{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/kr3/kr3.htm","path":"sks/kr3/kr3.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/kr3/kr3.htm","text":"KING RICHARD III\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nKING EDWARD\nThe Fourth (KING EDWARD IV:)\nEDWARD Prince of Wales, (PRINCE EDWARD:) |\nafterwards King Edward V., | sons to\n| the King.\nRICHARD Duke of York, (YORK:) |\nGEORGE Duke of Clarence, (CLARENCE:) |\n|\nRICHARD Duke of Gloucester, (GLOUCESTER:) | Brothers to\nafterwards King Richard III., | the King.\n(KING RICHARD III:) |\nA young son of Clarence. (Boy:)\nHENRY Earl of Richmond, (RICHMOND:)\nafterwards King Henry VII.\nCARDINAL BOURCHIER Archbishop of Canterbury. (CARDINAL:)\nTHOMAS ROTHERHAM Archbishop of York. (ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:)\nJOHN MORTON Bishop of Ely. (BISHOP OF ELY:)\nDUKE of BUCKINGHAM (BUCKINGHAM:)\nDUKE of NORFOLK (NORFOLK:)\nEARL of SURREY His son. (SURREY:)\nEARL RIVERS Brother to Elizabeth. (RIVERS:)\nMARQUIS OF DORSET (DORSET:) |\n| Sons to Elizabeth.\nLORD GREY (GREY:) |\nEARL of OXFORD (OXFORD:)\nLORD HASTINGS (HASTINGS:)\nLORD STANLEY (STANLEY:) Called also EARL of DERBY. (DERBY:)\nLORD LOVEL (LOVEL:)\nSIR THOMAS VAUGHAN (VAUGHAN:)\nSIR RICHARD\nRATCLIFF (RATCLIFF:)\nSIR WILLIAM\nCATESBY (CATESBY:)\nSIR JAMES TYRREL (TYRREL:)\nSIR JAMES BLOUNT (BLOUNT:)\nSIR WALTER HERBERT (HERBERT:)\nSIR ROBERT\nBRAKENBURY Lieutenant of the Tower. (BRAKENBURY:)\nCHRISTOPHER\nURSWICK A priest. (CHRISTOPHER:)\nAnother Priest. (Priest:)\nTRESSEL |\n| Gentlemen attending on the Lady Anne.\nBERKELEY | (Gentleman:)\nLord Mayor of London. (Lord Mayor:)\nSheriff of Wiltshire. (Sheriff:)\nELIZABETH Queen to King Edward IV. (QUEEN ELIZABETH:)\nMARGARET Widow of King Henry VI. (QUEEN MARGARET:)\nDUCHESS of YORK Mother to King Edward IV.\nLADY ANNE Widow of Edward Prince of Wales, son to King Henry VI.;\nafterwards married to Richard.\nA young Daughter of Clarence [MARGARET PLANTAGENET] (Girl:)\nGhosts of those murdered by Richard III.,\nLords and other Attendants; a Pursuivant\nScrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers\nSoldiers, &c.\n(Ghost of Prince Edward:)\n(Ghost of King Henry VI:)\n(Ghost of CLARENCE:)\n(Ghost of RIVERS:)\n(Ghost of GREY:)\n(Ghost of VAUGHAN:)\n(Ghost of HASTING:)\n(Ghosts of young Princes:)\n(Ghost of LADY ANNE:)\n(Ghost of BUCKINGHAM:)\n(Pursuivant:)\n(Scrivener:)\n(First Citizen:)\n(Second Citizen:)\n(Third Citizen:)\n(First Murderer:)\n(Second Murderer:)\n(Messenger:)\n(Second Messenger:)\n(Third Messenger:)\n(Fourth Messenger:)\nSCENE England.\nKING RICHARD III\nACT I\nSCENE I London. A street.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER, solus]\nGLOUCESTER Now is the winter of our discontent\nMade glorious summer by this sun of York;\nAnd all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\nIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\nNow are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\nOur bruised arms hung up for monuments;\nOur stern alarums changed to merry meetings,\nOur dreadful marches to delightful measures.\nGrim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;\nAnd now, instead of mounting barded steeds\nTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\nHe capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\nTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\nBut I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,\nNor made to court an amorous looking-glass;\nI, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\nTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph;\nI, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\nCheated of feature by dissembling nature,\nDeformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time\nInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,\nAnd that so lamely and unfashionable\nThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them;\nWhy, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\nHave no delight to pass away the time,\nUnless to spy my shadow in the sun\nAnd descant on mine own deformity:\nAnd therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,\nTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,\nI am determined to prove a villain\nAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.\nPlots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\nBy drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,\nTo set my brother Clarence and the king\nIn deadly hate the one against the other:\nAnd if King Edward be as true and just\nAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,\nThis day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,\nAbout a prophecy, which says that 'G'\nOf Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\nDive, thoughts, down to my soul: here\nClarence comes.\n[Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY]\nBrother, good day; what means this armed guard\nThat waits upon your grace?\nCLARENCE His majesty\nTendering my person's safety, hath appointed\nThis conduct to convey me to the Tower.\nGLOUCESTER Upon what cause?\nCLARENCE Because my name is George.\nGLOUCESTER Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;\nHe should, for that, commit your godfathers:\nO, belike his majesty hath some intent\nThat you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.\nBut what's the matter, Clarence? may I know?\nCLARENCE Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\nAs yet I do not: but, as I can learn,\nHe hearkens after prophecies and dreams;\nAnd from the cross-row plucks the letter G.\nAnd says a wizard told him that by G\nHis issue disinherited should be;\nAnd, for my name of George begins with G,\nIt follows in his thought that I am he.\nThese, as I learn, and such like toys as these\nHave moved his highness to commit me now.\nGLOUCESTER Why, this it is, when men are ruled by women:\n'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower:\nMy Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\nThat tempers him to this extremity.\nWas it not she and that good man of worship,\nAnthony Woodville, her brother there,\nThat made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\nFrom whence this present day he is deliver'd?\nWe are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\nCLARENCE By heaven, I think there's no man is secure\nBut the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds\nThat trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.\nHeard ye not what an humble suppliant\nLord hastings was to her for his delivery?\nGLOUCESTER Humbly complaining to her deity\nGot my lord chamberlain his liberty.\nI'll tell you what; I think it is our way,\nIf we will keep in favour with the king,\nTo be her men and wear her livery:\nThe jealous o'erworn widow and herself,\nSince that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen.\nAre mighty gossips in this monarchy.\nBRAKENBURY I beseech your graces both to pardon me;\nHis majesty hath straitly given in charge\nThat no man shall have private conference,\nOf what degree soever, with his brother.\nGLOUCESTER Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\nYou may partake of any thing we say:\nWe speak no treason, man: we say the king\nIs wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\nWell struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\nWe say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\nA cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\nAnd that the queen's kindred are made gentle-folks:\nHow say you sir? Can you deny all this?\nBRAKENBURY With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.\nGLOUCESTER Naught to do with mistress Shore! I tell thee, fellow,\nHe that doth naught with her, excepting one,\nWere best he do it secretly, alone.\nBRAKENBURY What one, my lord?\nGLOUCESTER Her husband, knave: wouldst thou betray me?\nBRAKENBURY I beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal\nForbear your conference with the noble duke.\nCLARENCE We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.\nGLOUCESTER We are the queen's abjects, and must obey.\nBrother, farewell: I will unto the king;\nAnd whatsoever you will employ me in,\nWere it to call King Edward's widow sister,\nI will perform it to enfranchise you.\nMeantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\nTouches me deeper than you can imagine.\nCLARENCE I know it pleaseth neither of us well.\nGLOUCESTER Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;\nMeantime, have patience.\nCLARENCE I must perforce. Farewell.\n[Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and Guard]\nGLOUCESTER Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\nSimple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,\nThat I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\nIf heaven will take the present at our hands.\nBut who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings?\n[Enter HASTINGS]\nHASTINGS Good time of day unto my gracious lord!\nGLOUCESTER As much unto my good lord chamberlain!\nWell are you welcome to the open air.\nHow hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\nHASTINGS With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:\nBut I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\nThat were the cause of my imprisonment.\nGLOUCESTER No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\nFor they that were your enemies are his,\nAnd have prevail'd as much on him as you.\nHASTINGS More pity that the eagle should be mew'd,\nWhile kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\nGLOUCESTER What news abroad?\nHASTINGS No news so bad abroad as this at home;\nThe King is sickly, weak and melancholy,\nAnd his physicians fear him mightily.\nGLOUCESTER Now, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.\nO, he hath kept an evil diet long,\nAnd overmuch consumed his royal person:\n'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\nWhat, is he in his bed?\nHASTINGS He is.\nGLOUCESTER Go you before, and I will follow you.\n[Exit HASTINGS]\nHe cannot live, I hope; and must not die\nTill George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.\nI'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,\nWith lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\nAnd, if I fall not in my deep intent,\nClarence hath not another day to live:\nWhich done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\nAnd leave the world for me to bustle in!\nFor then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\nWhat though I kill'd her husband and her father?\nThe readiest way to make the wench amends\nIs to become her husband and her father:\nThe which will I; not all so much for love\nAs for another secret close intent,\nBy marrying her which I must reach unto.\nBut yet I run before my horse to market:\nClarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:\nWhen they are gone, then must I count my gains.\n[Exit]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT I\nSCENE II The same. Another street.\n[Enter the corpse of KING HENRY the Sixth, Gentlemen\nwith halberds to guard it; LADY ANNE being the mourner]\nLADY ANNE Set down, set down your honourable load,\nIf honour may be shrouded in a hearse,\nWhilst I awhile obsequiously lament\nThe untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\nPoor key-cold figure of a holy king!\nPale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\nThou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\nBe it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,\nTo hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,\nWife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,\nStabb'd by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!\nLo, in these windows that let forth thy life,\nI pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\nCursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!\nCursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!\nCursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\nMore direful hap betide that hated wretch,\nThat makes us wretched by the death of thee,\nThan I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\nOr any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\nIf ever he have child, abortive be it,\nProdigious, and untimely brought to light,\nWhose ugly and unnatural aspect\nMay fright the hopeful mother at the view;\nAnd that be heir to his unhappiness!\nIf ever he have wife, let her he made\nA miserable by the death of him\nAs I am made by my poor lord and thee!\nCome, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\nTaken from Paul's to be interred there;\nAnd still, as you are weary of the weight,\nRest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER]\nGLOUCESTER Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\nLADY ANNE What black magician conjures up this fiend,\nTo stop devoted charitable deeds?\nGLOUCESTER Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\nI'll make a corse of him that disobeys.\nGentleman My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.\nGLOUCESTER Unmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:\nAdvance thy halbert higher than my breast,\nOr, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,\nAnd spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\nLADY ANNE What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?\nAlas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,\nAnd mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\nAvaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\nThou hadst but power over his mortal body,\nHis soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.\nGLOUCESTER Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\nLADY ANNE Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;\nFor thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,\nFill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\nIf thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\nBehold this pattern of thy butcheries.\nO, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds\nOpen their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!\nBlush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;\nFor 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\nFrom cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;\nThy deed, inhuman and unnatural,\nProvokes this deluge most unnatural.\nO God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!\nO earth, which this blood drink'st revenge his death!\nEither heaven with lightning strike the\nmurderer dead,\nOr earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\nAs thou dost swallow up this good king's blood\nWhich his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!\nGLOUCESTER Lady, you know no rules of charity,\nWhich renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\nLADY ANNE Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor man:\nNo beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\nGLOUCESTER But I know none, and therefore am no beast.\nLADY ANNE O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\nGLOUCESTER More wonderful, when angels are so angry.\nVouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\nOf these supposed-evils, to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, but to acquit myself.\nLADY ANNE Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,\nFor these known evils, but to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.\nGLOUCESTER Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\nSome patient leisure to excuse myself.\nLADY ANNE Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\nNo excuse current, but to hang thyself.\nGLOUCESTER By such despair, I should accuse myself.\nLADY ANNE And, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused;\nFor doing worthy vengeance on thyself,\nWhich didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\nGLOUCESTER Say that I slew them not?\nLADY ANNE Why, then they are not dead:\nBut dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee.\nGLOUCESTER I did not kill your husband.\nLADY ANNE Why, then he is alive.\nGLOUCESTER Nay, he is dead; and slain by Edward's hand.\nLADY ANNE In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\nThy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;\nThe which thou once didst bend against her breast,\nBut that thy brothers beat aside the point.\nGLOUCESTER I was provoked by her slanderous tongue,\nwhich laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\nLADY ANNE Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.\nWhich never dreamt on aught but butcheries:\nDidst thou not kill this king?\nGLOUCESTER I grant ye.\nLADY ANNE Dost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too\nThou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\nO, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\nGLOUCESTER The fitter for the King of heaven, that hath him.\nLADY ANNE He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\nGLOUCESTER Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither;\nFor he was fitter for that place than earth.\nLADY ANNE And thou unfit for any place but hell.\nGLOUCESTER Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\nLADY ANNE Some dungeon.\nGLOUCESTER Your bed-chamber.\nLADY ANNE I'll rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\nGLOUCESTER So will it, madam till I lie with you.\nLADY ANNE I hope so.\nGLOUCESTER I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\nTo leave this keen encounter of our wits,\nAnd fall somewhat into a slower method,\nIs not the causer of the timeless deaths\nOf these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\nAs blameful as the executioner?\nLADY ANNE Thou art the cause, and most accursed effect.\nGLOUCESTER Your beauty was the cause of that effect;\nYour beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep\nTo undertake the death of all the world,\nSo I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\nLADY ANNE If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\nThese nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\nGLOUCESTER These eyes could never endure sweet beauty's wreck;\nYou should not blemish it, if I stood by:\nAs all the world is cheered by the sun,\nSo I by that; it is my day, my life.\nLADY ANNE Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\nGLOUCESTER Curse not thyself, fair creature thou art both.\nLADY ANNE I would I were, to be revenged on thee.\nGLOUCESTER It is a quarrel most unnatural,\nTo be revenged on him that loveth you.\nLADY ANNE It is a quarrel just and reasonable,\nTo be revenged on him that slew my husband.\nGLOUCESTER He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,\nDid it to help thee to a better husband.\nLADY ANNE His better doth not breathe upon the earth.\nGLOUCESTER He lives that loves thee better than he could.\nLADY ANNE Name him.\nGLOUCESTER Plantagenet.\nLADY ANNE Why, that was he.\nGLOUCESTER The selfsame name, but one of better nature.\nLADY ANNE Where is he?\nGLOUCESTER Here.\n[She spitteth at him]\nWhy dost thou spit at me?\nLADY ANNE Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\nGLOUCESTER Never came poison from so sweet a place.\nLADY ANNE Never hung poison on a fouler toad.\nOut of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes.\nGLOUCESTER Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\nLADY ANNE Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!\nGLOUCESTER I would they were, that I might die at once;\nFor now they kill me with a living death.