Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb: And, for I should not deal in her soft laws She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub; To make an envious mountain on my back, Where sits deformity to mock my body; To shape my legs of an unequal size; To disproportion me in every part, Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear whelp, That carries no impression like the dam. And am I then a man to be belov'd?
GLOSTER'S DISSIMULATION.
Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile; And cry, content, to that which grieves my heart; And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slily then Ulysses could
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy;
I can add colours to the chameleon;
Change shapes, with Proteus, for advantages,
And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school,
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
HENRY VI. ON HIS OWN LENITY.
I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands, Nor posted off their suits with slow delays; My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds, My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs, My mercy dry'd their water-flowing tears: I have not been desirous of their wealth, Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies, Nor forward of revenge, though they much err❜d.
DYING SPEECH OF THE EARL OF WARWICK.
Ah who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe, And tell me, who is victor, York, or Warwick? Why ask I that? my mangled body shows, My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows, That I must yield my body to the earth, And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe. Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, Under whose shade the ramping lion slept! Whose top-branch over-peer'd Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,
Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,
To search the secret treasons of the world:
The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,
Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;
For who liv'd king, but I could dig his grave?
And who durst smile, when Warwick bent his brow?
Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me: and, of all my lands,
Is nothing left me, but my body's length!
QUEEN MARGARET'S SPEECH BEFORE THE BATTLE OF
TEWKSBURY.
Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say My tears gainsay;* for every word I speak, Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.
Therefore, no more but this:-Henry, your sovereign,
Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,
His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,
His statutes cancell❜d, and his treasure spent;
And yonder is the wolf, that makes this spoil.
You fight in justice: then, in God's name, lords,
Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.
OMENS ON THE BIRTH OF RICHARD III.
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'd* 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.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast born
To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world.
THE DUKE OF GLOSTER ON HIS OWN DEFORMITY.
NOW are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures,t
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now,-instead of mounting barbed‡ steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,-
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I,--that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking glass:
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
*To rook, signified to squat down or lodge on any thing. † Dances. + Armed.
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them;-
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity;
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well spoken days,——
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
GLOSTER'S LOVE FOR LADY ANNE.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops:
These eyes, which never shed remorseful* tear,-
Not, when my father York and Edward wept,
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made,
When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him!
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
Told the sad story of my father's death;
And twenty times made pause, to sob, and weep,
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,
Like trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time,
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping,
I never su❜d to friend, nor enemy:
My tongue could never learn sweet soothing words;
But now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,
My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.
GLOSTER'S PRAISES OF HIS OWN PERSON, AFTER HIS SUCCESSFUL ADDRESSES.
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,t
I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
* Pitiful
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
QUEEN MARGARET'S EXECRATIONS ON Gloster.
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou, that was seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature, and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour!--thou detested-
Our aiery* buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
GLOSTER'S HYPOCRISY.
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture
Tell them-that God bids us do good for evil;
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stol'n forth of holy writ
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell
Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloster;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloster stumbled; and in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
|