SCENE IV. London. The Temple-garden. The First part of King Henry the Sixth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry VI, part 1  | Act 2, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE IV. London. The Temple-garden. 

 Enter the Earls of SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK; RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another Lawyer  RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Great lords and gentlemen, what means this silence? 

 Dare no man answer in a case of truth? 

 SUFFOLK  Within the Temple-hall we were too loud; 

 The garden here is more convenient. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth; 

 Or else was wrangling Somerset in the error? 

 SUFFOLK  Faith, I have been a truant in the law, 

 And never yet could frame my will to it; 

 And therefore frame the law unto my will. 

 SOMERSET  Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us. 

 WARWICK  Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch; 

 Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth; 

 Between two blades, which bears the better temper: 

 Between two horses, which doth bear him best; 

 Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye; 

 I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgement; 

 But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, 

 Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance: 

 The truth appears so naked on my side 

 That any purblind eye may find it out. 

 SOMERSET  And on my side it is so well apparell'd, 

 So clear, so shining and so evident 

 That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak, 

 In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts: 

 Let him that is a true-born gentleman 

 And stands upon the honour of his birth, 

 If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, 

 From off this brier pluck a white rose with me. 

 SOMERSET  Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer, 

 But dare maintain the party of the truth, 

 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. 

 WARWICK  I love no colours, and without all colour 

 Of base insinuating flattery 

 I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet. 

 SUFFOLK  I pluck this red rose with young Somerset 

 And say withal I think he held the right. 

 VERNON  Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more, 

 Till you conclude that he upon whose side 

 The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree 

 Shall yield the other in the right opinion. 

 SOMERSET  Good Master Vernon, it is well objected: 

 If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  And I. 

 VERNON  Then for the truth and plainness of the case. 

 I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, 

 Giving my verdict on the white rose side. 

 SOMERSET  Prick not your finger as you pluck it off, 

 Lest bleeding you do paint the white rose red 

 And fall on my side so, against your will. 

 VERNON  If I my lord, for my opinion bleed, 

 Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt 

 And keep me on the side where still I am. 

 SOMERSET  Well, well, come on: who else? 

 Lawyer  Unless my study and my books be false, 

 The argument you held was wrong in you: 



 To SOMERSET  In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Now, Somerset, where is your argument? 

 SOMERSET  Here in my scabbard, meditating that 

 Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our roses; 

 For pale they look with fear, as witnessing 

 The truth on our side. 

 SOMERSET  No, Plantagenet, 

 'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks 

 Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses, 

 And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset? 

 SOMERSET  Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet? 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth; 

 Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood. 

 SOMERSET  Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses, 

 That shall maintain what I have said is true, 

 Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand, 

 I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy. 

 SUFFOLK  Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and thee. 

 SUFFOLK  I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. 

 SOMERSET  Away, away, good William de la Pole! 

 We grace the yeoman by conversing with him. 

 WARWICK  Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset; 

 His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence, 

 Third son to the third Edward King of England: 

 Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root? 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  He bears him on the place's privilege, 

 Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus. 

 SOMERSET  By him that made me, I'll maintain my words 

 On any plot of ground in Christendom. 

 Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge, 

 For treason executed in our late king's days? 

 And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted, 

 Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry? 

 His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood; 

 And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  My father was attached, not attainted, 

 Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor; 

 And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset, 

 Were growing time once ripen'd to my will. 

 For your partaker Pole and you yourself, 

 I'll note you in my book of memory, 

 To scourge you for this apprehension: 

 Look to it well and say you are well warn'd. 

 SOMERSET  Ah, thou shalt find us ready for thee still; 

 And know us by these colours for thy foes, 

 For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose, 

 As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate, 

 Will I for ever and my faction wear, 

 Until it wither with me to my grave 

 Or flourish to the height of my degree. 

 SUFFOLK  Go forward and be choked with thy ambition! 

 And so farewell until I meet thee next. 



 Exit  SOMERSET  Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious Richard. 



 Exit  RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  How I am braved and must perforce endure it! 

 WARWICK  This blot that they object against your house 

 Shall be wiped out in the next parliament 

 Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester; 

 And if thou be not then created York, 

 I will not live to be accounted Warwick. 

 Meantime, in signal of my love to thee, 

 Against proud Somerset and William Pole, 

 Will I upon thy party wear this rose: 

 And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day, 

 Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden, 

 Shall send between the red rose and the white 

 A thousand souls to death and deadly night. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you, 

 That you on my behalf would pluck a flower. 

 VERNON  In your behalf still will I wear the same. 

 Lawyer  And so will I. 

 RICHARD 

 PLANTAGENET  Thanks, gentle sir. 

 Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say 

 This quarrel will drink blood another day. 



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