O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
Pembroke
O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
The Earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
Salisbury
Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.
Bigot
Or when he doomed this beauty to a grave,
Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
Salisbury, to Bastard
Sir Richard, what think you? You have beheld.
Or have you read or heard, or could you think,
Or do you almost think, although you see,
That you do see? Could thought, without this object,
Form such another? This is the very top,
The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
Of murder's arms. This is the bloodiest shame,
The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke
That ever wall-eyed wrath or staring rage
Presented to the tears of soft remorse.
Pembroke
All murders past do stand excused in this.
And this, so sole and so unmatchable,
Shall give a holiness, a purity,
To the yet unbegotten sin of times
And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
Bastard
It is a damnèd and a bloody work,
The graceless action of a heavy hand,
If that it be the work of any hand.
Salisbury
If that it be the work of any hand?
We had a kind of light what would ensue.
It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand,
The practice and the purpose of the King,
From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life
He kneels
And breathing to his breathless excellence
The incense of a vow, a holy vow:
Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight,
Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
Till I have set a glory to this hand
By giving it the worship of revenge.
Pembroke, Bigot, kneeling
Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
They rise.