Page:Henry VI Part 2 (1923) Yale.djvu/78

66

Queen. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? where's your knife?

Is Beaufort term'd a kite? where are his talons?

Suf. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;

But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,

That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart

That slanders me with murther's crimson badge.

Say, if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,

That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.

War. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?

Queen. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,

Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,

Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

War. Madam, be still, with reverence may I say;

For every word you speak in his behalf

Is slander to your royal dignity.

Suf. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour!

If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,

Thy mother took into her blameful bed

Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock

Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art,

And never of the Nevils' noble race.

War. But that the guilt of murther bucklers thee,

And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,

Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,

And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,

I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee

Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech,

And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st;

That thou thyself wast born in bastardy:

And after all this fearful homage done,

 205 controller: meddling detractor

217 deathsman: executioner

218 Quitting: relieving

224 fearful homage: cowardly submission 