Kitabı oku: «The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth», sayfa 4

SCENE II. Bury St. Edmunds. A room of state

Enter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage, from the murder of DUKE HUMPHREY

FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.

SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?

Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

Enter SUFFOLK

FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.

SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?

FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.

 
  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;
    I will reward you for this venturous deed.
    The King and all the peers are here at hand.
    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,
    According as I gave directions?
  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone. Exeunt MURDERERS
 

Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants

 
  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;
    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,
    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord. Exit
 
 
  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,
    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester
    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,
    He be approv'd in practice culpable.
 
 
  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail
    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!
 
 
  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.
 

Re-enter SUFFOLK

 
    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?
    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.
 
 
  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!
 
 
  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night
    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.
                                               [The KING swoons]
 
 
  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.
 
 
  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.
 
 
  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!
 
 
  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.
 
 
  KING. O heavenly God!
 
 
  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!
 
 
  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,
    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;
    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
    Can chase away the first conceived sound?
    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;
    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 majesty to fright the world.
    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;
    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,
    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;
    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-
    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.
 
 
  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
    Although the Duke was enemy to him,
    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. Ay me, unhappy!
    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!
 
 
  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!
 
 
  QUEEN. 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.
    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.
    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
    Erect his statue and worship it,
    And make my image but an alehouse sign.
    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,
    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank
    Drove back again unto my native clime?
    What boded this but well-forewarning 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,
    And he that loos'd them forth 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 hateful office unto thee.
    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,
    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore
    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;
    The splitting rocks cow'r'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 thy 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?
    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,
    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.
 

Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY, and many commons

 
  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,
    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red
    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 in his revenge.
    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny
    Until they hear the order of his death.
 
 
  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
    But how he died God knows, not Henry.
 

Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,

 
    And comment then upon his sudden death.
 
 
  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,
    With the rude multitude till I return. Exit
 

Exit SALISBURY with the commons

 
  KING HENRY. 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 un-feeling;
    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;
    And to survey his dead and earthy image,
    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?
 

Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK

 
  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.
 
 
  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;
    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.
 
 
  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live
    With that dread King that took our state upon Him
    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,
    I do believe that violent hands were laid
    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
 
 
  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.
    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
    Being all descended to the labouring heart,
    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,
    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
    To blush and beautify the cheek again.
    But see, his face is black and full of blood;
    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;
    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;
    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.
    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:
    The least of all these signs were probable.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;
    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.
 
 
  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;
    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.
    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;
    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.
 
 
  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen
    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.
 
 
  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,
    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?
    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest
    But may imagine how the bird was dead,
    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.
 
 
  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?
    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?
 
 
  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.
    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.
 

Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others

 
  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
 
 
  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
 
 
  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;
    For every word you speak in his behalf
    Is slander to your royal dignity.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,
    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
    Thy mother took into her blameful bed
    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
    And never of the Nevils' noble race.
 
 
  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,
    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,
    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee
    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech
    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,
    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;
    And, after all this fearful homage done,
    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,
    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,
    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.
 
 
  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.
    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,
    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.
 

Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK

 
  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
                                                [A noise within]
 
 
  QUEEN. What noise is this?
 

Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn

 
  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn
    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?
    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?
 

SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury, Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

Re-enter SALISBURY

SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King shall know your mind.

 
    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me
    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
    Or banished fair England's territories,
    They will by violence tear him from your palace
    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.
    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;
    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;
    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,
    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,
    As being thought to contradict your liking,
    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
    They say, in care of your most royal person,
    That if your Highness should intend to sleep
    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,
    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,
    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,
    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue
    That slily glided towards your Majesty,
    It were but necessary you were wak'd,
    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,
    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,
    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;
    With whose envenomed and fatal sting
    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.
 

COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of

Salisbury!

 
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,
    Could send such message to their sovereign;
    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,
    To show how quaint an orator you are.
    But all the honour Salisbury hath won
    Is that he was the lord ambassador
    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.
 

COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break in!

 
  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me
    I thank them for their tender loving care;
    And had I not been cited so by them,
    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;
    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy
    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.
    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,
    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,
    He shall not breathe infection in this air
    But three days longer, on the pain of death.
 

Exit SALISBURY

 
  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!
 
 
  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!
    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,
    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
    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!
 
 
  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,
    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.
 
 
  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,
    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?
 
 
  SUFFOLK. 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-fac'd 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 an end, as one distract;
    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;
    And even now my burden'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 murd'ring basilisks!
    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!
    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,
    And boding screech-owls make the consort 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 turns the force of them upon thyself.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. 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! Give me thy hand,
    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place
    To wash away my woeful monuments.
    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,
    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!
    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,
    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,
    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!
 
 
  SUFFOLK. 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 liv'st.
 

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.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. 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 liv'd 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 whereso'er thou art in this world's globe
    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.
 
 
  SUFFOLK. I go.
 
 
  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee. [She kisses him]
 
 
  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'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