PRINCE EDWARD.
Fly, father, fly, for all your friends are fled,
And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.
Away, for death doth hold us in pursuit.
QUEEN MARGARET.
Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.
Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds
Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,
And bloody steel grasped in their ireful hands,
Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.
EXETER.
Away, for vengeance comes along with them.
Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed,
Or else come after; I’ll away before.
KING HENRY.
Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter;
Not that I fear to stay, but love to go
Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VI. Another Part of the Field
A loud alarum. Enter Clifford, wounded.
CLIFFORD.
Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,
Which whiles it lasted gave King Henry light.
O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow
More than my body’s parting with my soul!
My love and fear glued many friends to thee;
And, now I fall, thy tough commixtures melts,
Impairing Henry, strengthening misproud York.
The common people swarm like summer flies;
And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?
And who shines now but Henry’s enemies?
O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent
That Phaëthon should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car never had scorched the earth!
And, Henry, hadst thou swayed as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
They never then had sprung like summer flies;
I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm
Had left no mourning widows for our death,
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?
And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;
No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.
The foe is merciless and will not pity,
For at their hands I have deserved no pity.
The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.
Come, York and Richard, Warwick, and the rest;
I stabbed your fathers’ bosoms, split my breast.
[He faints.]
Alarum and retreat. Enter Edward, George, Richard, Montague, Warwick and Soldiers.