King Henry VI, the first part

by William Shakespeare

Enter Servingmen in skirmish with bloody pates.

KING HENRY.
We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
To hold your slaughtering hands and keep the peace.
Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.

FIRST SERVINGMAN.
Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we’ll fall to it with our teeth.

SECOND SERVINGMAN.
Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.

[Skirmish again.]

GLOUCESTER.
You of my household, leave this peevish broil,
And set this unaccustom’d fight aside.

THIRD SERVINGMAN.
My lord, we know your Grace to be a man
Just and upright, and, for your royal birth,
Inferior to none but to his Majesty;
And ere that we will suffer such a prince,
So kind a father of the commonweal,
To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
We and our wives and children all will fight
And have our bodies slaughter’d by thy foes.

FIRST SERVINGMAN.
Ay, and the very parings of our nails
Shall pitch a field when we are dead.

[Begin again.]

GLOUCESTER.
Stay, stay, I say!
And if you love me, as you say you do,
Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.