\nThose eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\nShamed their aspect with store of childish drops:\nThese eyes that never shed remorseful tear,\nNo, when my father York and Edward wept,\nTo hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\nWhen black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;\nNor when thy warlike father, like a child,\nTold the sad story of my father's death,\nAnd twenty times made pause to sob and weep,\nThat all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\nLike trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time\nMy manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\nAnd what these sorrows could not thence exhale,\nThy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\nI never sued to friend nor enemy;\nMy tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\nBut now thy beauty is proposed my fee,\nMy proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\n[She looks scornfully at him]\nTeach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made\nFor kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\nIf thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\nLo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\nWhich if thou please to hide in this true bosom.\nAnd let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\nI lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\nAnd humbly beg the death upon my knee.\n[He lays his breast open: she offers at it with his sword]\nNay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,\nBut 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\nNay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,\nBut 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\n[Here she lets fall the sword]\nTake up the sword again, or take up me.\nLADY ANNE Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,\nI will not be the executioner.\nGLOUCESTER Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.\nLADY ANNE I have already.\nGLOUCESTER Tush, that was in thy rage:\nSpeak it again, and, even with the word,\nThat hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,\nShall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;\nTo both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.\nLADY ANNE I would I knew thy heart.\nGLOUCESTER 'Tis figured in my tongue.\nLADY ANNE I fear me both are false.\nGLOUCESTER Then never man was true.\nLADY ANNE Well, well, put up your sword.\nGLOUCESTER Say, then, my peace is made.\nLADY ANNE That shall you know hereafter.\nGLOUCESTER But shall I live in hope?\nLADY ANNE All men, I hope, live so.\nGLOUCESTER Vouchsafe to wear this ring.\nLADY ANNE To take is not to give.\nGLOUCESTER Look, how this ring encompasseth finger.\nEven so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\nWear both of them, for both of them are thine.\nAnd if thy poor devoted suppliant may\nBut beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\nThou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\nLADY ANNE What is it?\nGLOUCESTER That it would please thee leave these sad designs\nTo him that hath more cause to be a mourner,\nAnd presently repair to Crosby Place;\nWhere, after I have solemnly interr'd\nAt Chertsey monastery this noble king,\nAnd wet his grave with my repentant tears,\nI will with all expedient duty see you:\nFor divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,\nGrant me this boon.\nLADY ANNE With all my heart; and much it joys me too,\nTo see you are become so penitent.\nTressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\nGLOUCESTER Bid me farewell.\nLADY ANNE 'Tis more than you deserve;\nBut since you teach me how to flatter you,\nImagine I have said farewell already.\n[Exeunt LADY ANNE, TRESSEL, and BERKELEY]\nGLOUCESTER Sirs, take up the corse.\nGENTLEMEN Towards Chertsey, noble lord?\nGLOUCESTER No, to White-Friars; there attend my coining.\n[Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER]\nWas ever woman in this humour woo'd?\nWas ever woman in this humour won?\nI'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\nWhat! I, that kill'd her husband and his father,\nTo take her in her heart's extremest hate,\nWith curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\nThe bleeding witness of her hatred by;\nHaving God, her conscience, and these bars\nagainst me,\nAnd I nothing to back my suit at all,\nBut the plain devil and dissembling looks,\nAnd yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\nHa!\nHath she forgot already that brave prince,\nEdward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\nStabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\nA sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,\nFramed in the prodigality of nature,\nYoung, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,\nThe spacious world cannot again afford\nAnd will she yet debase her eyes on me,\nThat cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,\nAnd made her widow to a woful bed?\nOn me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\nOn me, that halt and am unshapen thus?\nMy dukedom to a beggarly denier,\nI do mistake my person all this while:\nUpon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\nMyself to be a marvellous proper man.\nI'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\nAnd entertain some score or two of tailors,\nTo study fashions to adorn my body:\nSince I am crept in favour with myself,\nWill maintain it with some little cost.\nBut first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;\nAnd then return lamenting to my love.\nShine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\nThat I may see my shadow as I pass.\n[Exit]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT I\nSCENE III The palace.\n[Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, RIVERS, and GREY]\nRIVERS Have patience, madam: there's no doubt his majesty\nWill soon recover his accustom'd health.\nGREY In that you brook it in, it makes him worse:\nTherefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\nAnd cheer his grace with quick and merry words.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH If he were dead, what would betide of me?\nRIVERS No other harm but loss of such a lord.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH The loss of such a lord includes all harm.\nGREY The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son,\nTo be your comforter when he is gone.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Oh, he is young and his minority\nIs put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\nA man that loves not me, nor none of you.\nRIVERS Is it concluded that he shall be protector?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH It is determined, not concluded yet:\nBut so it must be, if the king miscarry.\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY]\nGREY Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.\nBUCKINGHAM Good time of day unto your royal grace!\nDERBY God make your majesty joyful as you have been!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.\nTo your good prayers will scarcely say amen.\nYet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife,\nAnd loves not me, be you, good lord, assured\nI hate not you for her proud arrogance.\nDERBY I do beseech you, either not believe\nThe envious slanders of her false accusers;\nOr, if she be accused in true report,\nBear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds\nFrom wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.\nRIVERS Saw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?\nDERBY But now the Duke of Buckingham and I\nAre come from visiting his majesty.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH What likelihood of his amendment, lords?\nBUCKINGHAM Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH God grant him health! Did you confer with him?\nBUCKINGHAM Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement\nBetwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\nAnd betwixt them and my lord chamberlain;\nAnd sent to warn them to his royal presence.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Would all were well! but that will never be\nI fear our happiness is at the highest.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET]\nGLOUCESTER They do me wrong, and I will not endure it:\nWho are they that complain unto the king,\nThat I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?\nBy holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly\nThat fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\nBecause I cannot flatter and speak fair,\nSmile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,\nDuck with French nods and apish courtesy,\nI must be held a rancorous enemy.\nCannot a plain man live and think no harm,\nBut thus his simple truth must be abused\nBy silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\nRIVERS To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?\nGLOUCESTER To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\nWhen have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?\nOr thee? or thee? or any of your faction?\nA plague upon you all! His royal person,--\nWhom God preserve better than you would wish!--\nCannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,\nBut you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.\nThe king, of his own royal disposition,\nAnd not provoked by any suitor else;\nAiming, belike, at your interior hatred,\nWhich in your outward actions shows itself\nAgainst my kindred, brothers, and myself,\nMakes him to send; that thereby he may gather\nThe ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.\nGLOUCESTER I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,\nThat wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:\nSince every Jack became a gentleman\nThere's many a gentle person made a Jack.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Come, come, we know your meaning, brother\nGloucester;\nYou envy my advancement and my friends':\nGod grant we never may have need of you!\nGLOUCESTER Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:\nYour brother is imprison'd by your means,\nMyself disgraced, and the nobility\nHeld in contempt; whilst many fair promotions\nAre daily given to ennoble those\nThat scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH By Him that raised me to this careful height\nFrom that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\nI never did incense his majesty\nAgainst the Duke of Clarence, but have been\nAn earnest advocate to plead for him.\nMy lord, you do me shameful injury,\nFalsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\nGLOUCESTER You may deny that you were not the cause\nOf my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\nRIVERS She may, my lord, for--\nGLOUCESTER She may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?\nShe may do more, sir, than denying that:\nShe may help you to many fair preferments,\nAnd then deny her aiding hand therein,\nAnd lay those honours on your high deserts.\nWhat may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she--\nRIVERS What, marry, may she?\nGLOUCESTER What, marry, may she! marry with a king,\nA bachelor, a handsome stripling too:\nI wis your grandam had a worser match.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne\nYour blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:\nBy heaven, I will acquaint his majesty\nWith those gross taunts I often have endured.\nI had rather be a country servant-maid\nThan a great queen, with this condition,\nTo be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:\n[Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind]\nSmall joy have I in being England's queen.\nQUEEN MARGARET And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee!\nThy honour, state and seat is due to me.\nGLOUCESTER What! threat you me with telling of the king?\nTell him, and spare not: look, what I have said\nI will avouch in presence of the king:\nI dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.\n'Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.\nQUEEN MARGARET Out, devil! I remember them too well:\nThou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,\nAnd Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\nGLOUCESTER Ere you were queen, yea, or your husband king,\nI was a pack-horse in his great affairs;\nA weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\nA liberal rewarder of his friends:\nTo royalize his blood I spilt mine own.\nQUEEN MARGARET Yea, and much better blood than his or thine.\nGLOUCESTER In all which time you and your husband Grey\nWere factious for the house of Lancaster;\nAnd, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\nIn Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?\nLet me put in your minds, if you forget,\nWhat you have been ere now, and what you are;\nWithal, what I have been, and what I am.\nQUEEN MARGARET A murderous villain, and so still thou art.\nGLOUCESTER Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;\nYea, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--\nQUEEN MARGARET Which God revenge!\nGLOUCESTER To fight on Edward's party for the crown;\nAnd for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.\nI would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's;\nOr Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine\nI am too childish-foolish for this world.\nQUEEN MARGARET Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,\nThou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.\nRIVERS My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\nWhich here you urge to prove us enemies,\nWe follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:\nSo should we you, if you should be our king.\nGLOUCESTER If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar:\nFar be it from my heart, the thought of it!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH As little joy, my lord, as you suppose\nYou should enjoy, were you this country's king,\nAs little joy may you suppose in me.\nThat I enjoy, being the queen thereof.\nQUEEN MARGARET A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;\nFor I am she, and altogether joyless.\nI can no longer hold me patient.\n[Advancing]\nHear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\nIn sharing that which you have pill'd from me!\nWhich of you trembles not that looks on me?\nIf not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,\nYet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?\nO gentle villain, do not turn away!\nGLOUCESTER Foul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?\nQUEEN MARGARET But repetition of what thou hast marr'd;\nThat will I make before I let thee go.\nGLOUCESTER Wert thou not banished on pain of death?\nQUEEN MARGARET I was; but I do find more pain in banishment\nThan death can yield me here by my abode.\nA husband and a son thou owest to me;\nAnd thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:\nThe sorrow that I have, by right is yours,\nAnd all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\nGLOUCESTER The curse my noble father laid on thee,\nWhen thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\nAnd with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\nAnd then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout\nSteep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland--\nHis curses, then from bitterness of soul\nDenounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;\nAnd God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH So just is God, to right the innocent.\nHASTINGS O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\nAnd the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\nRIVERS Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\nDORSET No man but prophesied revenge for it.\nBUCKINGHAM Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.\nQUEEN MARGARET What were you snarling all before I came,\nReady to catch each other by the throat,\nAnd turn you all your hatred now on me?\nDid York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven?\nThat Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\nTheir kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,\nCould all but answer for that peevish brat?\nCan curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\nWhy, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\nIf not by war, by surfeit die your king,\nAs ours by murder, to make him a king!\nEdward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,\nFor Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales,\nDie in his youth by like untimely violence!\nThyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\nOutlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\nLong mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss;\nAnd see another, as I see thee now,\nDeck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\nLong die thy happy days before thy death;\nAnd, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,\nDie neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!\nRivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\nAnd so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\nWas stabb'd with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,\nThat none of you may live your natural age,\nBut by some unlook'd accident cut off!\nGLOUCESTER Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag!\nQUEEN MARGARET And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.\nIf heaven have any grievous plague in store\nExceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\nO, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\nAnd then hurl down their indignation\nOn thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\nThe worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!\nThy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,\nAnd take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\nNo sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\nUnless it be whilst some tormenting dream\nAffrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\nThou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!\nThou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\nThe slave of nature and the son of hell!\nThou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!\nThou loathed issue of thy father's loins!\nThou rag of honour! thou detested--\nGLOUCESTER Margaret.\nQUEEN MARGARET Richard!\nGLOUCESTER Ha!\nQUEEN MARGARET I call thee not.\nGLOUCESTER I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought\nThat thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\nQUEEN MARGARET Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.\nO, let me make the period to my curse!\nGLOUCESTER 'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.\nQUEEN MARGARET Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!\nWhy strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,\nWhose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\nFool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\nThe time will come when thou shalt wish for me\nTo help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.\nHASTINGS False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\nLest to thy harm thou move our patience.\nQUEEN MARGARET Foul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.\nRIVERS Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.\nQUEEN MARGARET To serve me well, you all should do me duty,\nTeach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:\nO, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\nDORSET Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.\nQUEEN MARGARET Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:\nYour fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\nO, that your young nobility could judge\nWhat 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!