The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9] · William Shakespeare
SCENE VII. _Baynard’s Castle_.
_May._ Marry, God forbid his grace should say us nay! [fcg081] _Buck._ I fear he will. [fcg082] _Re-enter_ CATESBY. How now, Catesby, what says your lord? _Cate._ My lord, [fcg083] He wonders to what end you have assembled Such troops of citizens to speak with him, [fcg085] His grace not being warn’d thereof before: My lord, he fears you mean no good to him. [fcg087] _Buck._ Sorry I am my noble cousin should Suspect me, that I mean no good to him: By heaven, I come in perfect love to him; [fcg090] And so once more return and tell his grace. [fcg091] [_Exit Catesby._ When holy and devout religious men Are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence, [fcg093] So sweet is zealous contemplation. [fcg094] _Enter_ GLOUCESTER _aloft, between two Bishops._ CATESBY _returns_. _May._ See, where he stands between two clergymen! [fcg095] _Buck._ Two props of virtue for a Christian prince, To stay him from the fall of vanity: And, see, a book of prayer in his hand, [fcg098] True ornaments to know a holy man. [fcg099] Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince, ·fcg100· Lend favourable ears to our request; [fcg101] And pardon us the interruption Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal. _Glou._ My lord, there needs no such apology: I rather do beseech you pardon me, [fcg105] Who, earnest in the service of my God, [fcg106] Neglect the visitation of my friends. [fcg107] But, leaving this, what is your grace’s pleasure?
_Glou._ I know not whether to depart in silence, [fcg141] Or bitterly to speak in your reproof, Best fitteth my degree or your condition: [fcg143] If not to answer, you might haply think [fcg144] Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded ·fcg145· To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty, Which fondly you would here impose on me; If to reprove you for this suit of yours So season’d with your faithful love to me, Then, on the other side, I check’d my friends. ·fcg150· Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first, And then, in speaking, not to incur the last, [fcg152] Definitively thus I answer you. Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert Unmeritable shuns your high request. [fcg155] First, if all obstacles were cut away And that my path were even to the crown, As my ripe revenue and due by birth; [fcg158] Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects, ·fcg160· As I had rather hide me from my greatness, [fcg161] Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid And in the vapour of my glory smother’d. But, God be thanked, there’s no need of me, [fcg165] And much I need to help you, if need were; [fcg166] The royal tree hath left us royal fruit, Which, mellow’d by the stealing hours of time, Will well become the seat of majesty, And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign. [fcg170] On him I lay what you would lay on me, [fcg171] The right and fortune of his happy stars; Which God defend that I should wring from him!
_Buck._ My lord, this argues conscience in your grace; But the respects thereof are nice and trivial, ·fcg175· All circumstances well considered. You say that Edward is your brother’s son: So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife; For first he was contract to Lady Lucy-- [fcg179] Your mother lives a witness to that vow-- [fcg180] And afterward by substitute betroth’d [fcg181] To Bona, sister to the King of France. These both put by, a poor petitioner, [fcg183] A care-crazed mother of a many children, [fcg184] A beauty-waning and distressed widow, ·fcg185· Even in the afternoon of her best days, Made prize and purchase of his lustful eye, [fcg187] Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts [fcg188] To base declension and loathed bigamy: [fcg189] By her, in his unlawful bed, he got [fcg190] This Edward, whom our manners term the prince. [fcg191] More bitterly could I expostulate, [fcg192] Save that, for reverence to some alive, [fcg193] I give a sparing limit to my tongue. Then, good my lord, take to your royal self [fcg195] This proffer’d benefit of dignity; [fcg196] If not to bless us and the land withal, Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry [fcg198] From the corruption of abusing times, [fcg199] Unto a lineal true-derived course. [fcg200] _May._ Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.