Page 558 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

SUFFOLK

A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?
Could curses kill as doth the mandrake’s groan, [310]
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Delivered strongly through my fixèd teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave. [315]
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
Mine hair be fixed an end, as one distract;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban:
And even now my burdened heart would break [320]
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall - worse than gall - the daintiest that they taste;
Their sweetest shade, a grove of cypress trees;
Their chiefest prospect, murdering basilisks;
Their softest touch, as smart as lizards’ stings; [325]
Their music, frightful as the serpent’s hiss,
And boding screech-owls make the consort full!
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell -

MARGARET

Enough, sweet Suffolk; thou torment’st thyself,
And these dread curses, like the sun ’gainst glass [330]
Or like an over-chargèd gun, recoil
And turn the force of them upon thyself.

SUFFOLK

You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
Now, by the ground that I am banished from,
Well could I curse away a winter’s night [335]
Though standing naked on a mountain top
Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
And think it but a minute spent in sport.

MARGARET [Kisses his hand.]

O, let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand
That I may dew it with my mournful tears; [340]

Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place