Scene, Plains near Tewksbury.
March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD, and soldiers.
Margaret. Great lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, | |
| But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. | |
| What though the mast he now blown overboard, | |
| The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost, | |
| And half our sailors swallow’d in the flood? | 5 |
| Yet lives our pilot still. Is’t meet that he | |
| Should leave the helm and like a fearful lad | |
| With tearful eyes add water to the sea | |
| And give more strength to that which hath too much, | |
| Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock, | 10 |
| Which industry and courage might have saved? | |
| Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this! | |
| Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that? | |
| And Montague our topmast; what of him? | |
| Our slaughter’d friends the tackles; what of these? | 15 |
| Why, is not Oxford here another anchor? | |
| And Somerset another goodly mast? | |
| The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings? | |
| And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I | |
| For once allow’d the skilful pilot’s charge? | 20 |
| We will not from the helm to sit and weep, | |
| But keep our course, though the rough wind say no, | |
| From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck. | |
| As good to chide the waves as speak them fair. | |
| And what is Edward but a ruthless sea? | 25 |
| What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit? | |
| And Richard but a ragged fatal rock? | |
| All these the enemies to our poor bark. | |
| Say you can swim; alas, ’tis but a while! | |
| Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink: | 30 |
| Bestride the rock: the tide will wash you off, | |
| Or else you famish; that’s a threefold death. | |
| This speak I, lords, to let you understand, | |
| In case some one of you would fly from us, | |
| That there’s no hoped-for mercy with the brothers | 35 |
| More than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks. | |
| Why courage then! what cannot be avoided | |
| ’Twere childish weakness to lament or fear. | |
| Prince. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit | |
| Should, if a coward heard her speak these words, | 40 |
| Infuse his breast with magnanimity | |
| And make him, naked, foil a man at arms. | |
| I speak not this as doubting any here; | |
| For did I but suspect a fearful man, | |
| He should have leave to go away betimes, | 45 |
| Lest in our need he might infect another | |
| And make him of like spirit to himself. | |
| If any such be here—as God forbid!— | |
| Let him depart before we need his help. | |
| Oxf. Women and children of so high a courage, | 50 |
| And warriors faint! why, ’twere perpetual shame. | |
| O brave young prince! thy famous grandfather | |
| Doth live again in thee: long mayst thou live | |
| To bear his image and renew his glories! | |
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