How irksome is this music to my heart! When such strings jar, what hope of harmony? I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.

[Enter a Townsman of Saint Alban's, crying, "A miracle!"

Glo. What means this noise?

Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim? 60 Towns. A miracle! a miracle!

Suf. Come to the king; tell him what miracle.

Towns. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine,

Within this half-hour, hath receiv'd his sight; A man that ne'er saw in his life before.

King. Now, God be prais'd, that to believing souls

Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!

Enter the Mayor of Saint Alban's and his brethren; and SIMPCOX, borne between two persons in a chair, his Wife and a crowd following.

Car. See where the townsmen, on procession,

Come to present your highness with the man. King. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,

Although by sight his sin be multiplied.

70

What, and wouldst climb a tree?) Simp. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.

Wife. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.

100

Glo. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture so.

Simp. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons,

And made me climb, with danger of my life.

But that, i.e. only that (tree).

'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.

Glo. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart:

Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;

And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to thee,
Or to the meanest groom.

King. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,

Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!

Queen. Gloster, see here the taintures of thy nest,

And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best. Glo. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal,

190

How I have lov'd my king and commonweal:
And, for my wife, I know not how it stands;
Sorry I am to hear what I have heard:
Noble she is, but if she have forgot
Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such
As, like to pitch, defile nobility,

I banish her my bed and company,
And give her, as a prey, to law and shame,
That hath dishonoured Gloster's honest name.
King. Well, for this night we will repose us
here:

200

To-morrow toward London back again, To look into this business thoroughly, And call these foul offenders to their answers; And poise the cause in justice' equal scales, Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails. [Flourish. Exeunt.

1 Sort, company.

2 Naughty, worthless.

3 Lewdly, wickedly.

4 Practis'd, plotted.

5 Tainture, defilement.