Act 5, Scene 2

Saint Alban's.

[Alarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK.]
Earl of Warwick
2975 Clifford of Cumberland, 't is Warwick calls;
2976 And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,
2977 Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum
2978 And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,
2979 Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me!
2980 Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,
2981 Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms.—
[Enter YORK.]
Earl of Warwick
2982 How now, my noble lord! what, all afoot?
Richard, Duke of York
2983 The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed,
2984 But match to match I have encount'red him,
2985 And made a prey for carrion kites and crows
2986 Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.
[Enter old CLIFFORD.]
Earl of Warwick
2987 Of one or both of us the time is come.
Richard, Duke of York
2988 Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,
2989 For I myself must hunt this deer to death.
Earl of Warwick
2990 Then, nobly, York; 't is for a crown thou fight'st.—
2991 As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,
2992 It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.
[Exit.]
Lord Clifford
2993 What seest thou in me, York? why dost thou pause?
Richard, Duke of York
2994 With thy brave bearing should I be in love
2995 But that thou art so fast mine enemy.
Lord Clifford
2996 Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem
2997 But that 't is shown ignobly and in treason.
Richard, Duke of York
2998 So let it help me now against thy sword
2999 As I in justice and true right express it!
Lord Clifford
3000 My soul and body on the action both!
Richard, Duke of York
3001 A dreadful lay!—Address thee instantly.
[They fight, and Clifford falls.]
Lord Clifford
3002 La fin couronne les oeuvres.
[Dies.]
Richard, Duke of York
3003 Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.
3004 Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!
[Exit.]
[Enter young CLIFFORD.]
Young Clifford
3005 Shame and confusion! all is on the rout;
3006 Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
3007 Where it should guard.—O war, thou son of hell,
3008 Whom angry heavens do make their minister,
3009 Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part
3010 Hot coals of vengeance!—Let no soldier fly.
3011 He that is truly dedicate to war
3012 Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself
3013 Hath not essentially but by circumstance
3014 The name of valour.—
[Seeing his dead father.]
Young Clifford
3015 O, let the vile world end,
3016 And the premised flames of the last day
3017 Knit earth and heaven together!
3018 Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,
3019 Particularities and petty sounds
3020 To cease!—Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
3021 To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
3022 The silver livery of advised age,
3023 And in thy reverence and thy chair-days, thus
3024 To die in ruffian battle?—Even at this sight
3025 My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 't is mine
3026 It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
3027 No more will I their babes; tears virginal
3028 Shall be to me even as the dew to fire,
3029 And beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims
3030 Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
3031 Henceforth I will not have to do with pity;
3032 Meet I an infant of the house of York,
3033 Into as many gobbets will I cut it
3034 As wild Medea young Absyrtus did.
3035 In cruelty will I seek out my fame.—
3036 Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house:
3037 As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,
3038 So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;
3039 But then Aeneas bare a living load,
3040 Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.
[Exit, bearing off his father. Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed.]
Richard Plantagenet
3041 So, lie thou there;
3042 For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,
3043 The Castle in Saint Alban's, Somerset
3044 Hath made the wizard famous in his death.
3045 Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still;
3046 Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.
[Exit.]
[Fight: excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others.]
Queen Margaret
3047 Away, my lord! you are slow; for shame, away!
King Henry VI
3048 Can we outrun the heavens? good Margaret, stay.
Queen Margaret
3049 What are you made of? you'll nor fight nor fly;
3050 Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,
3051 To give the enemy way, and to secure us
3052 By what we can, which can no more but fly.
[Alarum afar off.]
Queen Margaret
3053 If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom
3054 Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape,
3055 As well we may, if not through your neglect,
3056 We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,
3057 And where this breach now in our fortunes made
3058 May readily be stopp'd.
[Enter young CLIFFORD.]
Young Clifford
3059 But that my heart's on future mischief set,
3060 I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly.
3061 But fly you must; uncurable discomfit
3062 Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.
3063 Away, for your relief! and we will live
3064 To see their day and them our fortune give.
3065 Away, my lord, away!
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2976historical topical
“if thou dost not hide thee from the bear”
Warwick uses 'the bear' as a heraldic taunt. The chained bear and ragged staff was the badge of the Nevilles, earls of Warwick — so Warwick is telling Clifford to face his own enemy's emblem and come out to fight.
TLN 2989rhetorical device
“I myself must hunt this deer to death”
York uses a deer-hunt metaphor to claim exclusive right to kill Clifford: he dismisses Warwick and tells him to find 'some other chase,' because this is York's quarry alone. The hunt is a standard Elizabethan figure for pursuit in battle or revenge.
TLN 3001archaic vocab
“A dreadful lay!—Address thee instantly”
'Lay' here means a wager or stake — Clifford has just declared that he bets both his soul and his body on the outcome ('My soul and body on the action both!'). York calls it a 'dreadful lay' because the stakes are absolute: one man will lose everything. 'Address thee' means 'prepare yourself' or 'make ready to fight.'
TLN 3002cultural context
“La fin couronne les oeuvres”
This is a French proverb meaning 'The end crowns the works' — equivalent to the English 'the end crowns all.' Clifford speaks it as his dying words, accepting that a man is judged by how his life ends. He dies in battle against York, so he chooses a soldier's ending.
TLN 3016biblical allusion
“the premised flames of the last day”
Young Clifford calls for the fires of the Last Judgment — the biblical Day of Doom when God destroys the world in fire — to destroy everything at once. 'Premised flames' means the foretold, promised fires of that final day. He has just found his father's corpse and is so overwhelmed that he wishes the end of all things.
TLN 3022archaic vocab
“silver livery of advised age, And in thy reverence and thy chair-days”
'Silver livery of advised age' means the white hair of prudent old age — the uniform ('livery') that age confers. 'Chair-days' are the days when an old man sits quietly in a chair by the fire: Young Clifford asks whether his father was not supposed to live out those peaceful final years in honor rather than die in battle.
TLN 3034classical allusion
“as wild Medea young Absyrtus did”
Medea was a sorceress of Greek myth who killed her own younger brother Absyrtus, cut his body into pieces, and scattered the fragments to delay her father's pursuit. Young Clifford swears he will cut York infants into 'gobbets' (chunks of flesh) just as ruthlessly — using one of antiquity's most extreme images of calculated cruelty.
TLN 3037classical allusion
“As did Aeneas old Anchises bear, So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders”
Young Clifford lifts his dead father's body from the battlefield as Aeneas carried his aged father Anchises out of burning Troy on his shoulders — the classical image of devoted filial duty. But he points out the crucial difference: 'Aeneas bare a living load'; his father is dead weight.
classical Aeneas and Anchises
TLN 3042historical topical
“underneath an alehouse' paltry sign, The Castle in Saint Alban's, Somerset Hath made the wizard famous in his death”
Richard Plantagenet notes that Somerset has been killed beneath the sign of an alehouse called the Castle — fulfilling the prophecy made earlier in the play that Somerset should 'shun castles.' The spirit conjured by the witch Margery Jourdain told him to avoid castles; Somerset, dying under a painted inn-sign, cannot escape even a picture of one. Richard calls the conjurer ('the wizard') vindicated in death.
historical The First Battle of St Albanshistorical Eleanor Cobham and the Witchcraft Trial
TLN 3048historical topical
“Can we outrun the heavens? good Margaret, stay”
Henry's passive question — can we outrun heaven's will? — against Margaret's furious practicality ('Away, my lord! you are slow') captures the play's central contrast: the king who defers to God's providence and does nothing, and the queen who acts. The exchange shows who really commands the Lancastrian side as the battle is lost.
historical The First Battle of St Albans