William Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Second Part

ACT III. 2. SCENE II. Bury St. Edmund's. A Room of State. (continued)

VAUX.
To signify unto his majesty
That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;
For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,
That makes him gasp and stare and catch the air,
Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth.
Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost
Were by his side, sometime he calls the king
And whispers to his pillow as to him
The secrets of his overcharged soul;
And I am sent to tell his majesty
That even now he cries aloud for him.

QUEEN.
Go tell this heavy message to the king.--

[Exit Vaux.]

Ay me! what is this world! what news are these!
But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,
Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?
Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,
And with the southern clouds contend in tears,
Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?
Now get thee hence.
The king, thou know'st, is coming;
If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.

SUFFOLK.
If I depart from thee, I cannot live;
And in thy sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
Dying with mother's dug between its lips;
Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad
And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth.
So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,
Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.
To die by thee were but to die in jest;
From thee to die were torture more than death.
O, let me stay, befall what may befall!

QUEEN.
Away! though parting be a fretful corrosive,
It is applied to a deathful wound.
To France, sweet Suffolk; let me hear from thee,
For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe
I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.

SUFFOLK.
I go.

QUEEN.
And take my heart with thee.