\nThey that stand high have many blasts to shake them;\nAnd if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.\nGLOUCESTER Good counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.\nDORSET It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.\nGLOUCESTER Yea, and much more: but I was born so high,\nOur aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\nAnd dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.\nQUEEN MARGARET And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!\nWitness my son, now in the shade of death;\nWhose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\nHath in eternal darkness folded up.\nYour aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\nO God, that seest it, do not suffer it!\nAs it was won with blood, lost be it so!\nBUCKINGHAM Have done! for shame, if not for charity.\nQUEEN MARGARET Urge neither charity nor shame to me:\nUncharitably with me have you dealt,\nAnd shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.\nMy charity is outrage, life my shame\nAnd in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.\nBUCKINGHAM Have done, have done.\nQUEEN MARGARET O princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand,\nIn sign of league and amity with thee:\nNow fair befal thee and thy noble house!\nThy garments are not spotted with our blood,\nNor thou within the compass of my curse.\nBUCKINGHAM Nor no one here; for curses never pass\nThe lips of those that breathe them in the air.\nQUEEN MARGARET I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,\nAnd there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\nO Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\nLook, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\nHis venom tooth will rankle to the death:\nHave not to do with him, beware of him;\nSin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,\nAnd all their ministers attend on him.\nGLOUCESTER What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\nBUCKINGHAM Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\nQUEEN MARGARET What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?\nAnd soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\nO, but remember this another day,\nWhen he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\nAnd say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\nLive each of you the subjects to his hate,\nAnd he to yours, and all of you to God's!\n[Exit]\nHASTINGS My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.\nRIVERS And so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.\nGLOUCESTER I cannot blame her: by God's holy mother,\nShe hath had too much wrong; and I repent\nMy part thereof that I have done to her.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH I never did her any, to my knowledge.\nGLOUCESTER But you have all the vantage of her wrong.\nI was too hot to do somebody good,\nThat is too cold in thinking of it now.\nMarry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid,\nHe is frank'd up to fatting for his pains\nGod pardon them that are the cause of it!\nRIVERS A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\nTo pray for them that have done scathe to us.\nGLOUCESTER So do I ever:\n[Aside]\nbeing well-advised.\nFor had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.\n[Enter CATESBY]\nCATESBY Madam, his majesty doth call for you,\nAnd for your grace; and you, my noble lords.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Catesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?\nRIVERS Madam, we will attend your grace.\n[Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER]\nGLOUCESTER I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\nThe secret mischiefs that I set abroach\nI lay unto the grievous charge of others.\nClarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,\nI do beweep to many simple gulls\nNamely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;\nAnd say it is the queen and her allies\nThat stir the king against the duke my brother.\nNow, they believe it; and withal whet me\nTo be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:\nBut then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,\nTell them that God bids us do good for evil:\nAnd thus I clothe my naked villany\nWith old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;\nAnd seem a saint, when most I play the devil.\n[Enter two Murderers]\nBut, soft! here come my executioners.\nHow now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!\nAre you now going to dispatch this deed?\nFirst Murderer We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant\nThat we may be admitted where he is.\nGLOUCESTER Well thought upon; I have it here about me.\n[Gives the warrant]\nWhen you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\nBut, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\nWithal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\nFor Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\nMay move your hearts to pity if you mark him.\nFirst Murderer Tush!\nFear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;\nTalkers are no good doers: be assured\nWe come to use our hands and not our tongues.\nGLOUCESTER Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears:\nI like you, lads; about your business straight;\nGo, go, dispatch.\nFirst Murderer We will, my noble lord.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT I\nSCENE IV London. The Tower.\n[Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY]\nBRAKENBURY Why looks your grace so heavily today?\nCLARENCE O, I have pass'd a miserable night,\nSo full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,\nThat, as I am a Christian faithful man,\nI would not spend another such a night,\nThough 'twere to buy a world of happy days,\nSo full of dismal terror was the time!\nBRAKENBURY What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.\nCLARENCE Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,\nAnd was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\nAnd, in my company, my brother Gloucester;\nWho from my cabin tempted me to walk\nUpon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,\nAnd cited up a thousand fearful times,\nDuring the wars of York and Lancaster\nThat had befall'n us. As we paced along\nUpon the giddy footing of the hatches,\nMethought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,\nStruck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,\nInto the tumbling billows of the main.\nLord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!\nWhat dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!\nWhat ugly sights of death within mine eyes!\nMethought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;\nTen thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;\nWedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\nInestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\nAll scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:\nSome lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes\nWhere eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,\nAs 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\nWhich woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,\nAnd mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.\nBRAKENBURY Had you such leisure in the time of death\nTo gaze upon the secrets of the deep?\nCLARENCE Methought I had; and often did I strive\nTo yield the ghost: but still the envious flood\nKept in my soul, and would not let it forth\nTo seek the empty, vast and wandering air;\nBut smother'd it within my panting bulk,\nWhich almost burst to belch it in the sea.\nBRAKENBURY Awaked you not with this sore agony?\nCLARENCE O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;\nO, then began the tempest to my soul,\nWho pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,\nWith that grim ferryman which poets write of,\nUnto the kingdom of perpetual night.\nThe first that there did greet my stranger soul,\nWas my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;\nWho cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury\nCan this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\nAnd so he vanish'd: then came wandering by\nA shadow like an angel, with bright hair\nDabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud,\n'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,\nThat stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;\nSeize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!'\nWith that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\nEnviron'd me about, and howled in mine ears\nSuch hideous cries, that with the very noise\nI trembling waked, and for a season after\nCould not believe but that I was in hell,\nSuch terrible impression made the dream.\nBRAKENBURY No marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you;\nI promise, I am afraid to hear you tell it.\nCLARENCE O Brakenbury, I have done those things,\nWhich now bear evidence against my soul,\nFor Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!\nO God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,\nBut thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,\nYet execute thy wrath in me alone,\nO, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\nI pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;\nMy soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\nBRAKENBURY I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!\n[CLARENCE sleeps]\nSorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\nMakes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.\nPrinces have but their tides for their glories,\nAn outward honour for an inward toil;\nAnd, for unfelt imagination,\nThey often feel a world of restless cares:\nSo that, betwixt their tides and low names,\nThere's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n[Enter the two Murderers]\nFirst Murderer Ho! who's here?\nBRAKENBURY In God's name what are you, and how came you hither?\nFirst Murderer I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.\nBRAKENBURY Yea, are you so brief?\nSecond Murderer O sir, it is better to be brief than tedious. Show\nhim our commission; talk no more.\n[BRAKENBURY reads it]\nBRAKENBURY I am, in this, commanded to deliver\nThe noble Duke of Clarence to your hands:\nI will not reason what is meant hereby,\nBecause I will be guiltless of the meaning.\nHere are the keys, there sits the duke asleep:\nI'll to the king; and signify to him\nThat thus I have resign'd my charge to you.\nFirst Murderer Do so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.\n[Exit BRAKENBURY]\nSecond Murderer What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?\nFirst Murderer No; then he will say 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.\nSecond Murderer When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till\nthe judgment-day.\nFirst Murderer Why, then he will say we stabbed him sleeping.\nSecond Murderer The urging of that word 'judgment' hath bred a kind\nof remorse in me.\nFirst Murderer What, art thou afraid?\nSecond Murderer Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be\ndamned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.\nFirst Murderer I thought thou hadst been resolute.\nSecond Murderer So I am, to let him live.\nFirst Murderer Back to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.\nSecond Murderer I pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour\nwill change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one\nwould tell twenty.\nFirst Murderer How dost thou feel thyself now?\nSecond Murderer 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet\nwithin me.\nFirst Murderer Remember our reward, when the deed is done.\nSecond Murderer 'Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.\nFirst Murderer Where is thy conscience now?\nSecond Murderer In the Duke of Gloucester's purse.\nFirst Murderer So when he opens his purse to give us our reward,\nthy conscience flies out.\nSecond Murderer Let it go; there's few or none will entertain it.\nFirst Murderer How if it come to thee again?\nSecond Murderer I'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it\nmakes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it\naccuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;\nhe cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it\ndetects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that\nmutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of\nobstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\nthat I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it\nis turned out of all towns and cities for a\ndangerous thing; and every man that means to live\nwell endeavours to trust to himself and to live\nwithout it.\nFirst Murderer 'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me\nnot to kill the duke.\nSecond Murderer Take the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he\nwould insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.\nFirst Murderer Tut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me,\nI warrant thee.\nSecond Murderer Spoke like a tail fellow that respects his\nreputation. Come, shall we to this gear?\nFirst Murderer Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy\nsword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt\nin the next room.\nSecond Murderer O excellent devise! make a sop of him.\nFirst Murderer Hark! he stirs: shall I strike?\nSecond Murderer No, first let's reason with him.\nCLARENCE Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.\nSecond murderer You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.\nCLARENCE In God's name, what art thou?\nSecond Murderer A man, as you are.\nCLARENCE But not, as I am, royal.\nSecond Murderer Nor you, as we are, loyal.\nCLARENCE Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\nSecond Murderer My voice is now the king's, my looks mine own.\nCLARENCE How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\nYour eyes do menace me: why look you pale?\nWho sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\nBoth To, to, to--\nCLARENCE To murder me?\nBoth Ay, ay.\nCLARENCE You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\nAnd therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\nWherein, my friends, have I offended you?\nFirst Murderer Offended us you have not, but the king.\nCLARENCE I shall be reconciled to him again.\nSecond Murderer Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\nCLARENCE Are you call'd forth from out a world of men\nTo slay the innocent? What is my offence?\nWhere are the evidence that do accuse me?\nWhat lawful quest have given their verdict up\nUnto the frowning judge? or who pronounced\nThe bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\nBefore I be convict by course of law,\nTo threaten me with death is most unlawful.\nI charge you, as you hope to have redemption\nBy Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\nThat you depart and lay no hands on me\nThe deed you undertake is damnable.\nFirst Murderer What we will do, we do upon command.\nSecond Murderer And he that hath commanded is the king.\nCLARENCE Erroneous vassal! the great King of kings\nHath in the tables of his law commanded\nThat thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,\nSpurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\nTake heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,\nTo hurl upon their heads that break his law.\nSecond Murderer And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,\nFor false forswearing and for murder too:\nThou didst receive the holy sacrament,\nTo fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\nFirst Murderer And, like a traitor to the name of God,\nDidst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\nUnrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.\nSecond Murderer Whom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.\nFirst Murderer How canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us,\nWhen thou hast broke it in so dear degree?\nCLARENCE Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\nFor Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,\nHe sends ye not to murder me for this\nFor in this sin he is as deep as I.\nIf God will be revenged for this deed.\nO, know you yet, he doth it publicly,\nTake not the quarrel from his powerful arm;\nHe needs no indirect nor lawless course\nTo cut off those that have offended him.\nFirst Murderer Who made thee, then, a bloody minister,\nWhen gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\nThat princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\nCLARENCE My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\nFirst Murderer Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy fault,\nProvoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\nCLARENCE Oh, if you love my brother, hate not me;\nI am his brother, and I love him well.\nIf you be hired for meed, go back again,\nAnd I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\nWho shall reward you better for my life\nThan Edward will for tidings of my death.\nSecond Murderer You are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.\nCLARENCE O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:\nGo you to him from me.\nBoth Ay, so we will.\nCLARENCE Tell him, when that our princely father York\nBless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,\nAnd charged us from his soul to love each other,\nHe little thought of this divided friendship:\nBid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\nFirst Murderer Ay, millstones; as be lesson'd us to weep.\nCLARENCE O, do not slander him, for he is kind.\nFirst Murderer Right,\nAs snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:\n'Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.\nCLARENCE It cannot be; for when I parted with him,\nHe hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,\nThat he would labour my delivery.\nSecond Murderer Why, so he doth, now he delivers thee\nFrom this world's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\nFirst Murderer Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.\nCLARENCE Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,\nTo counsel me to make my peace with God,\nAnd art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,\nThat thou wilt war with God by murdering me?\nAh, sirs, consider, he that set you on\nTo do this deed will hate you for the deed.\nSecond Murderer What shall we do?\nCLARENCE Relent, and save your souls.\nFirst Murderer Relent! 'tis cowardly and womanish.\nCLARENCE Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\nWhich of you, if you were a prince's son,\nBeing pent from liberty, as I am now,\nif two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\nWould not entreat for life?\nMy friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:\nO, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\nCome thou on my side, and entreat for me,\nAs you would beg, were you in my distress\nA begging prince what beggar pities not?\nSecond Murderer Look behind you, my lord.\nFirst Murderer Take that, and that: if all this will not do,\n[Stabs him]\nI'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n[Exit, with the body]\nSecond Murderer A bloody deed, and desperately dispatch'd!\nHow fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\nOf this most grievous guilty murder done!\n[Re-enter First Murderer]\nFirst Murderer How now! what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not?\nBy heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!\nSecond Murderer I would he knew that I had saved his brother!\nTake thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\nFor I repent me that the duke is slain.