Act 2, Scene 4

London. The Temple-garden.

[Enter the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick; Richard Plantagenet, Vernon, and another Lawyer.]
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
837 Great lords and gentlemen,
838 what means this silence?
839 Dare no man answer in a case of truth?
Earl of Suffolk
840 Within the Temple-hall we were too loud;
841 The garden here is more convenient.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
842 Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;
843 Or else was wrangling Somerset in the error?
Earl of Suffolk
844 Faith, I have been a truant in the law,
845 And never yet could frame my will to it;
846 And therefore frame the law unto my will.
Duke of Somerset
847 Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.
Earl of Warwick
848 Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
849 Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
850 Between two blades, which bears the better temper:
851 Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
852 Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye;
853 I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment:
854 But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
855 Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
856 Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
857 The truth appears so naked on my side
858 That any purblind eye may find it out.
Duke of Somerset
859 And on my side it is so well apparell'd,
860 So clear, so shining and so evident,
861 That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
862 Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
863 In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
864 Let him that is a true-born gentleman
865 And stands upon the honor of his birth,
866 If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
867 From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
Duke of Somerset
868 Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
869 But dare maintain the party of the truth,
870 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
Earl of Warwick
871 I love no colours, and without all colour
872 Of base insinuating flattery
873 I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
Earl of Suffolk
874 I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,
875 And say withal I think he held the right.
Vernon
876 Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more,
877 Till you conclude that he, upon whose side
878 The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree
879 Shall yield the other in the right opinion.
Duke of Somerset
880 Good Master Vernon, it is well objected:
881 If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
882 And I.
Vernon
883 Then for the truth and plainness of the case,
884 I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,
885 Giving my verdict on the white rose side.
Duke of Somerset
886 Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,
887 Lest bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
888 And fall on my side so, against your will.
Vernon
889 If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
890 Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt
891 And keep me on the side where still I am.
Duke of Somerset
892 Well, well, come on: who else?
Lawyer
893 Unless my study and my books be false,
894 The argument you held was wrong in you;
[To Somerset.]
Lawyer
895 In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
896 Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
Duke of Somerset
897 Here in my scabbard, meditating that
898 Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
899 Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our roses;
900 For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
901 The truth on our side.
Duke of Somerset
902 No, Plantagenet,
903 'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks
904 Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,
905 And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
906 Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
Duke of Somerset
907 Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
908 Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;
909 Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
910 SOMERSET. Well, I 'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,
911 That shall maintain what I have said is true,
912 Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
913 Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,
914 I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.
Earl of Suffolk
915 Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
916 Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and thee.
Earl of Suffolk
917 I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.
Duke of Somerset
918 Away, away, good William de la Pole!
919 We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.
Earl of Warwick
920 Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;
921 His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,
922 Third son to the third Edward King of England:
923 Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
924 He bears him on the place's privilege,
925 Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus.
Duke of Somerset
926 By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words
927 On any plot of ground in Christendom.
928 Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,
929 For treason executed in our late king's days?
930 And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted,
931 Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?
932 His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
933 And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
934 My father was attached, not attainted,
935 Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
936 And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
937 Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
938 For your partaker Pole and you yourself,
939 I'll note you in my book of memory,
940 To scourge you for this apprehension:
941 Look to it well and say you are well warn'd.
Duke of Somerset
942 Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;
943 And know us by these colors for thy foes,
944 For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
945 And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,
946 As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
947 Will I for ever and my faction wear,
948 Until it wither with me to my grave,
949 Or flourish to the height of my degree.
Earl of Suffolk
950 Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!
951 And so farewell until I meet thee next.
[Exit.]
Duke of Somerset
952 Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious Richard.
[Exit.]
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
953 How I am braved and must perforce endure it!
Earl of Warwick
954 This blot that they object against your house
955 Shall be wiped out in the next parliament
956 Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;
957 And if thou be not then created York,
958 I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
959 Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
960 Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
961 Will I upon thy party wear this rose:
962 And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,
963 Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden,
964 Shall send between the red rose and the white
965 A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
966 Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you,
967 That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
Vernon
968 In your behalf still will I wear the same.
Lawyer
969 And so will I.
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
970 Thanks, gentle sir.
971 Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say
972 This quarrel will drink blood another day.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 840historical topical
“Within the Temple-hall we were too loud”
The Temple was one of the Inns of Court, the London law schools where barristers were trained and practised. The 'Temple-hall' is its great dining hall, used for moots (practice debates) and legal argument. Suffolk says the indoor hall was too public for a quarrel this hot; the garden outside offers privacy. The Inns of Court are still in use today near Fleet Street.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 848rhetorical device
“Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch”
Warwick uses an extended comparison called a 'list' or 'catalogue' -- five parallel 'Between two X...' clauses, each naming a contest requiring a judge (hawks, dogs, blades, horses, girls) -- before landing the joke that in 'nice sharp quillets of the law' he is 'no wiser than a daw' (a jackdaw, a noisy but brainless bird). The five comparisons set him up as a man of practical judgment who is out of his depth in fine legal points.
