The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE VI. Another Part of the Field
A loud alarum. Enter Clifford, wounded. CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies, Which whiles it lasted gave King Henry light. O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow More than my body’s parting with my soul! My love and fear glued many friends to thee; And, now I fall, thy tough commixtures melts, Impairing Henry, strengthening misproud York. The common people swarm like summer flies; And whither fly the gnats but to the sun? And who shines now but Henry’s enemies? O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent That Phaëthon should check thy fiery steeds, Thy burning car never had scorched the earth! And, Henry, hadst thou swayed as kings should do, Or as thy father and his father did, Giving no ground unto the house of York, They never then had sprung like summer flies; I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm Had left no mourning widows for our death, And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace. For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air? And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity? Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds; No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight. The foe is merciless and will not pity, For at their hands I have deserved no pity. The air hath got into my deadly wounds, And much effuse of blood doth make me faint. Come, York and Richard, Warwick, and the rest; I stabbed your fathers’ bosoms, split my breast.
EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house, That nothing sung but death to us and ours; Now death shall stop his dismal threatening sound, And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak. [_Soldiers bring the body forward._] WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft. Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee? Dark cloudy death o’ershades his beams of life, And he nor sees nor hears us, what we say. RICHARD. O, would he did, and so, perhaps, he doth! ’Tis but his policy to counterfeit, Because he would avoid such bitter taunts Which in the time of death he gave our father. GEORGE. If so thou think’st, vex him with eager words. RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy, and obtain no grace. EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence. WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults. GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults. RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York. EDWARD. Thou pitied’st Rutland, I will pity thee. GEORGE. Where’s Captain Margaret to fence you now? WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont. RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay then, the world goes hard When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath. I know by that he’s dead; and, by my soul, If this right hand would buy but two hours’ life, That I in all despite might rail at him, This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood Stifle the villain whose unstaunched thirst York and young Rutland could not satisfy.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.