\n[Exit]\nFirst Murderer So do not I: go, coward as thou art.\nNow must I hide his body in some hole,\nUntil the duke take order for his burial:\nAnd when I have my meed, I must away;\nFor this will out, and here I must not stay.\nKING RICHARD III\nACT II\nSCENE I London. The palace.\n[Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD IV sick, QUEEN\nELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS, HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM,\nGREY, and others]\nKING EDWARD IV Why, so: now have I done a good day's work:\nYou peers, continue this united league:\nI every day expect an embassage\nFrom my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\nAnd now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,\nSince I have set my friends at peace on earth.\nRivers and Hastings, take each other's hand;\nDissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\nRIVERS By heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:\nAnd with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\nHASTINGS So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\nKING EDWARD IV Take heed you dally not before your king;\nLest he that is the supreme King of kings\nConfound your hidden falsehood, and award\nEither of you to be the other's end.\nHASTINGS So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\nRIVERS And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\nKING EDWARD IV Madam, yourself are not exempt in this,\nNor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;\nYou have been factious one against the other,\nWife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\nAnd what you do, do it unfeignedly.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Here, Hastings; I will never more remember\nOur former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\nKING EDWARD IV Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.\nDORSET This interchange of love, I here protest,\nUpon my part shall be unviolable.\nHASTINGS And so swear I, my lord\n[They embrace]\nKING EDWARD IV Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league\nWith thy embracements to my wife's allies,\nAnd make me happy in your unity.\nBUCKINGHAM Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate\nOn you or yours,\n[To the Queen]\nbut with all duteous love\nDoth cherish you and yours, God punish me\nWith hate in those where I expect most love!\nWhen I have most need to employ a friend,\nAnd most assured that he is a friend\nDeep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\nBe he unto me! this do I beg of God,\nWhen I am cold in zeal to yours.\nKING EDWARD IV A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\nis this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\nThere wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,\nTo make the perfect period of this peace.\nBUCKINGHAM And, in good time, here comes the noble duke.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER]\nGLOUCESTER Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen:\nAnd, princely peers, a happy time of day!\nKING EDWARD IV Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\nBrother, we done deeds of charity;\nMade peace enmity, fair love of hate,\nBetween these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\nGLOUCESTER A blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:\nAmongst this princely heap, if any here,\nBy false intelligence, or wrong surmise,\nHold me a foe;\nIf I unwittingly, or in my rage,\nHave aught committed that is hardly borne\nBy any in this presence, I desire\nTo reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\nI hate it, and desire all good men's love.\nFirst, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\nWhich I will purchase with my duteous service;\nOf you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\nIf ever any grudge were lodged between us;\nOf you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;\nThat without desert have frown'd on me;\nDukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.\nI do not know that Englishman alive\nWith whom my soul is any jot at odds\nMore than the infant that is born to-night\nI thank my God for my humility.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH A holy day shall this be kept hereafter:\nI would to God all strifes were well compounded.\nMy sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty\nTo take our brother Clarence to your grace.\nGLOUCESTER Why, madam, have I offer'd love for this\nTo be so bouted in this royal presence?\nWho knows not that the noble duke is dead?\n[They all start]\nYou do him injury to scorn his corse.\nRIVERS Who knows not he is dead! who knows he is?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH All seeing heaven, what a world is this!\nBUCKINGHAM Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\nDORSET Ay, my good lord; and no one in this presence\nBut his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\nKING EDWARD IV Is Clarence dead? the order was reversed.\nGLOUCESTER But he, poor soul, by your first order died,\nAnd that a winged Mercury did bear:\nSome tardy cripple bore the countermand,\nThat came too lag to see him buried.\nGod grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\nNearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,\nDeserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\nAnd yet go current from suspicion!\n[Enter DERBY]\nDORSET A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\nKING EDWARD IV I pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.\nDORSET I will not rise, unless your highness grant.\nKING EDWARD IV Then speak at once what is it thou demand'st.\nDORSET The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\nWho slew to-day a righteous gentleman\nLately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\nKING EDWARD IV Have a tongue to doom my brother's death,\nAnd shall the same give pardon to a slave?\nMy brother slew no man; his fault was thought,\nAnd yet his punishment was cruel death.\nWho sued to me for him? who, in my rage,\nKneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advised\nWho spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?\nWho told me how the poor soul did forsake\nThe mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?\nWho told me, in the field by Tewksbury\nWhen Oxford had me down, he rescued me,\nAnd said, 'Dear brother, live, and be a king'?\nWho told me, when we both lay in the field\nFrozen almost to death, how he did lap me\nEven in his own garments, and gave himself,\nAll thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\nAll this from my remembrance brutish wrath\nSinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\nHad so much grace to put it in my mind.\nBut when your carters or your waiting-vassals\nHave done a drunken slaughter, and defaced\nThe precious image of our dear Redeemer,\nYou straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\nAnd I unjustly too, must grant it you\nBut for my brother not a man would speak,\nNor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\nFor him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\nHave been beholding to him in his life;\nYet none of you would once plead for his life.\nO God, I fear thy justice will take hold\nOn me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!\nCome, Hastings, help me to my closet.\nOh, poor Clarence!\n[Exeunt some with KING EDWARD IV and QUEEN MARGARET]\nGLOUCESTER This is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not\nHow that the guilty kindred of the queen\nLook'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\nO, they did urge it still unto the king!\nGod will revenge it. But come, let us in,\nTo comfort Edward with our company.\nBUCKINGHAM We wait upon your grace.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT II\nSCENE II The palace.\n[Enter the DUCHESS OF YORK, with the two children of CLARENCE]\nBoy Tell me, good grandam, is our father dead?\nDUCHESS OF YORK No, boy.\nBoy Why do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,\nAnd cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'\nGirl Why do you look on us, and shake your head,\nAnd call us wretches, orphans, castaways\nIf that our noble father be alive?\nDUCHESS OF YORK My pretty cousins, you mistake me much;\nI do lament the sickness of the king.\nAs loath to lose him, not your father's death;\nIt were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\nBoy Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.\nThe king my uncle is to blame for this:\nGod will revenge it; whom I will importune\nWith daily prayers all to that effect.\nGirl And so will I.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:\nIncapable and shallow innocents,\nYou cannot guess who caused your father's death.\nBoy Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\nTold me, the king, provoked by the queen,\nDevised impeachments to imprison him :\nAnd when my uncle told me so, he wept,\nAnd hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\nBade me rely on him as on my father,\nAnd he would love me dearly as his child.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,\nAnd with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!\nHe is my son; yea, and therein my shame;\nYet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\nBoy Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\nDUCHESS OF YORK Ay, boy.\nBoy I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n[Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her\nears; RIVERS, and DORSET after her]\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Oh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,\nTo chide my fortune, and torment myself?\nI'll join with black despair against my soul,\nAnd to myself become an enemy.\nDUCHESS OF YORK What means this scene of rude impatience?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH To make an act of tragic violence:\nEdward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.\nWhy grow the branches now the root is wither'd?\nWhy wither not the leaves the sap being gone?\nIf you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\nThat our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;\nOr, like obedient subjects, follow him\nTo his new kingdom of perpetual rest.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\nAs I had title in thy noble husband!\nI have bewept a worthy husband's death,\nAnd lived by looking on his images:\nBut now two mirrors of his princely semblance\nAre crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\nAnd I for comfort have but one false glass,\nWhich grieves me when I see my shame in him.\nThou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,\nAnd hast the comfort of thy children left thee:\nBut death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,\nAnd pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,\nEdward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,\nThine being but a moiety of my grief,\nTo overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!\nBoy Good aunt, you wept not for our father's death;\nHow can we aid you with our kindred tears?\nGirl Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\nYour widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Give me no help in lamentation;\nI am not barren to bring forth complaints\nAll springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,\nThat I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\nMay send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\nOh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!\nChildren Oh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!\nDUCHESS OF YORK Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH What stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.\nChildren What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\nDUCHESS OF YORK What stays had I but they? and they are gone.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Was never widow had so dear a loss!\nChildren Were never orphans had so dear a loss!\nDUCHESS OF YORK Was never mother had so dear a loss!\nAlas, I am the mother of these moans!\nTheir woes are parcell'd, mine are general.\nShe for an Edward weeps, and so do I;\nI for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:\nThese babes for Clarence weep and so do I;\nI for an Edward weep, so do not they:\nAlas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,\nPour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\nAnd I will pamper it with lamentations.\nDORSET Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased\nThat you take with unthankfulness, his doing:\nIn common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,\nWith dull unwilligness to repay a debt\nWhich with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\nMuch more to be thus opposite with heaven,\nFor it requires the royal debt it lent you.\nRIVERS Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\nOf the young prince your son: send straight for him\nLet him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:\nDrown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\nAnd plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF]\nGLOUCESTER Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause\nTo wail the dimming of our shining star;\nBut none can cure their harms by wailing them.\nMadam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\nI did not see your grace: humbly on my knee\nI crave your blessing.\nDUCHESS OF YORK God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,\nLove, charity, obedience, and true duty!\nGLOUCESTER [Aside] Amen; and make me die a good old man!\nThat is the butt-end of a mother's blessing:\nI marvel why her grace did leave it out.\nBUCKINGHAM You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,\nThat bear this mutual heavy load of moan,\nNow cheer each other in each other's love\nThough we have spent our harvest of this king,\nWe are to reap the harvest of his son.\nThe broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,\nBut lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\nMust gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:\nMe seemeth good, that, with some little train,\nForthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd\nHither to London, to be crown'd our king.\nRIVERS Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?\nBUCKINGHAM Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,\nThe new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\nWhich would be so much the more dangerous\nBy how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:\nWhere every horse bears his commanding rein,\nAnd may direct his course as please himself,\nAs well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,\nIn my opinion, ought to be prevented.\nGLOUCESTER I hope the king made peace with all of us\nAnd the compact is firm and true in me.\nRIVERS And so in me; and so, I think, in all:\nYet, since it is but green, it should be put\nTo no apparent likelihood of breach,\nWhich haply by much company might be urged:\nTherefore I say with noble Buckingham,\nThat it is meet so few should fetch the prince.\nHASTINGS And so say I.\nGLOUCESTER Then be it so; and go we to determine\nWho they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\nMadam, and you, my mother, will you go\nTo give your censures in this weighty business?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH |\n| With all our harts.\nDUCHESS OF YORK |\n[Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER]\nBUCKINGHAM My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\nFor God's sake, let not us two be behind;\nFor, by the way, I'll sort occasion,\nAs index to the story we late talk'd of,\nTo part the queen's proud kindred from the king.\nGLOUCESTER My other self, my counsel's consistory,\nMy oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,\nI, like a child, will go by thy direction.\nTowards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT II\nSCENE III London. A street.\n[Enter two Citizens meeting]\nFirst Citizen Neighbour, well met: whither away so fast?\nSecond Citizen I promise you, I scarcely know myself:\nHear you the news abroad?\nFirst Citizen Ay, that the king is dead.\nSecond Citizen Bad news, by'r lady; seldom comes the better:\nI fear, I fear 'twill prove a troublous world.\n[Enter another Citizen]\nThird Citizen Neighbours, God speed!\nFirst Citizen Give you good morrow, sir.\nThird Citizen Doth this news hold of good King Edward's death?\nSecond Citizen Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\nThird Citizen Then, masters, look to see a troublous world.\nFirst Citizen No, no; by God's good grace his son shall reign.\nThird Citizen Woe to the land that's govern'd by a child!\nSecond Citizen In him there is a hope of government,\nThat in his nonage council under him,\nAnd in his full and ripen'd years himself,\nNo doubt, shall then and till then govern well.\nFirst Citizen So stood the state when Henry the Sixth\nWas crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\nThird Citizen Stood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot;\nFor then this land was famously enrich'd\nWith politic grave counsel; then the king\nHad virtuous uncles to protect his grace.\nFirst Citizen Why, so hath this, both by the father and mother.\nThird Citizen Better it were they all came by the father,\nOr by the father there were none at all;\nFor emulation now, who shall be nearest,\nWill touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\nO, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\nAnd the queen's sons and brothers haught and proud:\nAnd were they to be ruled, and not to rule,\nThis sickly land might solace as before.\nFirst Citizen Come, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well.\nThird Citizen When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;\nWhen great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;\nWhen the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\nUntimely storms make men expect a dearth.\nAll may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.\nSecond Citizen Truly, the souls of men are full of dread:\nYe cannot reason almost with a man\nThat looks not heavily and full of fear.\nThird Citizen Before the times of change, still is it so:\nBy a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\nEnsuing dangers; as by proof, we see\nThe waters swell before a boisterous storm.\nBut leave it all to God. whither away?\nSecond Citizen Marry, we were sent for to the justices.\nThird Citizen And so was I: I'll bear you company.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT II\nSCENE IV London. The palace.\n[Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, young YORK, QUEEN\nELIZABETH, and the DUCHESS OF YORK]\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK Last night, I hear, they lay at Northampton;\nAt Stony-Stratford will they be to-night:\nTo-morrow, or next day, they will be here.\nDUCHESS OF YORK I long with all my heart to see the prince:\nI hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH But I hear, no; they say my son of York\nHath almost overta'en him in his growth.\nYORK Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Why, my young cousin, it is good to grow.\nYORK Grandam, one night, as we did sit at supper,\nMy uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\nMore than my brother: 'Ay,' quoth my uncle\nGloucester,\n'Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:'\nAnd since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\nBecause sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\nIn him that did object the same to thee;\nHe was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\nSo long a-growing and so leisurely,\nThat, if this rule were true, he should be gracious.