The Authorship of " King Henry VI." 197 



"I, Margaret. My heart is kild with grief e, 

 Where I may sit and sigh in endlesse mone, 

 For who's a Traitor, Gloster he is none."^ 



TheFoHo version, on the other hand, assigns the king twenty-five 

 lines of fine poetry, written in the unmistakeable strain of the young 

 Shakespeare, and calculated to enhst the audience's sympathy ^vith 

 the speaker {2 Henry VI, III, i, 198-222) : 



" Ay, Margaret ; my heart is drown'd with grief, 

 Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes. 

 My body round engirt with misery. 

 For what's more miserable than discontent ? 

 Ah ! uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see 

 The map of honuor, truth, and loyalty ; 

 And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come 

 That e'er I prov'd thee false, or fear'd thy faith. 

 What low' ring star now envies thy estate. 

 That these great lords, and Margaret our queen. 

 Do seek subversion of thy harmless life ? 

 Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong ; 

 And as the butcher takes away the calf. 

 And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays, 

 Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house, 

 Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence ; 

 And as the dam runs lowing up and down. 

 Looking the way her harmless young one went, 

 And can do nought but wail her darling's loss ; 

 Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case, 

 With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes 

 Look after him, and cannot do him good ; 

 So mighty are his vowed enemies. 

 His fortunes I will weep ; and, twixt each groan, 

 Say ' Who's a traitor, Gloucester he is none.' " 



This fairmindedness, which impels the poet to see two sides of the 

 situation, and to sympathize with the claims of the feebler perso- 

 nality, is the most notable contribution made by Shakespeare to the 

 psychology of the plays. It not only makes Henry VI's character 

 for the first time worthy of consideration as it appears in the Shake- 



^ As the sense is not quite consecutive, it is possible that a line may have 

 been lost between the first and second verses of this speech. The 1619 

 edition makes no correction. 



