Page 1076 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.

HASTINGS
Fear you not that. If we can make our peace [185]
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

MOWBRAY
Yea, but our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-derivèd cause, [190]
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason

Shall to the king taste of this action,
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff [195]

And good from bad find no partition.

ARCHBISHOP
No, no, my lord. Note this. The king is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances.
For he hath found to end one doubt by death

Revives two greater in the heirs of life, [200]
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance. For full well he knows

He cannot so precisely weed this land [205]
As his misdoubts present occasion.
His foes are so enrooted with his friends

That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.
So that this land, like an offensive wife [210]
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up

And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was upreared to execution.