\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK Why, madam, so, no doubt, he is.\nDUCHESS OF YORK I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\nYORK Now, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,\nI could have given my uncle's grace a flout,\nTo touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\nDUCHESS OF YORK How, my pretty York? I pray thee, let me hear it.\nYORK Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast\nThat he could gnaw a crust at two hours old\n'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\nGrandam, this would have been a biting jest.\nDUCHESS OF YORK I pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?\nYORK Grandam, his nurse.\nDUCHESS OF YORK His nurse! why, she was dead ere thou wert born.\nYORK If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH A parlous boy: go to, you are too shrewd.\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK Good madam, be not angry with the child.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Pitchers have ears.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK Here comes a messenger. What news?\nMessenger Such news, my lord, as grieves me to unfold.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH How fares the prince?\nMessenger Well, madam, and in health.\nDUCHESS OF YORK What is thy news then?\nMessenger Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,\nWith them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Who hath committed them?\nMessenger The mighty dukes\nGloucester and Buckingham.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH For what offence?\nMessenger The sum of all I can, I have disclosed;\nWhy or for what these nobles were committed\nIs all unknown to me, my gracious lady.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Ay me, I see the downfall of our house!\nThe tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;\nInsulting tyranny begins to jet\nUpon the innocent and aweless throne:\nWelcome, destruction, death, and massacre!\nI see, as in a map, the end of all.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,\nHow many of you have mine eyes beheld!\nMy husband lost his life to get the crown;\nAnd often up and down my sons were toss'd,\nFor me to joy and weep their gain and loss:\nAnd being seated, and domestic broils\nClean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors.\nMake war upon themselves; blood against blood,\nSelf against self: O, preposterous\nAnd frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;\nOr let me die, to look on death no more!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Come, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary.\nMadam, farewell.\nDUCHESS OF YORK I'll go along with you.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH You have no cause.\nARCHBISHOP OF YORK My gracious lady, go;\nAnd thither bear your treasure and your goods.\nFor my part, I'll resign unto your grace\nThe seal I keep: and so betide to me\nAs well I tender you and all of yours!\nCome, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE I London. A street.\n[The trumpets sound. Enter the young PRINCE EDWARD,\nGLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, CARDINAL, CATESBY, and others]\nBUCKINGHAM Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.\nGLOUCESTER Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign\nThe weary way hath made you melancholy.\nPRINCE EDWARD No, uncle; but our crosses on the way\nHave made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy\nI want more uncles here to welcome me.\nGLOUCESTER Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years\nHath not yet dived into the world's deceit\nNor more can you distinguish of a man\nThan of his outward show; which, God he knows,\nSeldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\nThose uncles which you want were dangerous;\nYour grace attended to their sugar'd words,\nBut look'd not on the poison of their hearts :\nGod keep you from them, and from such false friends!\nPRINCE EDWARD God keep me from false friends! but they were none.\nGLOUCESTER My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.\n[Enter the Lord Mayor and his train]\nLord Mayor God bless your grace with health and happy days!\nPRINCE EDWARD I thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.\nI thought my mother, and my brother York,\nWould long ere this have met us on the way\nFie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\nTo tell us whether they will come or no!\n[Enter HASTINGS]\nBUCKINGHAM And, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.\nPRINCE EDWARD Welcome, my lord: what, will our mother come?\nHASTINGS On what occasion, God he knows, not I,\nThe queen your mother, and your brother York,\nHave taken sanctuary: the tender prince\nWould fain have come with me to meet your grace,\nBut by his mother was perforce withheld.\nBUCKINGHAM Fie, what an indirect and peevish course\nIs this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace\nPersuade the queen to send the Duke of York\nUnto his princely brother presently?\nIf she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,\nAnd from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\nCARDINAL My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\nCan from his mother win the Duke of York,\nAnon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\nTo mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\nWe should infringe the holy privilege\nOf blessed sanctuary! not for all this land\nWould I be guilty of so deep a sin.\nBUCKINGHAM You are too senseless--obstinate, my lord,\nToo ceremonious and traditional\nWeigh it but with the grossness of this age,\nYou break not sanctuary in seizing him.\nThe benefit thereof is always granted\nTo those whose dealings have deserved the place,\nAnd those who have the wit to claim the place:\nThis prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserved it;\nAnd therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:\nThen, taking him from thence that is not there,\nYou break no privilege nor charter there.\nOft have I heard of sanctuary men;\nBut sanctuary children ne'er till now.\nCARDINAL My lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind for once.\nCome on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\nHASTINGS I go, my lord.\nPRINCE EDWARD Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\n[Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS]\nSay, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\nWhere shall we sojourn till our coronation?\nGLOUCESTER Where it seems best unto your royal self.\nIf I may counsel you, some day or two\nYour highness shall repose you at the Tower:\nThen where you please, and shall be thought most fit\nFor your best health and recreation.\nPRINCE EDWARD I do not like the Tower, of any place.\nDid Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\nBUCKINGHAM He did, my gracious lord, begin that place;\nWhich, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\nPRINCE EDWARD Is it upon record, or else reported\nSuccessively from age to age, he built it?\nBUCKINGHAM Upon record, my gracious lord.\nPRINCE EDWARD But say, my lord, it were not register'd,\nMethinks the truth should live from age to age,\nAs 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\nEven to the general all-ending day.\nGLOUCESTER [Aside] So wise so young, they say, do never\nlive long.\nPRINCE EDWARD What say you, uncle?\nGLOUCESTER I say, without characters, fame lives long.\n[Aside]\nThus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\nI moralize two meanings in one word.\nPRINCE EDWARD That Julius Caesar was a famous man;\nWith what his valour did enrich his wit,\nHis wit set down to make his valour live\nDeath makes no conquest of this conqueror;\nFor now he lives in fame, though not in life.\nI'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,--\nBUCKINGHAM What, my gracious lord?\nPRINCE EDWARD An if I live until I be a man,\nI'll win our ancient right in France again,\nOr die a soldier, as I lived a king.\nGLOUCESTER [Aside] Short summers lightly have a forward spring.\n[Enter young YORK, HASTINGS, and the CARDINAL]\nBUCKINGHAM Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of York.\nPRINCE EDWARD Richard of York! how fares our loving brother?\nYORK Well, my dread lord; so must I call you now.\nPRINCE EDWARD Ay, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:\nToo late he died that might have kept that title,\nWhich by his death hath lost much majesty.\nGLOUCESTER How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\nYORK I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\nYou said that idle weeds are fast in growth\nThe prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\nGLOUCESTER He hath, my lord.\nYORK And therefore is he idle?\nGLOUCESTER O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\nYORK Then is he more beholding to you than I.\nGLOUCESTER He may command me as my sovereign;\nBut you have power in me as in a kinsman.\nYORK I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\nGLOUCESTER My dagger, little cousin? with all my heart.\nPRINCE EDWARD A beggar, brother?\nYORK Of my kind uncle, that I know will give;\nAnd being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\nGLOUCESTER A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\nYORK A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it.\nGLOUCESTER A gentle cousin, were it light enough.\nYORK O, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts;\nIn weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\nGLOUCESTER It is too heavy for your grace to wear.\nYORK I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\nGLOUCESTER What, would you have my weapon, little lord?\nYORK I would, that I might thank you as you call me.\nGLOUCESTER How?\nYORK Little.\nPRINCE EDWARD My Lord of York will still be cross in talk:\nUncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.\nYORK You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:\nUncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\nBecause that I am little, like an ape,\nHe thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\nBUCKINGHAM With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\nTo mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,\nHe prettily and aptly taunts himself:\nSo cunning and so young is wonderful.\nGLOUCESTER My lord, will't please you pass along?\nMyself and my good cousin Buckingham\nWill to your mother, to entreat of her\nTo meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\nYORK What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\nPRINCE EDWARD My lord protector needs will have it so.\nYORK I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\nGLOUCESTER Why, what should you fear?\nYORK Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost:\nMy grandam told me he was murdered there.\nPRINCE EDWARD I fear no uncles dead.\nGLOUCESTER Nor none that live, I hope.\nPRINCE EDWARD An if they live, I hope I need not fear.\nBut come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\nThinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n[A Sennet. Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM\nand CATESBY]\nBUCKINGHAM Think you, my lord, this little prating York\nWas not incensed by his subtle mother\nTo taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\nGLOUCESTER No doubt, no doubt; O, 'tis a parlous boy;\nBold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable\nHe is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\nBUCKINGHAM Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\nThou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\nAs closely to conceal what we impart:\nThou know'st our reasons urged upon the way;\nWhat think'st thou? is it not an easy matter\nTo make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\nFor the instalment of this noble duke\nIn the seat royal of this famous isle?\nCATESBY He for his father's sake so loves the prince,\nThat he will not be won to aught against him.\nBUCKINGHAM What think'st thou, then, of Stanley? what will he?\nCATESBY He will do all in all as Hastings doth.\nBUCKINGHAM Well, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,\nAnd, as it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,\nHow doth he stand affected to our purpose;\nAnd summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\nTo sit about the coronation.\nIf thou dost find him tractable to us,\nEncourage him, and show him all our reasons:\nIf he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,\nBe thou so too; and so break off your talk,\nAnd give us notice of his inclination:\nFor we to-morrow hold divided councils,\nWherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\nGLOUCESTER Commend me to Lord William: tell him, Catesby,\nHis ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\nTo-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle;\nAnd bid my friend, for joy of this good news,\nGive mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\nBUCKINGHAM Good Catesby, go, effect this business soundly.\nCATESBY My good lords both, with all the heed I may.\nGLOUCESTER Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\nCATESBY You shall, my lord.\nGLOUCESTER At Crosby Place, there shall you find us both.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nBUCKINGHAM Now, my lord, what shall we do, if we perceive\nLord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\nGLOUCESTER Chop off his head, man; somewhat we will do:\nAnd, look, when I am king, claim thou of me\nThe earldom of Hereford, and the moveables\nWhereof the king my brother stood possess'd.\nBUCKINGHAM I'll claim that promise at your grace's hands.\nGLOUCESTER And look to have it yielded with all willingness.\nCome, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\nWe may digest our complots in some form.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE II Before Lord Hastings' house.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger What, ho! my lord!\nHASTINGS [Within] Who knocks at the door?\nMessenger A messenger from the Lord Stanley.\n[Enter HASTINGS]\nHASTINGS What is't o'clock?\nMessenger Upon the stroke of four.\nHASTINGS Cannot thy master sleep these tedious nights?\nMessenger So it should seem by that I have to say.\nFirst, he commends him to your noble lordship.\nHASTINGS And then?\nMessenger And then he sends you word\nHe dreamt to-night the boar had razed his helm:\nBesides, he says there are two councils held;\nAnd that may be determined at the one\nwhich may make you and him to rue at the other.\nTherefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure,\nIf presently you will take horse with him,\nAnd with all speed post with him toward the north,\nTo shun the danger that his soul divines.\nHASTINGS Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\nBid him not fear the separated councils\nHis honour and myself are at the one,\nAnd at the other is my servant Catesby\nWhere nothing can proceed that toucheth us\nWhereof I shall not have intelligence.\nTell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance:\nAnd for his dreams, I wonder he is so fond\nTo trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers\nTo fly the boar before the boar pursues,\nWere to incense the boar to follow us\nAnd make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\nGo, bid thy master rise and come to me\nAnd we will both together to the Tower,\nWhere, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\nMessenger My gracious lord, I'll tell him what you say.\n[Exit]\n[Enter CATESBY]\nCATESBY Many good morrows to my noble lord!\nHASTINGS Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring\nWhat news, what news, in this our tottering state?\nCATESBY It is a reeling world, indeed, my lord;\nAnd I believe twill never stand upright\nTim Richard wear the garland of the realm.\nHASTINGS How! wear the garland! dost thou mean the crown?\nCATESBY Ay, my good lord.\nHASTINGS I'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders\nEre I will see the crown so foul misplaced.\nBut canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\nCATESBY Ay, on my life; and hopes to find forward\nUpon his party for the gain thereof:\nAnd thereupon he sends you this good news,\nThat this same very day your enemies,\nThe kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.\nHASTINGS Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,\nBecause they have been still mine enemies:\nBut, that I'll give my voice on Richard's side,\nTo bar my master's heirs in true descent,\nGod knows I will not do it, to the death.\nCATESBY God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\nHASTINGS But I shall laugh at this a twelve-month hence,\nThat they who brought me in my master's hate\nI live to look upon their tragedy.\nI tell thee, Catesby--\nCATESBY What, my lord?\nHASTINGS Ere a fortnight make me elder,\nI'll send some packing that yet think not on it.\nCATESBY 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\nWhen men are unprepared and look not for it.\nHASTINGS O monstrous, monstrous! and so falls it out\nWith Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so 'twill do\nWith some men else, who think themselves as safe\nAs thou and I; who, as thou know'st, are dear\nTo princely Richard and to Buckingham.\nCATESBY The princes both make high account of you;\n[Aside]\nFor they account his head upon the bridge.\nHASTINGS I know they do; and I have well deserved it.\n[Enter STANLEY]\nCome on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\nFear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\nSTANLEY My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby:\nYou may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\nI do not like these several councils, I.\nHASTINGS My lord,\nI hold my life as dear as you do yours;\nAnd never in my life, I do protest,\nWas it more precious to me than 'tis now:\nThink you, but that I know our state secure,\nI would be so triumphant as I am?\nSTANLEY The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,\nWere jocund, and supposed their state was sure,\nAnd they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\nBut yet, you see how soon the day o'ercast.\nThis sudden stag of rancour I misdoubt:\nPray God, I say, I prove a needless coward!\nWhat, shall we toward the Tower? the day is spent.\nHASTINGS Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my lord?\nTo-day the lords you talk of are beheaded.\nLORD STANLEY They, for their truth, might better wear their heads\nThan some that have accused them wear their hats.\nBut come, my lord, let us away.\n[Enter a Pursuivant]\nHASTINGS Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\n[Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY]\nHow now, sirrah! how goes the world with thee?\nPursuivant The better that your lordship please to ask.\nHASTINGS I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\nThan when I met thee last where now we meet:\nThen was I going prisoner to the Tower,\nBy the suggestion of the queen's allies;\nBut now, I tell thee--keep it to thyself--\nThis day those enemies are put to death,\nAnd I in better state than e'er I was.\nPursuivant God hold it, to your honour's good content!\nHASTINGS Gramercy, fellow: there, drink that for me.\n[Throws him his purse]\nPursuivant God save your lordship!