ROB.  H. Not o’er[280] the virtues, but the life it can.

KING.  What, dost thou speak of death? how shouldst thou die?

ROB.  H. By poison and the Prior’s treachery.

QUEEN.  Why, take this sovereign powder at my hands: 
Take it, and live in spite of poison’s power.

DON.  Ay, set him forward.  Powders, quoth ye? hah! 
I am a fool, then, if a little dust,
The shaving of a horn, a Bezoar stone,[281]
Or any antidote have power to stay
The execution of my heart’s resolve. 
Tut, tut! you labour, lovely queen, in vain,
And on a thankless groom your toil bestow. 
Now hath your foe reveng’d you of your foe: 
Robin shall die, if all the world said no.[282]

MAR.  How the wolf howls!  Fly, like a tender kid,
Into thy shepherd’s bosom.  Shield me, love! 
Canst thou not, Robin?  Where shall I be hid? 
O God! these ravens will seize upon thy dove.

ROB.  H. They cannot hurt thee; pray thee, do not fear: 
Base curs will couch, the lion being near.

QUEEN.  How works my powder?

ROB.  H. Very well, fair queen.

KING.  Dost thou feel any ease?

ROB.  H. I shall, I trust, anon: 
Sleep falls upon mine eyes.  O, I must sleep,
And they that love me, do not waken me.

MAR.  Sleep in my lap, and I will sing to thee.

JOHN.  He should not sleep.

ROB.  H. I must, for I must die;
While I live, therefore, let me have some rest.

FITZ.  Ay, let him rest:  the poison urges sleep. 
When he awakes, there is no hope of life.

DON.  Of life!  Now, by the little time I have to live,
He cannot live one hour for your lives.

KING.  Villain! what art thou?

DON.  Why, I am a knight.

CHES.  Thou wert indeed.  If it so please your grace,
I will describe my knowledge of this wretch.

KING.  Do, Chester.

CHES.  This Doncaster, for so the felon hight,
Was by the king, your father, made a knight,
And well in arms he did himself behave. 
Many a bitter storm the wind of rage
Blasted this realm within those woful days,
When the unnatural fights continued
Between your kingly father and his sons. 
This cutthroat, knighted in that time of woe,
Seized on a beauteous nun at Berkhamstead,
As we were marching toward Winchester,
After proud Lincoln was compell’d to yield. 
He took this virgin straying in the field—­
For all the nuns and every covent[283] fled
The dangers that attended on our troops: 
For those sad times too oft did testify,
War’s rage hath no regard to piety—­
She humbly pray’d him, for the love of heaven,
To guide her to her father’s, two miles thence: 
He swore he would, and very well he might,
For to the camp he was a forager. 
Upon the way they came into a wood,
Wherein, in brief, he stripp’d this tender maid: 
Whose lust, when she in vain had long withstood,
Being by strength and torments overlaid,
He did a sacrilegious deed of rape,
And left her bathed in her own tears and blood. 
When she reviv’d, she to her father’s got,
And got her father to make just complaint
Unto your mother, being then in camp.