Act 5, Scene 4

Plains wear Tewkesbury

[March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD, and Soldiers.]
Queen Margaret
2625 Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
2626 But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
2627 What though the mast be now blown overboard,
2628 The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,
2629 And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?
2630 Yet lives our pilot still. Is 't meet that he
2631 Should leave the helm, and like a fearful lad
2632 With tearful eyes add water to the sea,
2633 And give more strength to that which hath too much,
2634 Whiles in his moan the ship splits on the rock,
2635 Which industry and courage might have sav'd?
2636 Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!
2637 Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?
2638 And Montague our topmast; what of him?
2639 Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?
2640 Why, is not Oxford here another anchor,
2641 And Somerset another goodly mast?
2642 The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
2643 And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
2644 For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?
2645 We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
2646 But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
2647 From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wrack,
2648 As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.
2649 And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?
2650 What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?
2651 And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?
2652 All these the enemies to our poor bark?
2653 Say you can swim; alas, 't is but a while!
2654 Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink;
2655 Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,
2656 Or else you famish,—that's a threefold death.
2657 This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
2658 If case some one of you would fly from us,
2659 That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers
2660 More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.
2661 Why, courage then! what cannot be avoided
2662 'T were childish weakness to lament or fear.
Edward, Prince of Wales
2663 Methinks, a woman of this valiant spirit
2664 Should, if a coward heard her speak these words,
2665 Infuse his breast with magnanimity,
2666 And make him, naked, foil a man at arms.
2667 I speak not this as doubting any here;
2668 For, did I but suspect a fearful man,
2669 He should have leave to go away betimes,
2670 Lest in our need he might infect another
2671 And make him of the like spirit to himself.
2672 If any such be here—as God forbid!—
2673 Let him depart before we need his help.
Earl of Oxford
2674 Women and children of so high a courage,
2675 And warriors faint! why, 't were perpetual shame.—
2676 O, brave young prince! thy famous grandfather
2677 Doth live again in thee; long mayst thou live
2678 To bear his image and renew his glories!
Duke of Somerset
2679 And he that will not fight for such a hope,
2680 Go home to bed, and like the owl by day,
2681 If he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at.
Queen Margaret
2682 Thanks, gentle Somerset.—Sweet Oxford, thanks.
Edward, Prince of Wales
2683 And take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.
[Enter a Messenger.]
Messenger
2684 Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand
2685 Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.
Earl of Oxford
2686 I thought no less; it is his policy
2687 To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.
Duke of Somerset
2688 But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.
Queen Margaret
2689 This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.
Earl of Oxford
2690 Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.
[Flourish and march. Enter KING EDWARD, CLARENCE, GLOSTER, and Forces.]
Edward IV
2691 Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood
2692 Which, by the heaven's assistance and your strength,
2693 Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.
2694 I need not add more fuel to your fire,
2695 For, well I wot, ye blaze to burn them out.
2696 Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.
Queen Margaret
2697 Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say,
2698 My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,
2699 Ye see I drink the water of my eyes.
2700 Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,
2701 Is prisoner to the foe, his state usurp'd,
2702 His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,
2703 His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;
2704 And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.
2705 You fight in justice; then, in God's name, lords,
2706 Be valiant and give signal to the fight.
[Exeunt both armies.]

