King Henry Vi, Part Ii Monologue
| King Henry Vi, Part Ii Monologue by William Shakespeare | |
| Character: | York |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age (range): | ? |
| Style: | Drama |
| Length: | 5 minutes |
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- YORK: Anjou and Maine are given to the French,
- Paris is lost; the state of Normandy
- Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.
- Suffolk concluded on the articles,
- The peers agreed, and Henry was well pleased
- To change two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.
- I cannot blame them all. What is't to them?
- 'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.
- Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,
- And purchase friends, and give to courtesans,
- Still revelling like lords till all be gone,
- While as the silly owner of the goods
- Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands
- And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof
- While all is shared and all is borne away,
- Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.
- So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue
- While his own lands are bargained for and sold.
- Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland
- Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood
- As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt
- Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.
- Anjou and Maine both given unto the French?
- Cold news for me! for I had hope of France,
- Even as I have of fertile England's soil.
- A day will come when York shall claim his own;
- And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,
- And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,
- And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,
- For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.
- Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,
- Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,
- Nor wear the diadem upon his head,
- Whose churchlike humors fits not for a crown.
- Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve.
- Watch thou and wake when others be asleep,
- To pry into the secrets of the state.
- Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love,
- With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,
- And Humphrey with the peers be fallen at jars.
- Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
- With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed,
- And in my standard bear the arms of York
- To grapple with the house of Lancaster;
- And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown
- Whose bookish rule hath pulled fair England down.
