Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea,
Forced to retire by fury of the wind:
Sometime the flood prevails; and then the wind:
Now one the better; then another best:
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conqueréd:
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory :
For Margaret my Queen, and Clifford too,
Have chid me from the battle; swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
'Would I were dead, if God's good will were so:
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many make the hour full complete,
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
hours must I sport myself;

So

many So many days my ewes have been with young; So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years,

Passed over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.

0

yes,

And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade
(All which secure and sweetly he enjoys),

Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couchéd in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.

Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his Father, dragging in the dead body.

Son. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody. This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight, May be possessed with some store of crowns: And I, that haply take them from him now.

May yet ere night yield both my life and them
To some man else, as this dead man doth me.-
Who's this?-O God! it is my father's face,
Whom in this conflict I unwares have killed.
O heavy times, begetting such events!
From London by the King was I pressed forth.
My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,
Came on the part of York, pressed by his master:
And I, who at his hands received my life,
Have by my hands of life bereaved him.
Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did!
And pardon, father, for I knew not thee!
My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;
And no more words till they have flowed their
fill.

K. Hen. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!
Whilst lions war and battle for their dens,
Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.—
Weep, wretched man, I 'll aid thee tear for tear;
And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharged with
grief.

Enter a Father who has killed his Son, with the body in his arms.

Fath. Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold; For I have bought it with an hundred blows. But let me see: is this our foeman's face? Ah no, no, no, it is mine only son! Ah boy, if any life be left in thee, Throw up thine eye; see, see, what showers arise, Blown with the windy tempest of my heart, Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart! O pity, God, this miserable age! What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon, And hath bereft thee of thy life too late! K. Hen. Woe above woe; grief more than common grief!

O that
my death would stay these ruthful deeds!
O pity, pity, gentle Heaven, pity!

The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses:
The one his purple blood right well resembles;
The other his pale cheeks, methinks, present:
Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!.
If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.

Son. How will my mother, for a father's death, Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!

Fath. How will my wife, for slaughter of my son, Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied! K. Hen. How will the country, for these woful chances, Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!

Son. Was ever son so rued a father's death! Fath. Was ever father so bemoaned a son! K. Hen. Was ever king so grieved for subjects' woe!

Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.
Son. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep
my fill.
[Exit with the body.
Fath. These arms of mine shall be thy wind-
ing-sheet;

My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre :
For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go.
My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell :
And so obsequious will thy father be,
Sad for the loss of thee, having no more,
As Priam was for all his valiant sons.

I'll bear thee hence: and let them fight that will,
For I have murdered where I should not kill.
[Exit with the body.
K. Hen. Sad-hearted men, much overgone
with care,
Here sits a king more woful than you are.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER.

Prince. Fly, father, fly! for all your friends are fled,

And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.
Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.

Q. Mar. Mount you, my lord, towards Berwick
post amain:

Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds
Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
With fiery eyes, sparkling for very wrath,
And bloody steel grasped in their ireful hands,
Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.
Exe. Away! for vengeance comes along with
them.

Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;
Or else come after; I'll away before.

K. Hen. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet
Exeter :

Not that I fear to stay, but love to go
Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!

SCENE VI.-The same.

[Exeunt.

A loud Alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded. Clif. Here burns my candle out, ay here it dies,

Which while it lasted gave King Henry light.
O Lancaster! I fear thy overthrow
More than my body's parting with my soul.
My love and fear glewed many friends to thee;
And now I fall thy tough commixtures melt,

Impairing Henry, strength'ning mis-proud York,
The common people swarm like summer flies:
And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?
And who shines now but Henry's enemies?
O Phoebus! hadst thou never given consent
That Phaeton should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car never had scorched the earth:
And Henry, hadst thou swayed as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
They never then had sprung like summer flies;
I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm,
Had left no mourning widows for our death;
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?
And what makes robbers bold but too much
lenity?

Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds:
No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight:
The foe is merciless, and will not pity;
For at their hands I have deserved no pity.
The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.
Come, York and Richard, Warwick, and the rest:
I stabbed your fathers' bosoms, split my breast.

[He faints.

Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE,
RICHARD, MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and Soldiers.
Edw. Now breathe we, lords: good fortune
bids us pause,

And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.
Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen;
That led calm Henry, though he were a king,
As doth a sail, filled with a fretting gust,
Command an argosy to stem the waves.
But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them!

War. No, 't is impossible he should escape: For, though before his face I speak the words, Your brother Richard marked him for the grave: And wheresoe'er he is, he's surely dead.

[CLIFFORD groans and dies. Edw. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?

Rich. A deadly groan, like life and death's

departing.

Edw. See who it is: and now the battle's

ended,

If friend or foe, let him be gently used.

Rich. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis

Clifford :

Who, not contented that he lopped the branch In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth, But set his murdering knife unto the root From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring:

I mean our princely father, Duke of York.

War. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,

Your father's head, which Clifford placed there: Instead whereof, let this supply the room. Measure for measure must be answered.

Edw. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our

house,

That nothing sung but death to us and ours: Now death shall stop his dismal threatening sound, And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.

[Attendants bring the body forward. War. I think his understanding is bereft.Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?

Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life, And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.

Rich. O 'would he did! and so perhaps he doth:

'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,

Because he would avoid such bitter taunts
Which in the time of death he gave our father.
Geo. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager
words.

Rich. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.
Edw. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.
War. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.
Geo. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.
Rich. Thou didst love York, and I am son to
York.

Edw. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee. Geo. Where 's captain Margaret to fence you now?

War. They mock thee, Clifford swear as thou wast wont.

Rich. What, not an oath? nay, then the world goes hard

When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath :

I know by that he's dead: and by my soul,
If this right hand would buy two hours' life,
That I in all despite might rail at him,
This hand should chop it off, and with the issu
ing blood

Stifle the villain, whose unstaunchéd thirst
York and young Rutland could not satisfy.

War. Ay, but he's dead: off with the traitor's

head,

And rear it in the place your father's stands. And now to London with triumphant march, There to be crownéd England's royal King. From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France, And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen:

So shalt thou sinew both these lands together; And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread

The scattered foe, that hopes to rise again:
For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,
Yet look to have them buz to offend thine ears.
First will I see the coronation;

And then to Britany I'll cross the sea,
To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.
Edw. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let
it be:

For on thy shoulder do I build my seat;
And never will I undertake the thing
Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.-
Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloster;
And George, of Clarence :-Warwick, as ourself,
Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.

Rich. Let me be Duke of Clarence; George, of Gloster:

For Gloster's dukedom is too ominous,
War. Tut, that's a foolish observation :
Richard, be Duke of Gloster. Now to London,
To see these honours in possession.

[Exeunt.

ACT III,

SCENE I-A Chase in the North of England. Enter two Keepers, with cross-bows in their hands.

1st Keep. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves,

For through this laund anon the deer will come; And in this covert will we make our stand, Culling the principal of all the deer.

2nd Keep. I'll stay above the hill; so both may shoot.

1st Keep. That cannot be: the noise of thy
cross-bow

Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.
Here stand we both, and aim we at the best :
And, for the time shall not seem tedious,
I'll tell thee what befel me on a day
In this self-place where now we mean to stand.
2nd Keep. Here comes a man; let's stay till

he be past.

Enter KING HENRY disguised, with a prayerbook.

K. Hen. From Scotland am I stolen, even of pure love,

To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.
No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine:
Thy place is filled, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
Thy balm washed off wherewith thou wast
anointed.

No bending knee will call thee Cæsar now,
No humble suitors press to speak for right;
No, not a man comes for redress of thee:
For how can I help them, and not myself?

1st Keep. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee!

This is the quondam King: let's seize upon him.

K. Hen. Let me embrace these sour adver sities:

For wise men say it is the wisest course. 2nd Keep. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.

1st Keep. Forbear a while: we'll hear a little

more.

K. Hen. My Queen and son are gone to

France for aid:

And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick
Is thither gone, to crave the French King's sister
To wife for Edward. If this news be true,
Poor Queen and son, your labour is but lost:
For Warwick is a subtle orator,
And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.
By this account, then, Margaret may win him;
For she's a woman to be pitied much:
Her sighs will make a battery in his breast;
Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;
The tiger will be mild while she doth mourn;
And Nero will be tainted with remorse
To hear and see her plaints her brinish tears.