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 or else 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-delivered 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 brooked 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 prevailed as much on him as you.

Hast. More pity, that the eagle should be mewed,

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. Now by Saint Paul this news is bad indeed!

O he hath kept an evil diet long,
And over-much consumed his royal person:
'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
What, is he in his bed?

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 killed 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 in an open coffin; Gentlemen, bearing halberds, to guard it; and LADY ANNE, as

mourner.

Anne, Set down, set down your honourable load
(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 slaughtered son,
Stabbed by the self-same hand that made these
wounds!

Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.→
O curséd be the hand that made these holes
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it:
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 venomed thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light;
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view
And that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of himn
Than I am made by my young lord and thee!—
Come, now toward Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul's to be interréd there:
And still, as you are weary of the weight,
Rest you whiles I lament King Henry's corse.
[The bearers take up the corpse, and advance.

Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Stay you that bear the corse, and set it down.

Anne. What black magician conjures up this fiend,

To stop devoted charitable deeds?

Glo. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,

I'll make a corse of him that disobeys.

1st Gent. My lord, stand back and let the coffin pass.

Glo. Unmannered dog! stand thou when I command:

Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
[The bearers set down the coffin.

Anne. What, do you tremble; are you all afraid?

Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal.
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.—
A vaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body;
His soul thou canst not have: therefore be gone.
Glo. Sweet saint, for charity be not so curst.
Anne. Foul devil, for God's sake hence, and
trouble us not:

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims,
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.—
( gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh !--
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For 't is 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 mur

derer dead,

Or earth gape open wide, and eat him quick; As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood, Which his hell-governed arm hath butcheréd!

Glo. Lady, you know no rules of charity, Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses. Anne. Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor

man:

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Glo. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
Anne. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
Glo. More wonderful when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these supposéd evils to give me leave,
By circumstance, but to acquit myself.

Anne. Vouchsafe, diffused infection of a man, For these known evils but to give me leave, By circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.

Glo. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have

Some patient leisure to excuse myself.

Anne. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make

No excuse current but to hang thyself.

Glo. By such despair I should accuse myself. Anne. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused;

For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,
That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
Glo. Say that I slew them not?
Anne.

Why then they are not dead: But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee. Glo. I did not kill your husband.

Anne.

Why then he is alive.

Anne. Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect.

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.

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 cheeks,
Like trees bedashed 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;

wreck :

You should not blemish it if I stood by.

As all the world is cheeréd 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 revenged on thee. Glo. It is a quarrel most unnatural,

To be revenged on him that loveth thee.

Anne. It is a quarrel just and reasonable, To be revenged on him that killed 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 you better than he could.

Anne. Name him.

Glo. Plantagenet.

Anne. Why, that was he.

Glo. The self-same name, but one of better

nature.

Anne. Where is he?

Glo. Here. [She spits at him.] Why

dost thou spit at me?

Anne. 'Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake.

Glo. Never came poison from so sweet a place. Anne. Never hung poison on a fouler toad. Out of my sight! thou dost infect mine eyes. Glo. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

Anne. 'Would they were basilisks, to strike

thee dead.

Glo. I would they were, that I might die at

once ;

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

tears;

Shamed their aspects with store of childish drops:
These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,-
Not when my father York and Edward wept
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him:
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,

But now thy beauty is proposed my fee, My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak. [She looks scornfully at him. Teach not thy lip such scorn: for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt. If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive, Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword: Which if thou please to hide in this true breast, And let the soul forth that adoreth thee, I lay it naked to the deadly stroke, And humbly beg the death upon my knee. [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword. Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry: But 't was thy beauty that provokéd me. Nay, now despatch; 'twas I that stabbed young Edward: [She again offers at his breast. But 't was thy heavenly face that set me on. [She lets fall the sword. Take up the sword again, or take up me. Anne. Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy

death,

I will not be thy executioner.

Glo. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it. Anne. I have already.

Glo.

That was in thy rage:

Speak it again, and even with the word,
This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,
Shall for thy love kill a far truer love:
To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.

Anne. I would I knew thy heart.
Glo. "Tis figured in my tongue.
Anne. I fear me both are false.
Glo. Then never man was true.
Anne. Well, well, put up your sword.
Glo. Say, then, my peace is made.
Anne. That shalt thou know hereafter.
Glo. But shall I live in hope?
Anne. All men, I hope, live so.
Glo. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
Anne. To take is not to give.

[She puts on the ring. Glo. Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger,

Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart: Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. And if thy poor devoted servant may