment is repeated by Macduff in the tragedy of Macbeth; and this passage may serve as a comment on that. 9 To rid is to cut off, to destroy. Thus Caliban, in The Tempest, says: The red plague rid you.'

10 She alludes to the desertion of Clarence. VOL. VI.

LL

'Now march we hence: discharge the common sort • With pay and thanks, and let's away to London, 'And see our gentle queen how well she fares;

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By this, I hope, she hath a son for me. [Exeunt.

SCENE VI. London. A Room in the Tower.

KING HENRY is discovered sitting with a Book in his Hand, the Lieutenant attending. Enter GLOS

TER.

Glo. Good day, my lord! What, at your book so hard?

K. Hen. Ay, my good lord: My lord, I should say rather;

'Tis sin to flatter, good was little better:

Good Gloster, and good devil, were alike,

* And both preposterous; therefore, not good lord. *Glo. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must [Exit Lieutenant. *K. Hen. So flies the reckless shepherd from

confer.

the wolf:

* So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, * And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.— What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?

Glo. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

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K. Hen. The bird, that hath been limed in a bush, With trembling wings misdoubteth1 every bush: And I, the hapless male2 to one sweet bird, Have now the fatal object in my eye,

Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.

'Glo. Why, what a peevish3 fool was that of Crete, 1 To misdoubt is to suspect danger, to fear.

2 The word male is here used in an uncommon sense, for the male parent: the sweet bird is evidently his son Prince Edward. 3 Peevish, in the language of our ancestors, was used to signify mad or foolish. See note on Comedy of Errors, Act iv. Sc. 1.

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'That taught his son the office of a fowl?

And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd. · K. Hen. I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus; Thy father, Minos, that denied our course; The sun, that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy, Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea, 'Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life. Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words! My breast can better brook thy dagger's point, Than can my ears that tragick history.

*

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But wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life? 'Glo. Think'st thou, I am an executioner?

K. Hen. A persecutor, I am sure, thou art;

If murdering innocents be executing,

"Why, then thou art an executioner.

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Glo. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption. K. Hen. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou didst presume,

Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.

And thus I prophecy,-that many a thousand, • Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;

• And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's, • And many an orphan's water-standing eye,'Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate, And orphans for their parents' timeless death,'Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born. The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign; 'The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time; Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees; The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top, And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.

4 Who suspect no part of what my fears presage.

5 To rook, or ruck, is to cower down like a bird at roost or on its nest. The word is of very ancient use in our language. We find it in Chaucer, and in Gower's Confessio Amantis:

'But now they rucken in her nest.'

Stanyhurst, in his translation of Virgil, 1582, book iv.:

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