58 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



Gardens, where the white and red roses are defiantly 

 plucked as party badges : 



" Plantagenet. 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. 



" Somerset. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, 

 But dare maintain the party of the truth, 

 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. 



" Warwick. I love no colours ; and, without all colour 

 Of base insinuating flattery, 

 I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet. 



" Suffolk. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset ; 

 And say withal, I think he held the right." 



Most fittingly the scene closes with the prophecy of 



Warwick 



" This brawl to-day, 



Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden, 

 Shall send, between the red rose and the white, 

 A thousand souls to death and deadly night." 



One of the most penetrating and pathetic passages in 

 the historical plays of our great poet occurs in the third 

 part of "Henry VI." (act ii v so. 4), where the king on the 

 wasted field beholds first a son that has killed his father, 

 and next a father that has killed his son, and exclaims 

 in painful soliloquy over the dead boy 



" Woe above woe ! grief more than common grief ! 

 O, that my death would stay these ruthf ul deeds ! 

 0, pity, pity, gentle Heaven, pity ! 

 The red rose and the white are on his face, 

 The fatal colours of our striving houses : 

 The one, his purple blood right well resembles ; 

 The other, his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth : 

 Wither one rose, and let the other flourish ; 

 If you contend, a thousand lives must wither." 