\n[Exit]\n[Enter a Priest]\nPriest Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\nHASTINGS I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\nI am in your debt for your last exercise;\nCome the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n[He whispers in his ear]\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM]\nBUCKINGHAM What, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain?\nYour friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;\nYour honour hath no shriving work in hand.\nHASTINGS Good faith, and when I met this holy man,\nThose men you talk of came into my mind.\nWhat, go you toward the Tower?\nBUCKINGHAM I do, my lord; but long I shall not stay\nI shall return before your lordship thence.\nHASTINGS 'Tis like enough, for I stay dinner there.\nBUCKINGHAM [Aside] And supper too, although thou know'st it not.\nCome, will you go?\nHASTINGS I'll wait upon your lordship.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE III Pomfret Castle.\n[Enter RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying RIVERS,\nGREY, and VAUGHAN to death]\nRATCLIFF Come, bring forth the prisoners.\nRIVERS Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\nTo-day shalt thou behold a subject die\nFor truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\nGREY God keep the prince from all the pack of you!\nA knot you are of damned blood-suckers!\nVAUGHAN You live that shall cry woe for this after.\nRATCLIFF Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\nRIVERS O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\nFatal and ominous to noble peers!\nWithin the guilty closure of thy walls\nRichard the second here was hack'd to death;\nAnd, for more slander to thy dismal seat,\nWe give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.\nGREY Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\nFor standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\nRIVERS Then cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,\nThen cursed she Richard. O, remember, God\nTo hear her prayers for them, as now for us\nAnd for my sister and her princely sons,\nBe satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\nWhich, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\nRATCLIFF Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.\nRIVERS Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us all embrace:\nAnd take our leave, until we meet in heaven.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE IV The Tower of London.\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP OF\nELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL, with others, and take their\nseats at a table]\nHASTINGS My lords, at once: the cause why we are met\nIs, to determine of the coronation.\nIn God's name, speak: when is the royal day?\nBUCKINGHAM Are all things fitting for that royal time?\nDERBY It is, and wants but nomination.\nBISHOP OF ELY To-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.\nBUCKINGHAM Who knows the lord protector's mind herein?\nWho is most inward with the royal duke?\nBISHOP OF ELY Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.\nBUCKINGHAM Who, I, my lord I we know each other's faces,\nBut for our hearts, he knows no more of mine,\nThan I of yours;\nNor I no more of his, than you of mine.\nLord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\nHASTINGS I thank his grace, I know he loves me well;\nBut, for his purpose in the coronation.\nI have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\nHis gracious pleasure any way therein:\nBut you, my noble lords, may name the time;\nAnd in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\nWhich, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER]\nBISHOP OF ELY Now in good time, here comes the duke himself.\nGLOUCESTER My noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.\nI have been long a sleeper; but, I hope,\nMy absence doth neglect no great designs,\nWhich by my presence might have been concluded.\nBUCKINGHAM Had not you come upon your cue, my lord\nWilliam Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,--\nI mean, your voice,--for crowning of the king.\nGLOUCESTER Than my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;\nHis lordship knows me well, and loves me well.\nHASTINGS I thank your grace.\nGLOUCESTER My lord of Ely!\nBISHOP OF ELY My lord?\nGLOUCESTER When I was last in Holborn,\nI saw good strawberries in your garden there\nI do beseech you send for some of them.\nBISHOP OF ELY Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n[Exit]\nGLOUCESTER Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\n[Drawing him aside]\nCatesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\nAnd finds the testy gentleman so hot,\nAs he will lose his head ere give consent\nHis master's son, as worshipful as he terms it,\nShall lose the royalty of England's throne.\nBUCKINGHAM Withdraw you hence, my lord, I'll follow you.\n[Exit GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM following]\nDERBY We have not yet set down this day of triumph.\nTo-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;\nFor I myself am not so well provided\nAs else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n[Re-enter BISHOP OF ELY]\nBISHOP OF ELY Where is my lord protector? I have sent for these\nstrawberries.\nHASTINGS His grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;\nThere's some conceit or other likes him well,\nWhen he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.\nI think there's never a man in Christendom\nThat can less hide his love or hate than he;\nFor by his face straight shall you know his heart.\nDERBY What of his heart perceive you in his face\nBy any likelihood he show'd to-day?\nHASTINGS Marry, that with no man here he is offended;\nFor, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\nDERBY I pray God he be not, I say.\n[Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM]\nGLOUCESTER I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\nThat do conspire my death with devilish plots\nOf damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\nUpon my body with their hellish charms?\nHASTINGS The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,\nMakes me most forward in this noble presence\nTo doom the offenders, whatsoever they be\nI say, my lord, they have deserved death.\nGLOUCESTER Then be your eyes the witness of this ill:\nSee how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm\nIs, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:\nAnd this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\nConsorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\nThat by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\nHASTINGS If they have done this thing, my gracious lord--\nGLOUCESTER If I thou protector of this damned strumpet--\nTellest thou me of 'ifs'? Thou art a traitor:\nOff with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,\nI will not dine until I see the same.\nLovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:\nThe rest, that love me, rise and follow me.\n[Exeunt all but HASTINGS, RATCLIFF, and LOVEL]\nHASTINGS Woe, woe for England! not a whit for me;\nFor I, too fond, might have prevented this.\nStanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;\nBut I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly:\nThree times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\nAnd startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,\nAs loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\nO, now I want the priest that spake to me:\nI now repent I told the pursuivant\nAs 'twere triumphing at mine enemies,\nHow they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\nAnd I myself secure in grace and favour.\nO Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\nIs lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\nRATCLIFF Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:\nMake a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\nHASTINGS O momentary grace of mortal men,\nWhich we more hunt for than the grace of God!\nWho builds his hopes in air of your good looks,\nLives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\nReady, with every nod, to tumble down\nInto the fatal bowels of the deep.\nLOVEL Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\nHASTINGS O bloody Richard! miserable England!\nI prophesy the fearful'st time to thee\nThat ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\nCome, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\nThey smile at me that shortly shall be dead.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE V The Tower-walls.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, in rotten armour,\nmarvellous ill-favoured]\nGLOUCESTER Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,\nMurder thy breath in the middle of a word,\nAnd then begin again, and stop again,\nAs if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?\nBUCKINGHAM Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\nSpeak and look back, and pry on every side,\nTremble and start at wagging of a straw,\nIntending deep suspicion: ghastly looks\nAre at my service, like enforced smiles;\nAnd both are ready in their offices,\nAt any time, to grace my stratagems.\nBut what, is Catesby gone?\nGLOUCESTER He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n[Enter the Lord Mayor and CATESBY]\nBUCKINGHAM Lord mayor,--\nGLOUCESTER Look to the drawbridge there!\nBUCKINGHAM Hark! a drum.\nGLOUCESTER Catesby, o'erlook the walls.\nBUCKINGHAM Lord mayor, the reason we have sent--\nGLOUCESTER Look back, defend thee, here are enemies.\nBUCKINGHAM God and our innocency defend and guard us!\nGLOUCESTER Be patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.\n[Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head]\nLOVEL Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,\nThe dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\nGLOUCESTER So dear I loved the man, that I must weep.\nI took him for the plainest harmless creature\nThat breathed upon this earth a Christian;\nMade him my book wherein my soul recorded\nThe history of all her secret thoughts:\nSo smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,\nThat, his apparent open guilt omitted,\nI mean, his conversation with Shore's wife,\nHe lived from all attainder of suspect.\nBUCKINGHAM Well, well, he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor\nThat ever lived.\nWould you imagine, or almost believe,\nWere't not that, by great preservation,\nWe live to tell it you, the subtle traitor\nThis day had plotted, in the council-house\nTo murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?\nLord Mayor What, had he so?\nGLOUCESTER What, think You we are Turks or infidels?\nOr that we would, against the form of law,\nProceed thus rashly to the villain's death,\nBut that the extreme peril of the case,\nThe peace of England and our persons' safety,\nEnforced us to this execution?\nLord Mayor Now, fair befall you! he deserved his death;\nAnd you my good lords, both have well proceeded,\nTo warn false traitors from the like attempts.\nI never look'd for better at his hands,\nAfter he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\nGLOUCESTER Yet had not we determined he should die,\nUntil your lordship came to see his death;\nWhich now the loving haste of these our friends,\nSomewhat against our meaning, have prevented:\nBecause, my lord, we would have had you heard\nThe traitor speak, and timorously confess\nThe manner and the purpose of his treason;\nThat you might well have signified the same\nUnto the citizens, who haply may\nMisconstrue us in him and wail his death.\nLord Mayor But, my good lord, your grace's word shall serve,\nAs well as I had seen and heard him speak\nAnd doubt you not, right noble princes both,\nBut I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\nWith all your just proceedings in this cause.\nGLOUCESTER And to that end we wish'd your lord-ship here,\nTo avoid the carping censures of the world.\nBUCKINGHAM But since you come too late of our intents,\nYet witness what you hear we did intend:\nAnd so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.\n[Exit Lord Mayor]\nGLOUCESTER Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\nThe mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:\nThere, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\nInfer the bastardy of Edward's children:\nTell them how Edward put to death a citizen,\nOnly for saying he would make his son\nHeir to the crown; meaning indeed his house,\nWhich, by the sign thereof was termed so.\nMoreover, urge his hateful luxury\nAnd bestial appetite in change of lust;\nWhich stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,\nEven where his lustful eye or savage heart,\nWithout control, listed to make his prey.\nNay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\nTell them, when that my mother went with child\nOf that unsatiate Edward, noble York\nMy princely father then had wars in France\nAnd, by just computation of the time,\nFound that the issue was not his begot;\nWhich well appeared in his lineaments,\nBeing nothing like the noble duke my father:\nBut touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off,\nBecause you know, my lord, my mother lives.\nBUCKINGHAM Fear not, my lord, I'll play the orator\nAs if the golden fee for which I plead\nWere for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.\nGLOUCESTER If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's Castle;\nWhere you shall find me well accompanied\nWith reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.\nBUCKINGHAM I go: and towards three or four o'clock\nLook for the news that the Guildhall affords.\n[Exit BUCKINGHAM]\nGLOUCESTER Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;\n[To CATESBY]\nGo thou to Friar Penker; bid them both\nMeet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\n[Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER]\nNow will I in, to take some privy order,\nTo draw the brats of Clarence out of sight;\nAnd to give notice, that no manner of person\nAt any time have recourse unto the princes.\n[Exit]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE VI The same.\n[Enter a Scrivener, with a paper in his hand]\nScrivener This is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\nWhich in a set hand fairly is engross'd,\nThat it may be this day read over in Paul's.\nAnd mark how well the sequel hangs together:\nEleven hours I spent to write it over,\nFor yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;\nThe precedent was full as long a-doing:\nAnd yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,\nUntainted, unexamined, free, at liberty\nHere's a good world the while! Why who's so gross,\nThat seeth not this palpable device?\nYet who's so blind, but says he sees it not?\nBad is the world; and all will come to nought,\nWhen such bad dealings must be seen in thought.\n[Exit]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT III\nSCENE VII Baynard's Castle.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors]\nGLOUCESTER How now, my lord, what say the citizens?\nBUCKINGHAM Now, by the holy mother of our Lord,\nThe citizens are mum and speak not a word.\nGLOUCESTER Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children?\nBUCKINGHAM I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\nAnd his contract by deputy in France;\nThe insatiate greediness of his desires,\nAnd his enforcement of the city wives;\nHis tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\nAs being got, your father then in France,\nHis resemblance, being not like the duke;\nWithal I did infer your lineaments,\nBeing the right idea of your father,\nBoth in your form and nobleness of mind;\nLaid open all your victories in Scotland,\nYour dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,\nYour bounty, virtue, fair humility:\nIndeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose\nUntouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse\nAnd when mine oratory grew to an end\nI bid them that did love their country's good\nCry 'God save Richard, England's royal king!'\nGLOUCESTER Ah! and did they so?\nBUCKINGHAM No, so God help me, they spake not a word;\nBut, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\nGazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\nWhich when I saw, I reprehended them;\nAnd ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:\nHis answer was, the people were not wont\nTo be spoke to but by the recorder.\nThen he was urged to tell my tale again,\n'Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;'\nBut nothing spake in warrant from himself.\nWhen he had done, some followers of mine own,\nAt the lower end of the hall, hurl'd up their caps,\nAnd some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\nAnd thus I took the vantage of those few,\n'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I;\n'This general applause and loving shout\nArgues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:'\nAnd even here brake off, and came away.\nGLOUCESTER What tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?\nBUCKINGHAM No, by my troth, my lord.\nGLOUCESTER Will not the mayor then and his brethren come?\nBUCKINGHAM The mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;\nBe not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:\nAnd look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\nAnd stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;\nFor on that ground I'll build a holy descant:\nAnd be not easily won to our request:\nPlay the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.\nGLOUCESTER I go; and if you plead as well for them\nAs I can say nay to thee for myself,\nNo doubt well bring it to a happy issue.\nBUCKINGHAM Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.\n[Exit GLOUCESTER]\n[Enter the Lord Mayor and Citizens]\nWelcome my lord; I dance attendance here;\nI think the duke will not be spoke withal.\n[Enter CATESBY]\nHere comes his servant: how now, Catesby,\nWhat says he?\nCATESBY My lord: he doth entreat your grace;\nTo visit him to-morrow or next day:\nHe is within, with two right reverend fathers,\nDivinely bent to meditation;\nAnd no worldly suit would he be moved,\nTo draw him from his holy exercise.\nBUCKINGHAM Return, good Catesby, to thy lord again;\nTell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,\nIn deep designs and matters of great moment,\nNo less importing than our general good,\nAre come to have some conference with his grace.\nCATESBY I'll tell him what you say, my lord.\n[Exit]\nBUCKINGHAM Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\nHe is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,\nBut on his knees at meditation;\nNot dallying with a brace of courtezans,\nBut meditating with two deep divines;\nNot sleeping, to engross his idle body,\nBut praying, to enrich his watchful soul:\nHappy were England, would this gracious prince\nTake on himself the sovereignty thereof:\nBut, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.\nLord Mayor Marry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!\nBUCKINGHAM I fear he will.\n[Re-enter CATESBY]\nHow now, Catesby, what says your lord?\nCATESBY My lord,\nHe wonders to what end you have assembled\nSuch troops of citizens to speak with him,\nHis grace not being warn'd thereof before:\nMy lord, he fears you mean no good to him.\nBUCKINGHAM Sorry I am my noble cousin should\nSuspect me, that I mean no good to him:\nBy heaven, I come in perfect love to him;\nAnd so once more return and tell his grace.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nWhen holy and devout religious men\nAre at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,\nSo sweet is zealous contemplation.