Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
My breast can better brook thy dagger's point
Than can my ears that tragic history.
But wherefore dost thou come? is 't for my life?

GLOSTER.
Think'st thou I am an executioner?

KING HENRY.
A persecutor, I am sure, thou art;
If murdering innocents be executing,
Why, then thou are an executioner.

GLOSTER.
Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.

KING HENRY.
Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,
Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
And thus I prophesy,--that many a thousand,
Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,
And many an old man's sigh and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye,--
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate,
And orphans for their parents' timeless death,--
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,