William Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Second Part

ACT I 4. SCENE IV. Gloster's Garden

[Enter MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and BOLINGBROKE.]

HUME.
Come, my masters; the duchess, I tell you, expects
performance of your promises.

BOLINGBROKE.
Master Hume, we are therefore provided;
will her ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?

HUME.
Ay, what else? fear you not her courage.

BOLINGBROKE.
I have heard her reported to be a woman of an invincible spirit:
but it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that you be by her
aloft while we be busy below; and so, I pray you go, in God's
name, and leave us.--[Exit Hume.] Mother Jourdain, be you
prostrate and grovel on the earth.--John Southwell, read you; and
let us to our work.

[Enter DUCHESS aloft, HUME following.]

DUCHESS.
Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear
the sooner the better.

BOLINGBROKE.
Patience, good lady, wizards know their times:
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
The time of night when Troy was set on fire,
The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl
And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves,
That time best fits the work we have in hand.
Madam, sit you and fear not; whom we raise,
We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.

[Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;
Bolingbroke or Southwell reads, Conjuro te, etc.
It thunders and lightens terribly; then the Spirit riseth.]

SPIRIT.
Adsum.

M. JOURDAIN.
Asmath,
By the eternal God, whose name and power
Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;
For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.

SPIRIT.
Ask what thou wilt. That I had said and done!

BOLINGBROKE.
[Reads] 'First of the king: what shall
of him become?'

SPIRIT.
The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose,
But him outlive and die a violent death.