Page 826 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Iron of Naples, hid with English gilt,
Whose father bears the title of a king - [140]
As if a channel should be called the sea -
Sham’st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,
To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?

EDWARD

A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns
To make this shameless callet know herself. [145]
Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
Although thy husband may be Menelaus;
And ne’er was Agamemnon’s brother wronged
By that false woman as this king by thee.
His father revelled in the heart of France [150]
And tamed the king and made the dauphin stoop:
And had he matched according to his state,
He might have kept that glory to this day;
But when he took a beggar to his bed
And graced thy poor sire with his bridal day, [155]
Even then that sunshine brewed a shower for him
That washed his father’s fortunes forth of France
And heaped sedition on his crown at home.
For what hath broached this tumult but thy pride?
Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept, [160]
And we, in pity of the gentle king,
Had slipped our claim until another age.

GEORGE

But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring
And that thy summer bred us no increase,
We set the axe to thy usurping root, [165]
And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,
Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,
We’ll never leave till we have hewn thee down
Or bathed thy growing with our heated bloods.

EDWARD

And in this resolution I defy thee; [170]
Not willing any longer conference
Since thou deniest the gentle king to speak. -
Sound, trumpets! Let our bloody colours wave;