Page 257 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

And if I wist he did - but let it rest; [180]
Other affairs must now be managèd.

Exeunt [all but] Exeter.

EXET ER

Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
For, had the passions of thy heart burst out,
I fear we should have seen deciphered there
More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils, [185]
Than yet can be imagined or supposed.
But howsoe’er, no simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility,
This shouldering of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites, [190]
But sees it doth presage some ill event.
’Tis much when sceptres are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division:
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.

Exit.

Scene II IT

Enter Talbot with Trump and Drum before Bordeaux.

T ALBOT

Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter,
Summon their general unto the wall.

[Trumpet] sounds. Enter General [and others] aloft.
English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry, King of England,
And thus he would: open your city gates, [5]
Be humble to us, call my sovereign yours,
And do him homage as obedient subjects,
And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power.
But if you frown upon this proffered peace,
You tempt the fury of my three attendants, [10]
Lean Famine, quartering Steel, and climbing Fire,
Who, in a moment, even with the earth
Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers,
If you forsake the offer of their love.