KING HENRY VI | |
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 | 5 |
| | Forced by the tide to combat with the wind; | |
| | Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea | |
| | Forced to retire by fury of the wind: | |
| | Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind; | |
| | Now one the better, then another best; | 10 |
| | Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, | |
| | Yet neither conqueror nor conquered: | |
| | So is the equal of this fell war. | |
| | Here on this molehill will I sit me down. | |
| | To whom God will, there be the victory! | 15 |
| | 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? | 20 |
| | O God! methinks it were a happy life, | |
| | 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, | 25 |
| | 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: | 30 |
| | 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; | 35 |
| | So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean: | |
| | So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: | |
| | So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, | |
| | Pass'd over to the end they were created, | |
| | Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. | 40 |
| | 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 embroider'd canopy | |
| | To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? | 45 |
| | 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, | 50 |
| | Is far beyond a prince's delicates, | |
| | His viands sparkling in a golden cup, | |
| | His body couched in a curious bed, | |
| | When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him. | |
| | [Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his father, |
| | dragging in the dead body] |
Son | |
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody. | 55 |
| | 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. | 60 |
| | Who's this? O God! it is my father's face, | |
| | Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd. | |
| | O heavy times, begetting such events! | |
| | From London by the king was I press'd forth; | |
| | My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man, | 65 |
| | Came on the part of York, press'd by his master; | |
| | And I, who at his hands received my life, him | |
| | 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! | 70 |
| | My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks; | |
| | And no more words till they have flow'd their fill. | |
Father | |
Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, | |
| | Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold: | 80 |
| | For I have bought it with an 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, | 85 |
| | Blown with the windy tempest of my heart, | |
| | Upon thy words, that kill mine eye and heart! | |
| | O, pity, God, this miserable age! | |
| | What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, | |
| | Erroneous, mutinous and unnatural, | 90 |
| | This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! | |
| | O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon, | |
| | And hath bereft thee of thy life too late! | |
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