READ STUDY GUIDE: Act II, Prologue and scenes i–ii |
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Act II, Scene ii:
Southampton. A council-chamber.
Southampton. A council-chamber.
| [Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland.] |
| BEDFORD: |
| 'Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors. |
| EXETER: |
| They shall be apprehended by and by. |
| WESTMORELAND: |
| How smooth and even they do bear themselves! |
| As if allegiance in their bosoms sat |
| Crowned with faith and constant loyalty. |
| BEDFORD: |
| The King hath note of all that they intend, |
| By interception which they dream not of. |
| EXETER: |
| Nay, but the man that was his bed-fellow, |
| Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours, |
| That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell |
| His sovereign's life to death and treachery. |
| [Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. |
| My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham, |
| And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts. |
| Think you not that the powers we bear with us |
| Will cut their passage through the force of France, |
| Doing the execution and the act |
| For which we have in head assembled them? |
| SCROOP: |
| No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best. |
| KING HENRY: |
| I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded |
| We carry not a heart with us from hence |
| That grows not in a fair consent with ours, |
| Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish |
| Success and conquest to attend on us. |
| CAMBRIDGE: |
| Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd |
| Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject |
| That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness |
| Under the sweet shade of your government. |
| GREY: |
| True; those that were your father's enemies |
| Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you |
| With hearts create of duty and of zeal. |
| KING HENRY: |
| We therefore have great cause of thankfulness, |
| And shall forget the office of our hand |
| Sooner than quittance of desert and merit |
| According to the weight and worthiness. |
| SCROOP: |
| So service shall with steeled sinews toil, |
| And labour shall refresh itself with hope, |
| To do your Grace incessant services. |
| KING HENRY: |
| We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter, |
| Enlarge the man committed yesterday, |
| That rail'd against our person. We consider |
| It was excess of wine that set him on, |
| And on his more advice we pardon him. |
| SCROOP: |
| That's mercy, but too much security. |
| Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example |
| Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. |
| KING HENRY: |
| O, let us yet be merciful. |
| CAMBRIDGE: |
| So may your Highness, and yet punish too. |
| GREY: |
| Sir, |
| You show great mercy if you give him life |
| After the taste of much correction. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Alas, your too much love and care of me |
| Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch! |
| If little faults, proceeding on distemper, |
| Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye |
| When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested, |
| Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man, |
| Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care |
| And tender preservation of our person, |
| Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes. |
| Who are the late commissioners? |
| CAMBRIDGE: |
| I one, my lord. |
| Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day. |
| SCROOP: |
| So did you me, my liege. |
| GREY: |
| And I, my royal sovereign. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours; |
| There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight, |
| Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours. |
| Read them, and know I know your worthiness. |
| My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter, |
| We will aboard to-night.—Why, how now, gentlemen! |
| What see you in those papers that you lose |
| So much complexion?—Look ye, how they change! |
| Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there, |
| That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood |
| Out of appearance? |
| CAMBRIDGE: |
| I do confess my fault, |
| And do submit me to your Highness' mercy. |
| GREY, SCROOP. |
| To which we all appeal. |
| KING HENRY: |
| The mercy that was quick in us but late, |
| By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd. |
| You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy, |
| For your own reasons turn into your bosoms, |
| As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. |
| See you, my princes and my noble peers, |
| These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here, |
| You know how apt our love was to accord |
| To furnish him with an appertinents |
| Belonging to his honour; and this man |
| Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd |
| And sworn unto the practices of France |
| To kill us here in Hampton; to the which |
| This knight, no less for bounty bound to us |
| Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O |
| What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel, |
| Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature! |
| Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, |
| That knew'st the very bottom of my soul, |
| That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold, |
| Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use,— |
| May it be possible that foreign hire |
| Could out of thee extract one spark of evil |
| That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange, |
| That, though the truth of it stands off as gross |
| As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it. |
| Treason and murder ever kept together, |
| As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose, |
| Working so grossly in a natural cause |
| That admiration did not whoop at them; |
| But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in |
| Wonder to wait on treason and on murder; |
| And whatsoever cunning fiend it was |
| That wrought upon thee so preposterously |
| Hath got the voice in hell for excellence; |
| And other devils that suggest by treasons |
| Do botch and bungle up damnation |
| With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd |
| From glist'ring semblances of piety. |
| But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up, |
| Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason, |
| Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. |
| If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus |
| Should with his lion gait walk the whole world, |
| He might return to vasty Tartar back, |
| And tell the legions, "I can never win |
| A soul so easy as that Englishman's." |
| O, how hast thou with jealousy infected |
| The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful? |
| Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned? |
| Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family? |
| Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious? |
| Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet, |
| Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger, |
| Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, |
| Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement, |
| Not working with the eye without the ear, |
| And but in purged judgement trusting neither? |
| Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem. |
| And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot |
| To mark the full-fraught man and best indued |
| With some suspicion. I will weep for thee; |
| For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like |
| Another fall of man. Their faults are open. |
| Arrest them to the answer of the law; |
| And God acquit them of their practices! |
| EXETER: |
| I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of |
| Cambridge. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry |
| Lord Scroop of Masham. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name |
| of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland. |
| SCROOP: |
| Our purposes God justly hath discover'd, |
| And I repent my fault more than my death, |
| Which I beseech your Highness to forgive, |
| Although my body pay the price of it. |
| CAMBRIDGE: |
| For me, the gold of France did not seduce, |
| Although I did admit it as a motive |
| The sooner to effect what I intended. |
| But God be thanked for prevention, |
| Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice, |
| Beseeching God and you to pardon me. |
| GREY: |
| Never did faithful subject more rejoice |
| At the discovery of most dangerous treason |
| Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself, |
| Prevented from a damned enterprise. |
| My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign. |
| KING HENRY: |
| God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence. |
| You have conspir'd against our royal person, |
| Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers |
| Received the golden earnest of our death; |
| Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter, |
| His princes and his peers to servitude, |
| His subjects to oppression and contempt, |
| And his whole kingdom into desolation. |
| Touching our person seek we no revenge; |
| But we our kingdom's safety must so tender, |
| Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws |
| We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence, |
| Poor miserable wretches, to your death, |
| The taste whereof God of his mercy give |
| You patience to endure, and true repentance |
| Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence. |
| [Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, guarded.] |
| Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof |
| Shall be to you, as us, like glorious. |
| We doubt not of a fair and lucky war, |
| Since God so graciously hath brought to light |
| This dangerous treason lurking in our way |
| To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now |
| But every rub is smoothed on our way. |
| Then forth, dear countrymen! Let us deliver |
| Our puissance into the hand of God, |
| Putting it straight in expedition. |
| Cheerly to sea! The signs of war advance! |
| No king of England, if not king of France! |
| [Flourish.] |
| [Exeunt.] |
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