Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/27

Richard the Third, I. ii

Rich. Never came poison from so sweet a place.

Anne. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.

Out of my sight! thou dost infect mine eyes.

Rich. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

Anne. Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!

Rich. I would they were, that I might die at once;

For now they kill me with a living death.

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops;

These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear;

No, when my father York and Edward wept

To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made

When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;

Nor when thy warlike father like a child

Told:the sad story of my father's death,

And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,

That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,

Like trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time,

My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;

And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,

Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

I never su'd to friend, nor enemy;

My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing words;

But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,

My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made

For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,

Lo! here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;

 148 poison toad; cf. n.

151 basilisks; cf. n.

155 aspects: appearance

158 Rutland; cf. n.

163 That: so that

169 smoothing: flattering