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two Bishops.\nCATESBY returns]\nLord Mayor See, where he stands between two clergymen!\nBUCKINGHAM Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,\nTo stay him from the fall of vanity:\nAnd, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\nTrue ornaments to know a holy man.\nFamous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,\nLend favourable ears to our request;\nAnd pardon us the interruption\nOf thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\nGLOUCESTER My lord, there needs no such apology:\nI rather do beseech you pardon me,\nWho, earnest in the service of my God,\nNeglect the visitation of my friends.\nBut, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?\nBUCKINGHAM Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\nAnd all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\nGLOUCESTER I do suspect I have done some offence\nThat seems disgracious in the city's eyes,\nAnd that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\nBUCKINGHAM You have, my lord: would it might please your grace,\nAt our entreaties, to amend that fault!\nGLOUCESTER Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\nBUCKINGHAM Then know, it is your fault that you resign\nThe supreme seat, the throne majestical,\nThe scepter'd office of your ancestors,\nYour state of fortune and your due of birth,\nThe lineal glory of your royal house,\nTo the corruption of a blemished stock:\nWhilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\nWhich here we waken to our country's good,\nThis noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\nHer face defaced with scars of infamy,\nHer royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\nAnd almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf\nOf blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.\nWhich to recure, we heartily solicit\nYour gracious self to take on you the charge\nAnd kingly government of this your land,\nNot as protector, steward, substitute,\nOr lowly factor for another's gain;\nBut as successively from blood to blood,\nYour right of birth, your empery, your own.\nFor this, consorted with the citizens,\nYour very worshipful and loving friends,\nAnd by their vehement instigation,\nIn this just suit come I to move your grace.\nGLOUCESTER I know not whether to depart in silence,\nOr bitterly to speak in your reproof.\nBest fitteth my degree or your condition\nIf not to answer, you might haply think\nTongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\nTo bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\nWhich fondly you would here impose on me;\nIf to reprove you for this suit of yours,\nSo season'd with your faithful love to me.\nThen, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends.\nTherefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,\nAnd then, in speaking, not to incur the last,\nDefinitively thus I answer you.\nYour love deserves my thanks; but my desert\nUnmeritable shuns your high request.\nFirst if all obstacles were cut away,\nAnd that my path were even to the crown,\nAs my ripe revenue and due by birth\nYet so much is my poverty of spirit,\nSo mighty and so many my defects,\nAs I had rather hide me from my greatness,\nBeing a bark to brook no mighty sea,\nThan in my greatness covet to be hid,\nAnd in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\nBut, God be thank'd, there's no need of me,\nAnd much I need to help you, if need were;\nThe royal tree hath left us royal fruit,\nWhich, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\nWill well become the seat of majesty,\nAnd make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\nOn him I lay what you would lay on me,\nThe right and fortune of his happy stars;\nWhich God defend that I should wring from him!\nBUCKINGHAM My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;\nBut the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\nAll circumstances well considered.\nYou say that Edward is your brother's son:\nSo say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\nFor first he was contract to Lady Lucy--\nYour mother lives a witness to that vow--\nAnd afterward by substitute betroth'd\nTo Bona, sister to the King of France.\nThese both put by a poor petitioner,\nA care-crazed mother of a many children,\nA beauty-waning and distressed widow,\nEven in the afternoon of her best days,\nMade prize and purchase of his lustful eye,\nSeduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts\nTo base declension and loathed bigamy\nBy her, in his unlawful bed, he got\nThis Edward, whom our manners term the prince.\nMore bitterly could I expostulate,\nSave that, for reverence to some alive,\nI give a sparing limit to my tongue.\nThen, good my lord, take to your royal self\nThis proffer'd benefit of dignity;\nIf non to bless us and the land withal,\nYet to draw forth your noble ancestry\nFrom the corruption of abusing times,\nUnto a lineal true-derived course.\nLord Mayor Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.\nBUCKINGHAM Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\nCATESBY O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\nGLOUCESTER Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?\nI am unfit for state and majesty;\nI do beseech you, take it not amiss;\nI cannot nor I will not yield to you.\nBUCKINGHAM If you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal,\nLoath to depose the child, Your brother's son;\nAs well we know your tenderness of heart\nAnd gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\nWhich we have noted in you to your kin,\nAnd egally indeed to all estates,--\nYet whether you accept our suit or no,\nYour brother's son shall never reign our king;\nBut we will plant some other in the throne,\nTo the disgrace and downfall of your house:\nAnd in this resolution here we leave you.--\nCome, citizens: 'zounds! I'll entreat no more.\nGLOUCESTER O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n[Exit BUCKINGHAM with the Citizens]\nCATESBY Call them again, my lord, and accept their suit.\nANOTHER Do, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.\nGLOUCESTER Would you enforce me to a world of care?\nWell, call them again. I am not made of stone,\nBut penetrable to your. kind entreats,\nAlbeit against my conscience and my soul.\n[Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest]\nCousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,\nSince you will buckle fortune on my back,\nTo bear her burthen, whether I will or no,\nI must have patience to endure the load:\nBut if black scandal or foul-faced reproach\nAttend the sequel of your imposition,\nYour mere enforcement shall acquittance me\nFrom all the impure blots and stains thereof;\nFor God he knows, and you may partly see,\nHow far I am from the desire thereof.\nLord Mayor God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.\nGLOUCESTER In saying so, you shall but say the truth.\nBUCKINGHAM Then I salute you with this kingly title:\nLong live Richard, England's royal king!\nLord Mayor |\n| Amen.\nCitizens |\nBUCKINGHAM To-morrow will it please you to be crown'd?\nGLOUCESTER Even when you please, since you will have it so.\nBUCKINGHAM To-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:\nAnd so most joyfully we take our leave.\nGLOUCESTER Come, let us to our holy task again.\nFarewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT IV\nSCENE I Before the Tower.\n[Enter, on one side, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF\nYORK, and DORSET; on the other, ANNE, Duchess of\nGloucester, leading Lady Margaret Plantagenet,\nCLARENCE's young Daughter]\nDUCHESS OF YORK Who meets us here? my niece Plantagenet\nLed in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\nNow, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower,\nOn pure heart's love to greet the tender princes.\nDaughter, well met.\nLADY ANNE God give your graces both\nA happy and a joyful time of day!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH As much to you, good sister! Whither away?\nLADY ANNE No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\nUpon the like devotion as yourselves,\nTo gratulate the gentle princes there.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Kind sister, thanks: we'll enter all together.\n[Enter BRAKENBURY]\nAnd, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\nMaster lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\nHow doth the prince, and my young son of York?\nBRAKENBURY Right well, dear madam. By your patience,\nI may not suffer you to visit them;\nThe king hath straitly charged the contrary.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH The king! why, who's that?\nBRAKENBURY I cry you mercy: I mean the lord protector.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH The Lord protect him from that kingly title!\nHath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?\nI am their mother; who should keep me from them?\nDUCHESS OF YORK I am their fathers mother; I will see them.\nLADY ANNE Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother:\nThen bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame\nAnd take thy office from thee, on my peril.\nBRAKENBURY No, madam, no; I may not leave it so:\nI am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.\n[Exit]\n[Enter LORD STANLEY]\nLORD STANLEY Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\nAnd I'll salute your grace of York as mother,\nAnd reverend looker on, of two fair queens.\n[To LADY ANNE]\nCome, madam, you must straight to Westminster,\nThere to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH O, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart\nMay have some scope to beat, or else I swoon\nWith this dead-killing news!\nLADY ANNE Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\nDORSET Be of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!\nDeath and destruction dog thee at the heels;\nThy mother's name is ominous to children.\nIf thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\nAnd live with Richmond, from the reach of hell\nGo, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\nLest thou increase the number of the dead;\nAnd make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\nNor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\nLORD STANLEY Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\nTake all the swift advantage of the hours;\nYou shall have letters from me to my son\nTo meet you on the way, and welcome you.\nBe not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\nDUCHESS OF YORK O ill-dispersing wind of misery!\nO my accursed womb, the bed of death!\nA cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\nWhose unavoided eye is murderous.\nLORD STANLEY Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\nLADY ANNE And I in all unwillingness will go.\nI would to God that the inclusive verge\nOf golden metal that must round my brow\nWere red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!\nAnointed let me be with deadly venom,\nAnd die, ere men can say, God save the queen!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Go, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory\nTo feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\nLADY ANNE No! why? When he that is my husband now\nCame to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse,\nWhen scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\nWhich issued from my other angel husband\nAnd that dead saint which then I weeping follow'd;\nO, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\nThis was my wish: 'Be thou,' quoth I, ' accursed,\nFor making me, so young, so old a widow!\nAnd, when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\nAnd be thy wife--if any be so mad--\nAs miserable by the life of thee\nAs thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!\nLo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\nEven in so short a space, my woman's heart\nGrossly grew captive to his honey words\nAnd proved the subject of my own soul's curse,\nWhich ever since hath kept my eyes from rest;\nFor never yet one hour in his bed\nHave I enjoy'd the golden dew of sleep,\nBut have been waked by his timorous dreams.\nBesides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\nAnd will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\nLADY ANNE No more than from my soul I mourn for yours.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Farewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!\nLADY ANNE Adieu, poor soul, that takest thy leave of it!\nDUCHESS OF YORK [To DORSET]\nGo thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee!\n[To LADY ANNE]\nGo thou to Richard, and good angels guard thee!\n[To QUEEN ELIZABETH]\nGo thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee!\nI to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!\nEighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,\nAnd each hour's joy wrecked with a week of teen.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.\nPity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\nWhom envy hath immured within your walls!\nRough cradle for such little pretty ones!\nRude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\nFor tender princes, use my babies well!\nSo foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT IV\nSCENE II London. The palace.\n[Sennet. Enter KING RICHARD III, in pomp, crowned;\nBUCKINGHAM, CATESBY, a page, and others]\nKING RICHARD III Stand all apart Cousin of Buckingham!\nBUCKINGHAM My gracious sovereign?\nKING RICHARD III Give me thy hand.\n[Here he ascendeth his throne]\nThus high, by thy advice\nAnd thy assistance, is King Richard seated;\nBut shall we wear these honours for a day?\nOr shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\nBUCKINGHAM Still live they and for ever may they last!\nKING RICHARD III O Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\nTo try if thou be current gold indeed\nYoung Edward lives: think now what I would say.\nBUCKINGHAM Say on, my loving lord.\nKING RICHARD III Why, Buckingham, I say, I would be king,\nBUCKINGHAM Why, so you are, my thrice renowned liege.\nKING RICHARD III Ha! am I king? 'tis so: but Edward lives.\nBUCKINGHAM True, noble prince.\nKING RICHARD III O bitter consequence,\nThat Edward still should live! 'True, noble prince!'\nCousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:\nShall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;\nAnd I would have it suddenly perform'd.\nWhat sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.\nBUCKINGHAM Your grace may do your pleasure.\nKING RICHARD III Tut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezeth:\nSay, have I thy consent that they shall die?\nBUCKINGHAM Give me some breath, some little pause, my lord\nBefore I positively herein:\nI will resolve your grace immediately.\n[Exit]\nCATESBY [Aside to a stander by]\nThe king is angry: see, he bites the lip.\nKING RICHARD III I will converse with iron-witted fools\nAnd unrespective boys: none are for me\nThat look into me with considerate eyes:\nHigh-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\nBoy!\nPage My lord?\nKING RICHARD III Know'st thou not any whom corrupting gold\nWould tempt unto a close exploit of death?\nPage My lord, I know a discontented gentleman,\nWhose humble means match not his haughty mind:\nGold were as good as twenty orators,\nAnd will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.\nKING RICHARD III What is his name?\nPage His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\nKING RICHARD III I partly know the man: go, call him hither.\n[Exit Page]\nThe deep-revolving witty Buckingham\nNo more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:\nHath he so long held out with me untired,\nAnd stops he now for breath?\n[Enter STANLEY]\nHow now! what news with you?\nSTANLEY My lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset's fled\nTo Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea\nWhere he abides.\n[Stands apart]\nKING RICHARD III Catesby!\nCATESBY My lord?\nKING RICHARD III Rumour it abroad\nThat Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:\nI will take order for her keeping close.\nInquire me out some mean-born gentleman,\nWhom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter:\nThe boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\nLook, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\nThat Anne my wife is sick and like to die:\nAbout it; for it stands me much upon,\nTo stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nI must be married to my brother's daughter,\nOr else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\nMurder her brothers, and then marry her!\nUncertain way of gain! But I am in\nSo far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:\nTear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\n[Re-enter Page, with TYRREL]\nIs thy name Tyrrel?\nTYRREL James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\nKING RICHARD III Art thou, indeed?\nTYRREL Prove me, my gracious sovereign.\nKING RICHARD III Darest thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\nTYRREL Ay, my lord;\nBut I had rather kill two enemies.\nKING RICHARD III Why, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,\nFoes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers\nAre they that I would have thee deal upon:\nTyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\nTYRREL Let me have open means to come to them,\nAnd soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\nKING RICHARD III Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel\nGo, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:\n[Whispers]\nThere is no more but so: say it is done,\nAnd I will love thee, and prefer thee too.\nTYRREL 'Tis done, my gracious lord.\nKING RICHARD III Shall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, ere we sleep?\nTYRREL Ye shall, my Lord.\n[Exit]\n[Re-enter BUCKINGHAM]\nBUCKINGHAM My Lord, I have consider'd in my mind\nThe late demand that you did sound me in.\nKING RICHARD III Well, let that pass. Dorset is fled to Richmond.\nBUCKINGHAM I hear that news, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III Stanley, he is your wife's son well, look to it.\nBUCKINGHAM My lord, I claim your gift, my due by promise,\nFor which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;\nThe earldom of Hereford and the moveables\nThe which you promised I should possess.\nKING RICHARD III Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey\nLetters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\nBUCKINGHAM What says your highness to my just demand?\nKING RICHARD III As I remember, Henry the Sixth\nDid prophesy that Richmond should be king,\nWhen Richmond was a little peevish boy.\nA king, perhaps, perhaps,--\nBUCKINGHAM My lord!\nKING RICHARD III How chance the prophet could not at that time\nHave told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\nBUCKINGHAM My lord, your promise for the earldom,--\nKING RICHARD III Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,\nThe mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle,\nAnd call'd it Rougemont: at which name I started,\nBecause a bard of Ireland told me once\nI should not live long after I saw Richmond.\nBUCKINGHAM My Lord!\nKING RICHARD III Ay, what's o'clock?\nBUCKINGHAM I am thus bold to put your grace in mind\nOf what you promised me.\nKING RICHARD III Well, but what's o'clock?\nBUCKINGHAM Upon the stroke of ten.\nKING RICHARD III Well, let it strike.\nBUCKINGHAM Why let it strike?