ACT V. DYING SPEECH OF THE EARL OF WARWICK. Aн, who is nigh? come to me, friend, or foe, And tell me, who is victor, York, or Warwick? Why ask I that? my mangled body shows, My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows, That I must yield my body to the earth, And, by my fall the conquest to my foe. Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, Under whose shade the ramping lion slept; Whose top-branch over-peer'd Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun, To search the secret treasons of the world: The wrinkles in my brows now fill'd with blood, Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres; [veil, For who liv'd king, but I could dig his grave? QUEEN MARGARET'S SPEECH BEFORE THE BATTLE OF Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say, My tears gainsay*; for every word I speak, Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes. [reign, Therefore, no more but this:-Henry, your sove Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp❜d, * Unsay, deny. OMENS ON THE BIRTH OF RICHARD III. 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. Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain, And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope; To wit,—an indigest deformed lump, Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree. Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast born, To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world. King Richard III. ACT I. THE DUKE OF GLOSTER ON HIS OWN DEFORMITY. Nov To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, * To rook, signified to squat down or lodge on any thing. Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time GLOSTER'S LOVE FOR LADY ANNE. Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears. Sham'd 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-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him: Nor when thy war-like 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 cheeks, 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 su'd to friend, nor enemy; My tongue could never learn sweet soothing word; But now thy beauty is propos'd my fee, My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak. GLOSTER'S PRAISES OF HIS OWN PERSON, AFTER HIS My dukedom to a beggarly denier†, Myself to be a marvellous proper man. QUEEN MARGARET'S EXECRATIONS ON GLOSTER. HIGH BIRTH. I was born so high, Our aiery* buildeth in the cedar's top, GLOSTER'S HYPOCRISY. But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil : And thus I clothe my naked villany With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; CLARENCE'S DREAM. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me. Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy: And, in my company, my brother Gloster; Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England, * Nest. And cited up a thousand heavy times, Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown! All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea, Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes Clar. Methought, I had; and often did I strive Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore agony? Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life; O, then began the tempest to my soul! I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood, The first that there did greet my stranger soul, * Body. |