Page 556 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

As being thought to contradict your liking,
Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
They say, in care of your most royal person,
That if your highness should intend to sleep [255]
And charge that no man should disturb your rest
In pain of your dislike or pain of death,
Yet not withstanding such a strait edict,
Were there a serpent seen, with forkèd tongue,
That slyly glided towards your majesty, [260]
It were but necessary you were waked,
Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,
The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
That they will guard you, whe’r you will or no [265]
From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is,
With whose envenomèd and fatal sting
Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
They say is shamefully bereft of life.

[COMMONS]

Within
An answer from the king, my Lord of Salisbury. [270]

SUFFOLK

’Tis like the commons, rude unpolished hinds,
Could send such message to their sovereign:
But you, my lord, were glad to be employed
To show how quaint an orator you are.
But all the honour Salisbury hath won [275]
Is that he was the lord ambassador
Sent from a sort of tinkers to the king.

[COMMONS]

Within
An answer from the king, or we will all break in.

KING HENRY

Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me
I thank them for their tender loving care; [280]
And had I not been cited so by them,