text
stringlengths 0
63
|
---|
What likelihood of his amendment, lords? |
BUCKINGHAM: |
Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully. |
QUEEN ELIZABETH: |
God grant him health! Did you confer with him? |
BUCKINGHAM: |
Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement |
Betwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers, |
And betwixt them and my lord chamberlain; |
And sent to warn them to his royal presence. |
QUEEN ELIZABETH: |
Would all were well! but that will never be |
I fear our happiness is at the highest. |
GLOUCESTER: |
They do me wrong, and I will not endure it: |
Who are they that complain unto the king, |
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not? |
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly |
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours. |
Because I cannot flatter and speak fair, |
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog, |
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, |
I must be held a rancorous enemy. |
Cannot a plain man live and think no harm, |
But thus his simple truth must be abused |
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks? |
RIVERS: |
To whom in all this presence speaks your grace? |
GLOUCESTER: |
To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace. |
When have I injured thee? when done thee wrong? |
Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction? |
A plague upon you all! His royal person,-- |
Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-- |
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while, |
But you must trouble him with lewd complaints. |
QUEEN ELIZABETH: |
Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter. |
The king, of his own royal disposition, |
And not provoked by any suitor else; |
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred, |
Which in your outward actions shows itself |
Against my kindred, brothers, and myself, |
Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather |
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it. |
GLOUCESTER: |
I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad, |
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch: |
Since every Jack became a gentleman |
There's many a gentle person made a Jack. |
QUEEN ELIZABETH: |
Come, come, we know your meaning, brother |
Gloucester; |
You envy my advancement and my friends': |
God grant we never may have need of you! |
GLOUCESTER: |
Meantime, God grants that we have need of you: |
Your brother is imprison'd by your means, |
Myself disgraced, and the nobility |
Held in contempt; whilst many fair promotions |
Are daily given to ennoble those |
That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble. |
QUEEN ELIZABETH: |
By Him that raised me to this careful height |
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd, |
I never did incense his majesty |
Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been |
An earnest advocate to plead for him. |
My lord, you do me shameful injury, |
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects. |
GLOUCESTER: |
You may deny that you were not the cause |
Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment. |
RIVERS: |
She may, my lord, for-- |
GLOUCESTER: |
She may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so? |
She may do more, sir, than denying that: |
She may help you to many fair preferments, |
And then deny her aiding hand therein, |
And lay those honours on your high deserts. |
What may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she-- |
RIVERS: |
What, marry, may she? |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.