'As, deathsmen!

you

have rid9 this sweet young

prince!

K. Edw. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.

Q. Mar. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch me here;

Here sheath thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death: What! wilt thou not? then, Clarence, do it thou. Clar. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease. Q. Mar. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.

Clar. Didst thou not hear me swear, I would not do it?

Q. Mar. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself; "Twas sin before10, but now 'tis charity.

What! wilt thou not? where is that devil's butcher, Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou? Thou art not here: Murder is thy alms-deed; Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back. K. Edw. Away, I say; I charge ye, bear her hence Q. Mar. So come to you, and yours, as to this prince! [Exit, led out forcibly. K. Edw. Where's Richard gone?

Clar. To London, all in post; and, as I guess, To make a bloody supper in the Tower.

K. Edw. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head. Now march we hence: discharge the common

sort

With pay and thanks, and let's away to London, And see our gentle queen how well she fares; By this, I hope, she hath a son for me. [Exeunt.

To rid is to cut off, to destroy. Thus Caliban, in The Tempest, says: The red plague rid you.'

10 She alludes to the desertion of Clarence.

SCENE VI. London. A Room in the Tower. KING HENRY is discovered sitting with a Book in his Hand, the Lieutenant attending. Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Good day, my lord! What, at your book so hard?

K. Hen. Ay, my good lord: My lord, I should say rather;

"Tis sin to flatter, good was, little better:

Good Gloster, and good devil, were alike,

And both preposterous; therefore, not good lord. Glo. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must [Exit Lieutenant. *K. Hen. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf:

confer.

So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, * And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?

Glo. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

'K. Hen. The bird, that hath been limed in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth1 every bush:
And I, the hapless male2 to one sweet bird,
Have now the fatal object in my eye,

Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and

kill'd.

Glo. Why, what a peevish3 fool was that of Crete, 'That taught his son the office of a fowl? And yet, for all his wings, the fowl was drown'd. K. Hen. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus; Thy father, Minos, that denied our course; The sun, that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy, Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea, 'Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.

1 To misdoubt is to suspect danger, to fear.

2 The word male is here used in an uncommon sense, for the male parent: the sweet bird is evidently his son Prince Edward. 3 Peevish, in the language of our ancestors, was used to signify mad or foolish. See note on Comedy of Errors, Act iv. Sc. 1.

Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words! My breast can better brook thy dagger's point, Than can my ears that tragic history.—

But wherefore dost thou come? is't for my
'Glo. Think'st thou, I am an executioner?
K. Hen. A persecutor, I am sure, thou art;
If murdering innocents be executing,
Why, then thou art an executioner.

life?

Glo. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
K, Hen. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou
didst presume,

Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
And thus I prophecy,-that many a thousand,
Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;
And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye,-

Men for their sons, wives for their husbands'

fate,

And orphans for their parents' timeless death,Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born. 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'd5 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.

4 Who suspect no part of what my fears presage.

5 To rook, or ruck, is to cower down like a bird at roost or on its nest. The word is of very ancient use in our language. We find it in Chaucer, and in Gower's Confessio Amantis :But now they rucken in her nest.'

Stanyhurst, in his translation of Virgil, 1582, book iv. :-
Also on the turret the skrich howle, &c.

doth ruck,' &c.

And in Golding's translation of Ovid's Metam. book vi. :-
The furies made the bridegroomes bed, and on the house did

rucke

A cursed owle, the messenger of ill successe and lucke.'

Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast

born,

To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world:

And, if the rest be true which I have heard, 'Thou cam'st

Glo. I'll hear no more;-Die, prophet, in thy

speech;

[Stabs him.

For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.

K. Hen. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.

O God! forgive my sins, and pardon thee! [Dies. Glo. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted. See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death! O, may such purple tears be always shed

From those that wish the downfal of our house! If any spark of life be yet remaining, Down, down to hell; and say-I sent thee thither, [Stabs him again. I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of; For I have often heard my mother say, I came into the world with my legs forward: Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,

And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right? The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried, O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!

And so I was; which plainly signified

That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother:

And this word-love, which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me; I am myself alone.—

Dryden seems to have had this line in his mind when writing his Edipus:

It was thy crooked mind hunch'd out thy back,
And wander'd in thy limbs.'

Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light;
But I will sorts a pitchy day for thee:
For I will buz abroad such prophecies,

That Edward shall be fearful of his life;

And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
King Henry, and the prince his son, are gone:
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;
Counting myself but bad, till I be best.-
I'll throw thy body in another room,

And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom. [Exit.

The same.

SCENE VII.

A Room in the Palace.

KING EDWARD is discovered sitting on his Throne; QUEEN ELIZABETH with the infant Prince, CLARENCE, GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and Others, near him.

K. Edw. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,

Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.

What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,
Have we mow'd down1, in tops of all their pride?
Three dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd
For hardy and undoubted champions:

Two Cliffords, as the father and the son,
And two Northumberlands; two braver men

Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound:
With them, the two brave bears, Warwick and
Montague,

That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion,
And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.
Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat,
And made our footstool of security.
Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy:-

8 Select, choose out.

1 A kindred image occurs in King Henry V. :

1110 mowing like grass

Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flow'ring infants.'