Makes him to fend; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, and fo remove it.
Glo. I cannot tell ;-The world is grown fo bad,
That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
2. Eliz. Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Glofter;
You envy my advancement, and my friends;
God grant, we never may have need of you!
Gla. Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:
Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
Myfelf difgrac'd, and the nobility
Held in contempt; while great promotions
Are daily given, to enoble those
That scarce, fome two days fince, were worth a noble.
2. Eliz. By Him, that rais'd me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
I never did incense his majesty
Against the duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me thameful injury,
Falfely to draw me in these vile fufpects.
Glo. You may deny that you were not the cause Of my lord Haftings' late imprisonment.
Glo. She may, lord Rivers ?—why, who knows not fo? She may do more, fir, than denying that: She may help you to many fair preferments; And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.
the not? She may,—ay, marry, may she,— Riv. What, marry, may she?
Glo. What, marry, may she? marry with a king,
A bachelor, a handsome stripling too :
I wis, your grandam had a worfer match.
2. Eliz. My lord of Glofter, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,
Of those gross taunts I often have endur'd.
I had rather be a country fervant-maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition-
To be fo baited, scorn'd, and stormed at:
Small joy have I in being England's queen.
Enter Queen MARGARET, behind.
2. Mar. And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee!
Thy honour, ftate, and seat, is due to me.
Glo. What! threat you me with telling of the king?
Tell him, and spare not; look, what I have said
I will avouch in presence of the king:
I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
'Tis time to speak,. my pains are quite forgot.
2. Mar. Out, devil! I remember them too well :
Thou kill'dft my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor fon, at Tewksbury.
Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king, I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends;
To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own.
2. Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine. Glo. In all which time, you, and your husband Grey, Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;
And, Rivers, fo were you :-Was not your husband
In Margaret's battle at saint Albans slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere, now, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
2. Mar. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.
Glo. Poor Clarence did forfake his father Warwick,
Ay, and forswore himself,-Which Jefu pardon!-
2. Mar. Which God revenge!
Glo. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown;
And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up:
I would to God, my heart were flint, like Edward's,
Or Edward's foft and pitiful, like mine;
I am too childish-foolish for this world.
2. Mar. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world, Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is.
Riv. My lord of Glofter, in those busy days,
Which here you urge, to prove us enemies,
We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king;
So fhould we you, if you should be our king.
Glo. If I fhould be?—I had rather be a pedlar :
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
2. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose You fhould enjoy, were you this country's king; As little joy you may fuppofe in me,
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
2. Mar. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof; For I am fhe, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient.—
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In fharing that which you have pill'd from me :
Which of you trembles not, that looks on me?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects;
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?—
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!
Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'ft thou in my fight?
2. Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd; That will I make, before I let thee go.
Glo. Wert thou not banished, on pain of death?
2. Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in banishment, Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband, and a fon, thou ow'st to me,-
And thou, a kingdom;-all of you, allegiance:
This forrow that I have, by right is yours;
And all the pleasures you ufurp, are mine.
Glo. The curfe my noble father laid on thee,—
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes;
And then, to dry them, gav'ft the duke a clout,
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland ;—
His curfes, then from bitterness of foul
Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.
2 Eliz. So just is God, to right the innocent.
Haft. O, 'twas the fouleft deed, to flay that babe,
And the most mercilefs, that e'er was heard of.
Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
Dorf. No man but prophecy'd revenge for it.
Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to fee it.
2. Mar. What! were you fnarling all, before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York's dread curfe prevail so much with heaven,
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's lofs, my woful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curfes pierce the clouds, and enter heaven ?—
Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curfes !-
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward, thy fon, that now is prince of Wales,
For Edward my fon, that was prince of Wales,
Die in his youth, by like untimely violence!
Thyfelf a queen, for me that was a queen,
Out-live thy glory, like my wretched felf!
Long may'st thou live to wail thy children's lofs;
And see another, as I fee thee now,
Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art ftall'd in mine!
Long die thy happy days before thy death;
And, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen !—
Rivers, and Dorfet,-you were standers by,-
And so wast thou, lord Hastings,-when my fon
Was stabb'd with bloody daggers; God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by fome unlook'd accident cut off!
Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag. 2. Mar. And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt
If heaven have any grievous plague in store,
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it, till thy fins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy foul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No fleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while fome tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
The flave of nature, and the son of hell!
|