Page 533 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

ACT III IT

Scene I IT

Sound a sennet. Enter [two Heralds before, then the Duke of
Buckingham and the Duke of Suffolk, and then the Duke of York and the
Cardinal of Winchester, and then the King and Queen, and then the Earl of
Salisbury and the Earl of Warwick, with Attendants] to the Parliament.

KING HENRY

I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come:
’Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,
Whate’er occasion keeps him from us now.

MARGARET

Can you not see or will ye not observe
The strangeness of his altered countenance? [5]
With what a majesty he bears himself,
How insolent of late he is become,
How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?
We know the time since he was mild and affable,
And if we did but glance a far-off look, [10]
Immediately he was upon his knee,
That all the court admired him for submission.
But meet him now, and be it in the morn,
When everyone will give the time of day,
He knits his brow and shows an angry eye [15]
And passeth by with stiff unbowdèd knee,
Disdaining duty that to us belongs.
Small curs are not regarded when they grin,
But great men tremble when the lion roars:
And Humphrey is no little man in England. [20]
First note that he is near you in descent,
And, should you fall, he is the next will mount.
Me seemeth then it is no policy,
Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears