KING HENRY

I thank thee, Meg. These words content me much.

Enter Suffolk

How now? Why look’st thou pale? Why tremblest

thou?

Where is our uncle? What’s the matter, Suffolk?

SUFFOLK

Dead in his bed, my lord—Gloucester is dead.

QUEEN MARGARET Marry, God forfend!

CARDINAL BEAUFORT

God’s secret judgement. I did dream tonight

The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.

King Henry falls to the ground

QUEEN MARGARET

How fares my lord? Help, lords—the King is dead!

SOMERSET

Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.

QUEEN MARGARET

Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!

SUFFOLK

He doth revive again. Madam, be patient.

KING HENRY

O heavenly God!

QUEEN MARGARET How fares my gracious lord?

SUFFOLK

Comfort, my sovereign; gracious Henry, comfort.

KING HENRY

What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort me?

Came he right now to sing a raven’s note

Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;

And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,

By crying comfort from a hollow breast

Can chase away the first-conceived sound?

Hide not thy poison with such sugared words.

⌈He begins to rise. Suffolk offers to assist him⌉

Lay not thy hands on me—forbear, I say!

Their touch affrights me as a serpent’s sting.

Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!

Upon thy eyeballs murderous tyranny

Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.

Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding—

Yet do not go away. Come, basilisk,

And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight.

For in the shade of death I shall find joy;

In life, but double death, now Gloucester’s dead.

QUEEN MARGARET

Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk thus?

Although the Duke was enemy to him,

Yet he most Christian-like laments his death.

And for myself, foe as he was to me,

Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,

Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,

I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,

Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,

And all to have the noble Duke alive.

What know I how the world may deem of me?

For it is known we were but hollow friends,

It may be judged I made the Duke away.

So shall my name with slander’s tongue be wounded

And princes’ courts be filled with my reproach.

This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy,

To be a queen, and crowned with infamy.

KING HENRY

Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!

QUEEN MARGARET

Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.

What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?

I am no loathsome leper—look on me!

What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?

Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.

Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?

Why, then Queen Margaret was ne‘er thy joy.

Erect his statue and worship it, 80

And make my image but an alehouse sign.

Was I for this nigh wrecked upon the sea,

And twice by awkward winds from England’s bank

Drove back again unto my native clime?

What boded this, but well forewarning winds

Did seem to say, ‘Seek not a scorpion’s nest,

Nor set no footing on this unkind shore’.

What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts

And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves,

And bid them blow towards England’s blessed shore,

Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock.

Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,

But left that hateful office unto thee.

The pretty vaulting sea refused to drown me,

Knowing that thou wouldst have me drowned on

shore

With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness.

The splitting rocks cow’red in the sinking sands,

And would not dash me with their ragged sides,

Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,

Might in thy palace perish Margaret.

As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,

I stood upon the hatches in the storm,

And when the dusky sky began to rob

My earnest-gaping sight of thy land’s view,

I took a costly jewel from my neck—

A heart it was, bound in with diamonds—

And threw it towards thy land. The sea received it,

And so I wished thy body might my heart.

And even with this I lost fair England’s view,

And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,

And called them blind and dusky spectacles

For losing ken of Albion’s wished coast.

How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue—

The agent of thy foul inconstancy—

To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,

When he to madding Dido would unfold

His father’s acts, commenced in burning Troy!

Am I not witched like her? Or thou not false like him?

Ay me, I can no more. Die, Margaret,

For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.