William Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Second Part

ACT IV. 7. SCENE VII. London. Smithfield. (continued)

SAY.
Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.
Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,
Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.
Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy;
Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.
I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy,
Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.
Justice with favour have I always done;
Prayers and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.
When have I aught exacted at your hands
But to maintain the king, the realm, and you?
Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
Because my book preferr'd me to the king;
And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,
Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits,
You cannot but forbear to murther me.
This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings
For your behoof,--

CADE.
Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?

SAY.
Great men have reaching hands; oft have I struck
Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.

GEORGE.
O monstrous coward! what, to come behind folks?

SAY.
These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.

CADE.
Give him a box o' the ear, and that will make 'em red
again.

SAY.
Long sitting to determine poor men's causes
Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.

CADE.
Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of
hatchet.

DICK.
Why dost thou quiver, man?

SAY.
The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.

CADE.
Nay, he nods at us, as who should say, I'll be even with
you. I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole or
no. Take him away, and behead him.