Impulse and History Theme Analysis

LAWYER: Unless my study and my books be false,
The argument you held was wrong in you […] in sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.

RICHARD PLANTAGENET: Now, Somerset, where is your argument?

SOMERSET: Here in my scabbard, meditating that
Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

RICHARD PLANTAGENET: Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our roses;
For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
The truth on our side.

SOMERSET: No, Plantagenet,
‘Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks
Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.

RICHARD PLANTAGENET: Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?

SOMERSET: Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?

WARWICK: And here I prophesy: 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.

EXETER: Ay, we may march in England or in France,
Not seeing what is likely to ensue.
This late dissension grown betwixt the peers
Burns under feigned ashes of forged love
And will at last break out into a flame:
As fester’d members rot but by degree,
Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,
So will this base and envious discord breed.
And now I fear that fatal prophecy
Which in the time of Henry named the Fifth
Was in the mouth of every sucking babe;
That Henry born at Monmouth should win all
And Henry born at Windsor lose all:
Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish
His days may finish ere that hapless time.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
And see the cities and the towns defaced
By wasting ruin of the cruel foe.
As looks the mother on her lowly babe
When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
See, see the pining malady of France;
Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,
Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.
O, turn thy edged sword another way;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help.
One drop of blood drawn from thy country’s bosom
Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore:
Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,
And wash away thy country’s stained spots.

BURGUNDY: Either she hath bewitch’d me with her words,
Or nature makes me suddenly relent.

[…] I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers
Have batter’d me like roaring cannon-shot,
And made me almost yield upon my knees.

KING HENRY VI: Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick men,
When for so slight and frivolous a cause
Such factious emulations shall arise!
Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,
Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.

[…] And you, my lords, remember where we are,
In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation:
If they perceive dissension in our looks
And that within ourselves we disagree,
How will their grudging stomachs be provoked
To wilful disobedience, and rebel!
[…] I see no reason, if I wear this rose,

Putting on a red rose

That any one should therefore be suspicious
I more incline to Somerset than York:
Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both:
[…] Go cheerfully together and digest
Your angry choler on your enemies.

EXETER: Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
For, had the passions of thy heart burst out,
I fear we should have seen decipher’d there
More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
Than yet can be imagined or supposed.
But howsoe’er, no simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility,
This shouldering of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that it doth presage some ill event.
‘Tis much when sceptres are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the rain, there begins confusion.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: I am with child, ye bloody homicides:
Murder not then the fruit within my womb,
Although ye hale me to a violent death.

[…] YORK: She and the Dauphin have been juggling:
I did imagine what would be her refuge.

[…] JOAN LA PUCELLE: You are deceived; my child is none of his:
It was Alanson that enjoy’d my love.

YORK: Alanson! that notorious Machiavel!
It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: O, give me leave, I have deluded you:
‘Twas neither Charles nor yet the duke I named,
But Reignier, king of Naples, that prevail’d.

[…] YORK: Why, here’s a girl! I think she knows not well,
There were so many, whom she may accuse.

WARWICK: It’s sign she hath been liberal and free.

YORK: And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.
Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee:
Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.

YORK: Is all our travail turn’d to this effect?
After the slaughter of so many peers,
So many captains, gentlemen and soldiers,
That in this quarrel have been overthrown
And sold their bodies for their country benefit,
Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?
Have we not lost most part of all the towns,
By treason, falsehood and by treachery,
Our great progenitors had conquered?
O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief
The utter loss of all the realm of France.

KING HENRY VI: Whether it be through force of your report,
[…] or for that
My tender youth was never yet attaint
With any passion of inflaming love,
I cannot tell; but this I am assured,
I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
As I am sick with working of my thoughts.
Take, therefore, shipping; post, my lord, to France;
Agree to any covenants, and procure
That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come
To cross the seas to England and be crown’d
King Henry’s faithful and anointed queen:
[…]
Be gone, I say; for, till you do return,
I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.