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Notes

TLN 2627rhetorical device
“the mast be now blown overboard”
Margaret builds an extended metaphor — a 'conceit' — that runs for 26 lines and maps her military disaster onto a ship in a storm. The mast blown overboard = Warwick's death at Barnet; the cable and anchor lost = Montague; 'half our sailors swallow'd in the flood' = the slaughtered army. Oxford and Somerset are new mast and anchor; the enemy Yorkists are the rocks, quicksand, and raging sea. The soldier who deserts = a man who tries to swim, walk on sand, or perch on a rock — all three paths end in death.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 2637historical topical
“Warwick was our anchor; what of that? And Montague our topmast”
Margaret names the two men lost at the Battle of Barnet (April 1471), just days before this scene. Warwick — the 'Kingmaker' who had switched from York to Lancaster and was Margaret's most powerful ally — was killed in the rout after Barnet. His brother Montague died in the same battle. Margaret's point is rhetorical: they were the anchor and topmast of the fleet, they are gone, but the ship can still sail with Oxford and Somerset.
historical Holinshed's Chronicleshistorical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 2643archaic vocab
“though unskilful, why not Ned and I”
'Ned' is Margaret's affectionate nickname for Prince Edward — her son, the Lancastrian heir — short for Edward. (The name 'Edward' was commonly shortened to 'Ned' in this period: Ed > Ned.) This Prince Edward is the Lancastrian heir, son of Henry VI; he is NOT Edward IV, who speaks later in this same scene. The two men share the same name, which can confuse modern readers. Margaret is offering herself and her son as the pilot and co-pilot of the storm-tossed ship.
TLN 2650historical topical
“What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit? And Richard but a ragged fatal rock”
Margaret maps the three York brothers onto three types of maritime death: Edward IV is the 'ruthless sea' — open, powerful, deadly; Clarence is 'a quicksand of deceit' — hidden treachery underfoot; Richard is 'a ragged fatal rock' — jagged and implacable. The characterization of Clarence as deceit is earned: in Act 5.1 he had been persuaded by Warwick's messenger (and his wife's intercession) to desert the Yorkists for Lancaster, but then switched back to Edward — double treachery that cost the Lancastrians the battle before Coventry. 'Ragged' means rough and jagged, not tattered.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 2665archaic vocab
“Infuse his breast with magnanimity, And make him, naked, foil a man at arms”
'Magnanimity' derives from Latin magna (great) + animus (spirit) and means greatness of soul — specifically the quality of rising above fear or petty self-interest to act with courage and nobility. Prince Edward says Margaret's speech would give a coward such magnanimity that he could overcome an armed soldier while himself 'naked' (without armour or weapons). 'Naked' here means unarmed, not unclothed.
TLN 2676historical topical
“thy famous grandfather Doth live again in thee”
Oxford is praising Prince Edward — the Lancastrian heir — by comparing him to his grandfather Henry V, the victor of Agincourt and the most celebrated English king of the century. Henry V was Margaret's father-in-law and Henry VI's father. For an Elizabethan audience, 'the famous grandfather' needed no gloss: Henry V's name carried almost legendary weight, and the comparison is the highest compliment Oxford can pay the young prince moments before battle. The irony is sharp: this is also the last scene before Prince Edward is killed at Tewkesbury (in 5.5).
historical The Battle of Agincourt (1415)
TLN 2680cultural context
“like the owl by day, If he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at”
The owl was proverbially a bird of darkness that, when seen abroad in daylight, was mobbed and harassed by other birds. A coward who appears among brave men is equally out of place and equally ridiculous. Somerset is saying: a man who will not fight for such a cause should go home and hide; if he shows himself among warriors, he will be laughed at and stared at like an owl flushed out at noon.
TLN 2698archaic vocab
“My tears gainsay; for every word I speak, Ye see I drink the water of my eyes”
'Gainsay' means to contradict or speak against; here 'my tears gainsay' means 'my tears contradict my words' — she is trying to speak but weeping interrupts her. 'I drink the water of my eyes' is a vivid compressed image: her tears fall into her open mouth as she speaks, so she is literally swallowing her grief even as she tries to voice it. Despite all her fire in the earlier speech, at the moment of battle Margaret breaks down.
TLN 2704rhetorical device
“yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil”
Margaret closes her final battle-speech by pointing physically at Edward IV and calling him 'the wolf.' 'Spoil' means plunder or devastation — what a predator does to its prey. The wolf was a standard emblem of a ruler who devours his own subjects rather than protecting them, the opposite of the shepherd-king ideal. Margaret has just catalogued the devastation of Henry's reign under Yorkist usurpation: the prisoner king, the cancelled statutes, the slaughtered subjects, the spent treasury. Edward is the cause of it all, and he stands within bowshot.