What you have done hath not offended me;
Nor other satisfaction do I crave,

But only, with your patience, that we may
Taste of your wine and see what cates you have;
For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.

Count. With all my heart, and think me honouréd

To feast so great a warrior in my house. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-London. The Temple Garden. Enter the Earls of SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK; RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another Lawyer.

Plan. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this silence?

Dare no man answer in a case of truth?

Suf. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud; The garden here is more convenient.

Plan. Then say at once if I maintained the

truth,

Or else was wrangling Somerset in the error?

Suf. 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.

Som. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then,

between us.

War. 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 judgment;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance;
The truth appears so naked on my side
That any purblind eye may find it out.

Som. And on my side it is so well apparelled, So clear, so shining, and so evident,

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

Som. Let him that is no coward nor no flat

terer.

But dare maintain the party of the truth,

Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
War. I love no colours, and without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery

I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.

Suf. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset, And say withal I think he held the right.

Till

Ver. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no

more,

you conclude that he upon whose side The fewest roses are cropped from the tree Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

Som. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected; If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plan. And I.

Ver. 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.

Som. 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.

Ver. 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.

Som. Well, well, come on; who else?

Law. Unless my study and my books be false, The argument you held was wrong in you;

In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.

Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?

Som. Here in my scabbard, meditating that Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

Plan. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our

roses;

For pale they look with fear, as witnessing

The truth on our side.

Som.

"T is not for fear but

No, Plantagenet, anger that thy cheeks

Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.

Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet ?
Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his

truth,

Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

Som. 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.

Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand, I scorn thee and thy faction, peevish boy.

Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.

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

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

Som. Away, away, good William de la Pole! We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.

War. 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?

Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege, Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus. Som. 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 yeomar

Plan. My father was attachéd, not attainted,
Condemned to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripened to my will.
For your partaker Pole and you yourself,