Beseeching thee,-if with thy will it stands, That to my foes this body must be prey,'Yet that thy brazen gates of heaven may ope, And give sweet passage to my sinful soul!'Now, lords, take leave until we meet again, Where'er it be, in heaven, or on earth.

• Rich. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,

Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.'I, that did never weep, now melt with woe, That winter should cut off our spring-time so. War. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords,

farewell.

• Geo. Yet let us all together to our troops, And give them leave to fly that will not stay; And call them pillars, that will stand to us;

And, if we thrive, promise them such rewards • As victors wear at the Olympian games; *This may plant courage in their quailing breasts; * For yet is hope of life, and victory.—

1

* Fore-slow 1 no longer; make we hence amain.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. The same.

Another Part of the Field.

6

Excursions.

Enter RICHARD and CLIFford.

Rich. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone; Suppose this arm is for the duke of York,

And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,

'Wert thou environed with a brazen wall.

Clif. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone; This is the hand that stabbed thy father York; And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland ; And here's the heart that triumphs in their death, And cheers these hands, that slew thy sire and brother,

1 To fore-slow is to delay, to loiter.

"Fore-slow no time; sweet Lancaster, let's march." Marlowe's Edward III.

To execute the like upon thyself.

And so, have at thee.

[They fight. WARWICK enters; CLIFFORD flies.

Rich. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase; For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Another Part of the Field.

Alarum.

Enter KING HENRY.

*K. Hen. This battle fares like to the morning's

war,

*When dying clouds contend with growing light;
*What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
* Can neither call it perfect day nor night.

Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea

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 conquered;
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,1

1 This speech is exquisitely suited to the character of the king. There are some verses preserved of Henry VI. which are in a strain of the same pensive, moralizing character. The reader may not be displeased to have them here subjoined, that he may compare them with the congenial thoughts the Poet has attributed to him:

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;
*So many hours must I sport myself;

*

*

*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? O, yes it doth; a thousand fold it doth. *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,

*

Riches are ready snares,
And hasten to decay.

Pleasure is a privy [game],

Which vice doth still provoke;

Pomp unprompt; and fame a flame;

Power a smouldering smoke.

Who meaneth to remove the rock

Out of his slimy mud,

Shall mire himself, and hardly scape

The swelling of the flood."

* His body couched 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 unawares have killed. O heavy time, 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 a 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! 2

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 colors 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 on3 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,

4

'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 [Exit with the body.

fill.

1 Stratagems here means direful events.

2 Of these obscure lines the following explanation by Henley is the most probable which has been offered:-Had the son been younger, he would have been precluded from the levy which brought him to the field; and had the father recognized him before their mortal encounter, it would not have been too late to have saved him from death.

3 To take on is a phrase still in use in common parlance, and signifies to persist in clamorous lamentations.

4 Think unfavorably of.