London. The Temple Garden. | |
| |
Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK; RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and a Lawyer. | |
| Plan. Great lords, and gentlemen, what means this silence? | |
| Dare no man answer in a case of truth? | 4 |
| Suf. Within the Temple hall we were too loud; | |
| The garden here is more convenient. | |
| Plan. Then say at once if I maintain’d the truth, | |
| Or else was wrangling Somerset in the error? | 8 |
| Suf. Faith, I have been a truant in the law, | |
| And never yet could frame my will to it; | |
| And therefore frame the law unto my will. | |
| Som. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us. | 12 |
| War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch; | |
| Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth; | |
| Between two blades, which bears the better temper; | |
| Between two horses, which doth bear him best; | 16 |
| Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye; | |
| I have perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment; | |
| But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, | |
| Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. | 20 |
| Plan. Tut, tut! here is a mannerly forbearance: | |
| The truth appears so naked on my side, | |
| That any purblind eye may find it out. | |
| Som. And on my side it is so well apparell’d, | 24 |
| So clear, so shining, and so evident, | |
| That it will glimmer through a blind man’s eye. | |
| Plan. Since you are tongue-tied, and so loath to speak, | |
| In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts: | 28 |
| Let him that is a true-born gentleman, | |
| And stands upon the honour of his birth, | |
| If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, | |
| From off this brier pluck a white rose with me. | 32 |
| Som. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer, | |
| But dare maintain the party of the truth, | |
| Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. | |
| War. I love no colours, and, without all colour | 36 |
| Of base insinuating flattery | |
| I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet. | |
| Suf. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset: | |
| And say withal I think he held the right. | 40 |
| Ver. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more, | |
| Till you conclude that he, upon whose side | |
| The fewest roses are cropp’d from the tree, | |
| Shall yield the other in the right opinion. | 44 |
| Som. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected: | |
| If I have fewest I subscribe in silence. | |
| Plan. And I. | |
| Ver. Then for the truth and plainness of the case, | 48 |
| I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, | |
| Giving my verdict on the white rose side. | |
| Som. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off, | |
| Lest bleeding you do paint the white rose red, | 52 |
| And fall on my side so, against your will. | |
| Ver. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed, | |
| Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt, | |
| And keep me on the side where still I am. | 56 |
| Som. Well, well, come on: who else? | |
| Law. [To SOMERSET.] Unless my study and my books be false, | |
| The argument you held was wrong in you, | |
| In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too. | 60 |
| Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument? | |
| Som. Here, in my scabbard; meditating that | |
| Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red. | |
| Plan. Meantime, your cheeks do counterfeit our roses; | 64 |
| For pale they look with fear, as witnessing | |
| The truth on our side. | |
| Som. No, Plantagenet, | |
| ’Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks | 68 |
| Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses, | |
| And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error. | |
| Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset? | |
| Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet? | 72 |
| Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth; | |
| Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood. | |
| Som. Well, I’ll find friends to wear my bleeding roses, | |
| That shall maintain what I have said is true, | 76 |
| Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen. | |
| Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand, | |
| I scorn thee and thy faction, peevish boy. | |
| Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet. | 80 |
| Plan. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and thee. | |
| Suf. I’ll turn my part thereof into thy throat. | |
| Som. Away, away! good William de la Pole: | |
| We grace the yeoman by conversing with him. | 84 |
| War. Now, by God’s will, thou wrong’st him, Somerset: | |
| His grandfather was Lionel, Duke of Clarence, | |
| Third son to the third Edward, King of England. | |
| Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root? | 88 |
| Plan. He bears him on the place’s privilege, | |
| Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus. | |
| Som. By Him that made me, I’ll maintain my words | |
| On any plot of ground in Christendom. | 92 |
| Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge, | |
| For treason executed in our late king’s days? | |
| And, by his treason stand’st not thou attainted, | |
| Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry? | 96 |
| His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood; | |
| And, till thou be restor’d, thou art a yeoman. | |
| Plan. My father was attached, not attainted; | |
| Condemn’d to die for treason, but no traitor; | 100 |
| And that I’ll prove on better men than Somerset, | |
| Were growing time once ripen’d to my will. | |
| For your partaker Pole and you yourself, | |
| I’ll note you in my book of memory, | 104 |
| To scourge you for this apprehension: | |
| Look to it well and say you are well warn’d. | |
| Som. Ah, thou shalt find us ready for thee still, | |
| And know us by these colours for thy foes; | 108 |
| For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear. | |
| Plan. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose, | |
| As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate, | |
| Will I for ever and my faction wear, | 112 |
| Until it wither with me to my grave | |
| Or flourish to the height of my degree. | |
| Suf. Go forward, and be chok’d with thy ambition: | |
| And so farewell until I meet thee next. [Exit. | 116 |
| Som. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious Richard. [Exit. | |
| Plan. How I am brav’d and must perforce endure it! | |
| War. This blot that they object against your house | |
| Shall be wip’d out in the next parliament, | 120 |
| Call’d for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester; | |
| And if thou be not then created York, | |
| I will not live to be accounted Warwick. | |
| Meantime in signal of my love to thee, | 124 |
| Against proud Somerset and William Pole, | |
| Will I upon thy party wear this rose. | |
| And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day, | |
| Grown to this faction in the Temple garden, | 128 |
| Shall send between the red rose and the white | |
| A thousand souls to death and deadly night. | |
| Plan. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you, | |
| That you on my behalf would pluck a flower. | 132 |
| Ver. In your behalf still would I wear the same. | |
| Law. And so will I. | |
| Plan. Thanks, gentle sir. | |
| Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say | 136 |
| This quarrel will drink blood another day. [Exeunt. | |
