blameful bed Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art, And never of the Nevils' noble race. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee And I should rob the deathsman of his fee, Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames, And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild, I would, false murderous coward, on thy knee Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech, And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st That thou thyself was born in bastardy; And after all this fearful homage done, Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell, Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men! Thou shall be waking well I shed thy blood, If from this presence thou darest go with me. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence: Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. What noise is this? Why, how now, lords! your wrathful weapons drawn Here in our presence! dare you be so bold? Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here? The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury Set all upon me, mighty sovereign. Sirs, stand apart; the king shall know your mind. Dread lord, the commons send you word by me, Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death, Or banished fair England's territories, They will by violence tear him from your palace And torture him with grievous lingering death. They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died; They say, in him they fear your highness' death; And mere instinct of love and loyalty, Free from a stubborn opposite intent, As being thought to contradict your liking, Makes them thus forward in his banishment. They say, in care of your most royal person, That if your highness should intend to sleep And charge that no man should disturb your rest In pain of your dislike or pain of death, Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict, Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue, That slily glided towards your majesty, It were but necessary you were waked, Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber, The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal; And therefore do they cry, though you forbid, That they will guard you, whether you will or no, From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is, With whose envenomed and fatal sting, Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,