KING HENRY.
I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
I am a king, and privileged to speak.
CLIFFORD.
My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here
Cannot be cured by words; therefore be still.
RICHARD.
Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.
By Him that made us all, I am resolved
That Clifford’s manhood lies upon his tongue.
EDWARD.
Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?
A thousand men have broke their fasts today
That ne’er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.
WARWICK.
If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;
For York in justice puts his armour on.
PRINCE EDWARD.
If that be right which Warwick says is right,
There is no wrong, but everything is right.
RICHARD.
Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;
For well I wot thou hast thy mother’s tongue.
QUEEN MARGARET.
But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam,
But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,
Marked by the Destinies to be avoided,
As venom toads or lizards’ dreadful stings.
RICHARD.
Iron of Naples, hid with English gilt,
Whose father bears the title of a king,
As if a channel should be called the sea,
Sham’st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,
To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?
EDWARD.
A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns
To make this shameless callet know herself.
Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
Although thy husband may be Menelaus;
And ne’er was Agamemnon’s brother wronged
By that false woman as this king by thee.
His father revelled in the heart of France,
And tamed the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;
And had he matched according to his state,
He might have kept that glory to this day;
But when he took a beggar to his bed
And graced thy poor sire with his bridal day,
Even then that sunshine brewed a shower for him
That washed his father’s fortunes forth of France
And heaped sedition on his crown at home.
For what hath broached this tumult but thy pride?
Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;
And we, in pity of the gentle king,
Had slipped our claim until another age.