we must embrace
This gentle offer of the perilous time.
Who brought that letter from the cardinal?
The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love
Is much more general than these lines import.
To-morrow morning let us meet him then.
Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be
Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.
Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!
The king by me requests your presence straight.
The king hath dispossess'd himself of us:
We will not line his thin bestained cloak
With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
Return and tell him so: we know the worst.
Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.
Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
But there is little reason in your grief;
Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.
Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
'Tis true, to hurt his master, no man else.
This is the prison. What is he lies here?
O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.
Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
Sir Richard, what think you? have you 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.
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.
It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand,
If that it be the work of any hand.
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 practise and the purpose of the king:
From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
And breathing to his breathless excellence
The incense of a