EDWARD THE SECOND Essay Example For Students

EDWARD THE SECOND Essay A monologue from the play by Christopher Marlowe NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Masterpieces of the English Drama. Ed. William Lyon Phelps. New York: American Book Company, 1912. KING EDWARD: Leicester, if gentle words might comfort me,Thy speeches long ago had easd my sorrows,For kind and loving hast thou always been.The griefs of private men are soon allayd;But not of kings. The forest deer, being struck,Runs to an herb that closeth up the wounds;But when the imperial lions flesh is gord,He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw,, highly scorning that the lowly earthShould drink his blood, mounts up to the air:And so it fares with me, whose dauntless mindTh ambitious Mortimer would seek to curb,And that unnatural queen, false Isabel,That thus hath pent and mewd me in a prisonFor such outrageous passions cloy my soul,As with the wings of rancour and disdainFull often am I soaring up to heaven,To plain me to the gods against them both.But when I call to mind I am a king,Methinks I sould revenge me of my wrongs,That Mortimer and Isabel have done.But what are kings, when regiment is gone,But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?My nobles rule; I bear the name of king;I wear the crown; but am controlld by them,By Mortimer, and my unconstant queen,Who spots my nuptial bed with infamy;Whilst I am lodgd within this cave of care,Where sorrow at my elbow still attends,To company my heart with sad laments,That bleeds within me for this strange exchange.But tell me, must I now resign my crown,To make usurping Mortimer a king?