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And pardon us the interruption |
Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal. |
GLOUCESTER: |
My lord, there needs no such apology: |
I rather do beseech you pardon me, |
Who, earnest in the service of my God, |
Neglect the visitation of my friends. |
But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure? |
BUCKINGHAM: |
Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above, |
And all good men of this ungovern'd isle. |
GLOUCESTER: |
I do suspect I have done some offence |
That seems disgracious in the city's eyes, |
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance. |
BUCKINGHAM: |
You have, my lord: would it might please your grace, |
At our entreaties, to amend that fault! |
GLOUCESTER: |
Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land? |
BUCKINGHAM: |
Then know, it is your fault that you resign |
The supreme seat, the throne majestical, |
The scepter'd office of your ancestors, |
Your state of fortune and your due of birth, |
The lineal glory of your royal house, |
To the corruption of a blemished stock: |
Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts, |
Which here we waken to our country's good, |
This noble isle doth want her proper limbs; |
Her face defaced with scars of infamy, |
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants, |
And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf |
Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion. |
Which to recure, we heartily solicit |
Your gracious self to take on you the charge |
And kingly government of this your land, |
Not as protector, steward, substitute, |
Or lowly factor for another's gain; |
But as successively from blood to blood, |
Your right of birth, your empery, your own. |
For this, consorted with the citizens, |
Your very worshipful and loving friends, |
And by their vehement instigation, |
In this just suit come I to move your grace. |
GLOUCESTER: |
I know not whether to depart in silence, |
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof. |
Best fitteth my degree or your condition |
If not to answer, you might haply think |
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded |
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty, |
Which fondly you would here impose on me; |
If to reprove you for this suit of yours, |
So season'd with your faithful love to me. |
Then, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends. |
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first, |
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last, |
Definitively thus I answer you. |
Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert |
Unmeritable shuns your high request. |
First if all obstacles were cut away, |
And that my path were even to the crown, |
As my ripe revenue and due by birth |
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, |
So mighty and so many my defects, |
As I had rather hide me from my greatness, |
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, |
Than in my greatness covet to be hid, |
And in the vapour of my glory smother'd. |
But, God be thank'd, there's no need of me, |
And much I need to help you, if need were; |
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit, |
Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time, |
Will well become the seat of majesty, |
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign. |
On him I lay what you would lay on me, |
The right and fortune of his happy stars; |
Which God defend that I should wring from him! |
BUCKINGHAM: |
My lord, this argues conscience in your grace; |
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial, |
All circumstances well considered. |
You say that Edward is your brother's son: |
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife; |
For first he was contract to Lady Lucy-- |
Your mother lives a witness to that vow-- |
And afterward by substitute betroth'd |
To Bona, sister to the King of France. |
These both put by a poor petitioner, |
A care-crazed mother of a many children, |
A beauty-waning and distressed widow, |
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