Page 549 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
Can chase away the first-conceivèd sound?
Hide not thy poison with such sugared words; [45]
Lay not thy hands on me - forbear, I say,
Their touch affrights me as a serpent’s sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny
Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world. [50]
Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:
Yet do not go away. Come, basilisk,
And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight:
For in the shade of death I shall find joy;
In life, but double death, now Gloucester’s dead. [55]

MARGARET

Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
Although the duke was enemy to him,
Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;
And for myself, foe as he was to me,
Might liquid tears or heart-offending groans [60]
Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,
I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
And all to have the noble duke alive.
What know I how the world may deem of me? [65]
For it is known we were but hollow friends
It may be judged I made the duke away:
So shall my name with slander’s tongue be wounded,
And princes’ courts be filled with my reproach:
This get I by his death. Ay, me unhappy! [70]
To be a queen and crowned with infamy.

KING HENRY

Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!

MARGARET

Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper: look on me. [75]
What? Art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.