TLN 854archaic vocab
“nice sharp quillets of the law”
'Quillets' means subtle legal distinctions or quibbles -- fine-spun points of argument that a non-lawyer would find impossible to follow. 'Nice' here means over-refined or overly precise, not pleasant. Warwick is saying he has no skill in splitting legal hairs.
TLN 863archaic vocab
“In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts”
'Dumb significants' means silent signs or gestures -- actions that stand in for words. Richard is asking each man to declare his allegiance not by speaking (which no one has dared do) but by the physical act of plucking a rose. It is a call for a wordless vote.
TLN 867historical topical
“pluck a white rose with me”
This is the founding moment of the Wars of the Roses: York plucks a white rose (his faction's emblem) and Somerset plucks a red rose. Both belonged to the royal house of Plantagenet descended from Edward III, but through different sons, giving each a claim to the crown. Shakespeare invented this scene in the Temple garden; the rose badges were real, but historians did not yet call the conflict 'the Wars of the Roses' -- that phrase came centuries later. Warwick's lines later in the scene warn that this quarrel will send 'a thousand souls to death and deadly night.'
historical The Wars of the Roseshistorical Edward III and his seven sons
TLN 906wordplay
“Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset”
A 'canker' is a disease-worm (a caterpillar or grub) that bores into a rosebud and destroys it from within; it is also a spreading sore or ulcer. Richard accuses Somerset's cause of being rotten at the core. Somerset retaliates by noting every rose has thorns. The exchange turns the roses themselves into weapons: canker-worm versus piercing thorn. Both images anticipate the bloody war to come.
TLN 916historical topical
“Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and thee”
'Pole' is Suffolk's family name: William de la Pole. Richard uses it as a contemptuous tag rather than his title 'Earl of Suffolk,' reducing him from noble to mere family name. 'Proud' was a standard insult among Elizabethan aristocrats, implying overreach beyond one's proper place. Suffolk is being told he is not rank enough to shield Somerset from York's scorn.
TLN 919historical topical
“We grace the yeoman by conversing with him”
Somerset calls Richard a 'yeoman' -- a free farmer, the class just below gentleman -- to deny him noble status. Because Richard's father (the Earl of Cambridge) was executed for treason, the attainder stripped the family of its rank, technically making Richard a commoner until Parliament restored him. Somerset's insult is legally pointed: by the feudal principle of attainder, treason 'corrupted the blood' and cancelled all titles in the traitor's line. Warwick immediately challenges this.
historical The Southampton plot
TLN 921historical topical
“His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence, Third son to the third Edward King of England”
Warwick asserts that Richard Plantagenet descends from Lionel of Clarence, the second surviving son of Edward III ('the third Edward') -- which would make the Yorkist line senior to Lancaster, which descends from Edward's third surviving son, John of Gaunt. This is the genealogical core of the Yorkist claim to the throne: if descent from an older son counts more than which branch actually took the crown, then York outranks Lancaster. The full family tree was explained by the dying Mortimer to Richard in the previous scene (2.5).
historical Edward III and his seven sons
TLN 928historical topical
“Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge, For treason executed in our late king's days”
Somerset raises the most damaging fact against Richard: his father, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, was beheaded by Henry V ('our late king') in 1415 for plotting to put Edmund Mortimer on the throne. Under the medieval law of attainder, a traitor's 'corruption of blood' passed to his children, stripping them of rank and inheritance. Somerset is saying Richard has no right to call himself a gentleman at all until Parliament reverses the attainder.
historical The Southampton plothistorical Edward III and his seven sons
TLN 945archaic vocab
“this pale and angry rose, As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate”
'Cognizance' is a heraldic term for a badge or emblem worn to identify whose retinue you belong to -- like a modern team jersey. Richard declares the white rose his personal badge of faction and enmity. 'Blood-drinking hate' means a hatred so fierce it thirsts for blood; paired with 'pale and angry,' it makes the white rose into something vengeful rather than innocent.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 962historical topical
“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”
Warwick steps outside the quarrel and delivers a choric prophecy: what looks like a garden argument will become a civil war that kills thousands. The word 'faction' means a partisan group willing to fight for power -- the word carried very negative overtones in Shakespeare's England, where factional nobility was blamed for the realm's weakness. Shakespeare places the prophecy here to make the audience see the entire scene retrospectively as the seed of the Wars of the Roses.
historical The Wars of the Roseshistorical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)