Page 174 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

But this one word, whether thy tale be true.

SALISBURY
As true as I believe you think them false
That give you cause to prove my saying true.

CONSTANCE
O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,
Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die, [30]

And let belief and life encounter so
As doth the fury of two desperate men
Which in the very meeting fall, and die.
Lewis marry Blanche! O boy, then where art thou?

France friend with England, what becomes of me? [35]
Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight.
This news hath made thee a most ugly man.

SALISBURY
What other harm have I, good lady, done,
But spoke the harm that is by others done?

CONSTANCE
Which harm within itself so heinous is [40]
As it makes harmful all that speak of it.

ARTHUR
I do beseech you, madam, be content.

CONSTANCE
If thou, that bid’st me be content, wert grim,
Ugly, and sland’rous to thy mother’s womb,

Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, [45]
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
Patch’d with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
I would not care, I then would be content,

For then I should not love thee: no, nor thou
Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown. [50]