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  • Title: Henry VI, Part 3 (Octavo 1, 1595)

  • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Henry VI, Part 3 (Octavo 1, 1595)

    Yorke, and Henrie the Sixt.
    That taught his sonne the office
    Of a birde, and yet for all that the poore
    Fowle was drownde.
    3095Hen. I Dedalus, my poore sonne Icarus,
    Thy father Minos that denide our course,
    Thy brother Edward, the sunne that searde his wings,
    And thou the enuious gulfe that swallowed him.
    3100Oh better can my brest abide thy daggers point,
    Then can mine eares that tragike historie.
    Glo. Why dost thou thinke I am an executioner?
    3105Hen. A persecutor I am sure thou art,
    And if murdering innocents be executions,
    Then I know thou art an executioner.
    Glo. Thy sonne I kild for his presumption.
    Hen. Hadst thou bin kild when first thou didst presume,
    3110Thou hadst not liude to kill a sonne of mine,
    And thus I prophesie of thee.
    That manie a Widdow for her husbands death,
    And many an infants water standing eie,
    Widowes for their husbands, children for their fathers,
    Shall curse the time that euer thou wert borne.
    The owle shrikt at thy birth, an euill signe,
    The night Crow cride, aboding lucklesse tune,
    3120Dogs howld and hideous tempests shooke down trees,
    The Rauen rookt her on the Chimnies top,
    And chattering Pies in dismall discord sung,
    Thy mother felt more then a mothers paine,
    And yet brought forth lesse then a mothers hope,
    3125To wit: an vndigest created lumpe,
    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree,
    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast borne,
    To