text
stringlengths 0
63
|
|---|
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,
|
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
|
And when I mount, alive may I not light,
|
If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
|
KING RICHARD II:
|
What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
|
It must be great that can inherit us
|
So much as of a thought of ill in him.
|
HENRY BOLINGBROKE:
|
Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;
|
That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles
|
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,
|
The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,
|
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
|
Besides I say and will in battle prove,
|
Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge
|
That ever was survey'd by English eye,
|
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
|
Complotted and contrived in this land
|
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
|
Further I say and further will maintain
|
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
|
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
|
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
|
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
|
Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:
|
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
|
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
|
To me for justice and rough chastisement;
|
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
|
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
|
KING RICHARD II:
|
How high a pitch his resolution soars!
|
Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
|
THOMAS MOWBRAY:
|
O, let my sovereign turn away his face
|
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
|
Till I have told this slander of his blood,
|
How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
|
KING RICHARD II:
|
Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:
|
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
|
As he is but my father's brother's son,
|
Now, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,
|
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
|
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
|
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul:
|
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
|
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
|
THOMAS MOWBRAY:
|
Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
|
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
|
Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
|
Disbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;
|
The other part reserved I by consent,
|
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
|
Upon remainder of a dear account,
|
Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:
|
Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,
|
I slew him not; but to my own disgrace
|
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
|
For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
|
The honourable father to my foe
|
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
|
A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul
|
But ere I last received the sacrament
|
I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
|
Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.
|
This is my fault: as for the rest appeall'd,
|
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
|
A recreant and most degenerate traitor
|
Which in myself I boldly will defend;
|
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
|
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
|
To prove myself a loyal gentleman
|
Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
|
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
|
Your highness to assign our trial day.
|
KING RICHARD II:
|
Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;
|
Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
|
This we prescribe, though no physician;
|
Deep malice makes too deep incision;
|
Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;
|
Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
|
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
|
We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
|
JOHN OF GAUNT:
|
To be a make-peace shall become my age:
|
Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
|
KING RICHARD II:
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.