Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry:
O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
Then with a passion would I shake the world;[370]
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy40
Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,[371]
Which scorns a modern invocation.[371][372]
Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.
Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so;[373]
I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;45
My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!50
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,[374]
And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;[374][375]
For being not mad but sensible of grief,[374]
My reasonable part produces reason[374]
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,[374]55
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:[374]
If I were mad, I should forget my son,[374]
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:[374]
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.60
K. Phi. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note[376]
In the fair multitude of those her hairs![376]
Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,[376]
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends[376][377]
Do glue themselves in sociable grief,[376]65
Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,[376][378]
Sticking together in calamity.[376]
Const. To England, if you will.[376]
K. Phi. Bind up your hairs.[376]
Const. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?[376]
I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud[376]70
'O that these hands could so redeem my son,[376]
As they have given these hairs their liberty!'[376]
But now I envy at their liberty,[376]
And will again commit them to their bonds,[376]
Because my poor child is a prisoner.[376]75
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say[379]
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;[380]
For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,80
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek
And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,85
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.90
Const. He talks to me that never had a son.
K. Phi. You are as fond of grief as of your child.