\nKING RICHARD III Because that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke\nBetwixt thy begging and my meditation.\nI am not in the giving vein to-day.\nBUCKINGHAM Why, then resolve me whether you will or no.\nKING RICHARD III Tut, tut,\nThou troublest me; am not in the vein.\n[Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM]\nBUCKINGHAM Is it even so? rewards he my true service\nWith such deep contempt made I him king for this?\nO, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\nTo Brecknock, while my fearful head is on!\n[Exit]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT IV\nSCENE III The same.\n[Enter TYRREL]\nTYRREL The tyrannous and bloody deed is done.\nThe most arch of piteous massacre\nThat ever yet this land was guilty of.\nDighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn\nTo do this ruthless piece of butchery,\nAlthough they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\nMelting with tenderness and kind compassion\nWept like two children in their deaths' sad stories.\n'Lo, thus' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes:'\n'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another\nWithin their innocent alabaster arms:\nTheir lips were four red roses on a stalk,\nWhich in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\nA book of prayers on their pillow lay;\nWhich once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind;\nBut O! the devil'--there the villain stopp'd\nWhilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\nThe most replenished sweet work of nature,\nThat from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\nThus both are gone with conscience and remorse;\nThey could not speak; and so I left them both,\nTo bring this tidings to the bloody king.\nAnd here he comes.\n[Enter KING RICHARD III]\nAll hail, my sovereign liege!\nKING RICHARD III Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\nTYRREL If to have done the thing you gave in charge\nBeget your happiness, be happy then,\nFor it is done, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III But didst thou see them dead?\nTYRREL I did, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III And buried, gentle Tyrrel?\nTYRREL The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\nBut how or in what place I do not know.\nKING RICHARD III Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\nAnd thou shalt tell the process of their death.\nMeantime, but think how I may do thee good,\nAnd be inheritor of thy desire.\nFarewell till soon.\n[Exit TYRREL]\nThe son of Clarence have I pent up close;\nHis daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\nThe sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\nAnd Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.\nNow, for I know the Breton Richmond aims\nAt young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\nAnd, by that knot, looks proudly o'er the crown,\nTo her I go, a jolly thriving wooer.\n[Enter CATESBY]\nCATESBY My lord!\nKING RICHARD III Good news or bad, that thou comest in so bluntly?\nCATESBY Bad news, my lord: Ely is fled to Richmond;\nAnd Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\nIs in the field, and still his power increaseth.\nKING RICHARD III Ely with Richmond troubles me more near\nThan Buckingham and his rash-levied army.\nCome, I have heard that fearful commenting\nIs leaden servitor to dull delay;\nDelay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary\nThen fiery expedition be my wing,\nJove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\nCome, muster men: my counsel is my shield;\nWe must be brief when traitors brave the field.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT IV\nSCENE IV Before the palace.\n[Enter QUEEN MARGARET]\nQUEEN MARGARET So, now prosperity begins to mellow\nAnd drop into the rotten mouth of death.\nHere in these confines slily have I lurk'd,\nTo watch the waning of mine adversaries.\nA dire induction am I witness to,\nAnd will to France, hoping the consequence\nWill prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\nWithdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?\n[Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK]\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!\nMy unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\nIf yet your gentle souls fly in the air\nAnd be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\nHover about me with your airy wings\nAnd hear your mother's lamentation!\nQUEEN MARGARET Hover about her; say, that right for right\nHath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\nDUCHESS OF YORK So many miseries have crazed my voice,\nThat my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,\nEdward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\nQUEEN MARGARET Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet.\nEdward for Edward pays a dying debt.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,\nAnd throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\nWhen didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\nQUEEN MARGARET When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Blind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,\nWoe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\nBrief abstract and record of tedious days,\nRest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,\n[Sitting down]\nUnlawfully made drunk with innocents' blood!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH O, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave\nAs thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\nThen would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\nO, who hath any cause to mourn but I?\n[Sitting down by her]\nQUEEN MARGARET If ancient sorrow be most reverend,\nGive mine the benefit of seniory,\nAnd let my woes frown on the upper hand.\nIf sorrow can admit society,\n[Sitting down with them]\nTell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:\nI had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nI had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:\nThou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nThou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;\nDUCHESS OF YORK I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\nI had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\nQUEEN MARGARET Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him.\nFrom forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\nA hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:\nThat dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,\nTo worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\nThat foul defacer of God's handiwork,\nThat excellent grand tyrant of the earth,\nThat reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\nThy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.\nO upright, just, and true-disposing God,\nHow do I thank thee, that this carnal cur\nPreys on the issue of his mother's body,\nAnd makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\nDUCHESS OF YORK O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\nGod witness with me, I have wept for thine.\nQUEEN MARGARET Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\nAnd now I cloy me with beholding it.\nThy Edward he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward:\nThy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\nYoung York he is but boot, because both they\nMatch not the high perfection of my loss:\nThy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward;\nAnd the beholders of this tragic play,\nThe adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\nUntimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\nRichard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,\nOnly reserved their factor, to buy souls\nAnd send them thither: but at hand, at hand,\nEnsues his piteous and unpitied end:\nEarth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.\nTo have him suddenly convey'd away.\nCancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,\nThat I may live to say, The dog is dead!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH O, thou didst prophesy the time would come\nThat I should wish for thee to help me curse\nThat bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\nQUEEN MARGARET I call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune;\nI call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen;\nThe presentation of but what I was;\nThe flattering index of a direful pageant;\nOne heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below;\nA mother only mock'd with two sweet babes;\nA dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,\nA sign of dignity, a garish flag,\nTo be the aim of every dangerous shot,\nA queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\nWhere is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?\nWhere are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?\nWho sues to thee and cries 'God save the queen'?\nWhere be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?\nWhere be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?\nDecline all this, and see what now thou art:\nFor happy wife, a most distressed widow;\nFor joyful mother, one that wails the name;\nFor queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\nFor one being sued to, one that humbly sues;\nFor one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\nFor one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\nFor one commanding all, obey'd of none.\nThus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,\nAnd left thee but a very prey to time;\nHaving no more but thought of what thou wert,\nTo torture thee the more, being what thou art.\nThou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\nUsurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\nNow thy proud neck bears half my burthen'd yoke;\nFrom which even here I slip my weary neck,\nAnd leave the burthen of it all on thee.\nFarewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance:\nThese English woes will make me smile in France.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile,\nAnd teach me how to curse mine enemies!\nQUEEN MARGARET Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;\nCompare dead happiness with living woe;\nThink that thy babes were fairer than they were,\nAnd he that slew them fouler than he is:\nBettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:\nRevolving this will teach thee how to curse.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH My words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!\nQUEEN MARGARET Thy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.\n[Exit]\nDUCHESS OF YORK Why should calamity be full of words?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Windy attorneys to their client woes,\nAiry succeeders of intestate joys,\nPoor breathing orators of miseries!\nLet them have scope: though what they do impart\nHelp not all, yet do they ease the heart.\nDUCHESS OF YORK If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.\nAnd in the breath of bitter words let's smother\nMy damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother'd.\nI hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.\n[Enter KING RICHARD III, marching, with drums and trumpets]\nKING RICHARD III Who intercepts my expedition?\nDUCHESS OF YORK O, she that might have intercepted thee,\nBy strangling thee in her accursed womb\nFrom all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Hidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,\nWhere should be graven, if that right were right,\nThe slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,\nAnd the dire death of my two sons and brothers?\nTell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\nDUCHESS OF YORK Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?\nAnd little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Where is kind Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?\nKING RICHARD III A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!\nLet not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\nRail on the Lord's enointed: strike, I say!\n[Flourish. Alarums]\nEither be patient, and entreat me fair,\nOr with the clamorous report of war\nThus will I drown your exclamations.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Art thou my son?\nKING RICHARD III Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Then patiently hear my impatience.\nKING RICHARD III Madam, I have a touch of your condition,\nWhich cannot brook the accent of reproof.\nDUCHESS OF YORK O, let me speak!\nKING RICHARD III Do then: but I'll not hear.\nDUCHESS OF YORK I will be mild and gentle in my speech.\nKING RICHARD III And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\nGod knows, in anguish, pain and agony.\nKING RICHARD III And came I not at last to comfort you?\nDUCHESS OF YORK No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,\nThou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.\nA grievous burthen was thy birth to me;\nTetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\nThy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,\nThy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,\nThy age confirm'd, proud, subdued, bloody,\ntreacherous,\nMore mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:\nWhat comfortable hour canst thou name,\nThat ever graced me in thy company?\nKING RICHARD III Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\nyour grace\nTo breakfast once forth of my company.\nIf I be so disgracious in your sight,\nLet me march on, and not offend your grace.\nStrike the drum.\nDUCHESS OF YORK I prithee, hear me speak.\nKING RICHARD III You speak too bitterly.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Hear me a word;\nFor I shall never speak to thee again.\nKING RICHARD III So.\nDUCHESS OF YORK Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance,\nEre from this war thou turn a conqueror,\nOr I with grief and extreme age shall perish\nAnd never look upon thy face again.\nTherefore take with thee my most heavy curse;\nWhich, in the day of battle, tire thee more\nThan all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\nMy prayers on the adverse party fight;\nAnd there the little souls of Edward's children\nWhisper the spirits of thine enemies\nAnd promise them success and victory.\nBloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;\nShame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.\n[Exit]\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse\nAbides in me; I say amen to all.\nKING RICHARD III Stay, madam; I must speak a word with you.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH I have no more sons of the royal blood\nFor thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,\nThey shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\nAnd therefore level not to hit their lives.\nKING RICHARD III You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth,\nVirtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH And must she die for this? O, let her live,\nAnd I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;\nSlander myself as false to Edward's bed;\nThrow over her the veil of infamy:\nSo she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\nI will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\nKING RICHARD III Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH To save her life, I'll say she is not so.\nKING RICHARD III Her life is only safest in her birth.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH And only in that safety died her brothers.\nKING RICHARD III Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH No, to their lives bad friends were contrary.\nKING RICHARD III All unavoided is the doom of destiny.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH True, when avoided grace makes destiny:\nMy babes were destined to a fairer death,\nIf grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\nKING RICHARD III You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd\nOf comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\nWhose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,\nThy head, all indirectly, gave direction:\nNo doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt\nTill it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,\nTo revel in the entrails of my lambs.\nBut that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,\nMy tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\nTill that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\nAnd I, in such a desperate bay of death,\nLike a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\nRush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\nKING RICHARD III Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise\nAnd dangerous success of bloody wars,\nAs I intend more good to you and yours,\nThan ever you or yours were by me wrong'd!\nQUEEN ELIZABETH What good is cover'd with the face of heaven,\nTo be discover'd, that can do me good?\nKING RICHARD III The advancement of your children, gentle lady.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?\nKING RICHARD III No, to the dignity and height of honour\nThe high imperial type of this earth's glory.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Flatter my sorrows with report of it;\nTell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\nCanst thou demise to any child of mine?\nKING RICHARD III Even all I have; yea, and myself and all,\nWill I withal endow a child of thine;\nSo in the Lethe of thy angry soul\nThou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\nWhich thou supposest I have done to thee.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Be brief, lest that be process of thy kindness\nLast longer telling than thy kindness' date.\nKING RICHARD III Then know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH My daughter's mother thinks it with her soul.\nKING RICHARD III What do you think?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:\nSo from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers;\nAnd from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\nKING RICHARD III Be not so hasty to confound my meaning:\nI mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,\nAnd mean to make her queen of England.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Say then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?\nKING RICHARD III Even he that makes her queen who should be else?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH What, thou?\nKING RICHARD III I, even I: what think you of it, madam?\nQUEEN ELIZABETH How canst thou woo her?\nKING RICHARD III That would I learn of you,\nAs one that are best acquainted with her humour.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH And wilt thou learn of me?\nKING RICHARD III Madam, with all my heart.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,\nA pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave\nEdward and York; then haply she will weep:\nTherefore present to her--as sometime Margaret\nDid to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--\nA handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\nThe purple sap from her sweet brother's body\nAnd bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.\nIf this inducement force her not to love,\nSend her a story of thy noble acts;\nTell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,\nHer uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,\nMadest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\nKING RICHARD III Come, come, you mock me; this is not the way\nTo win our daughter.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH There is no other way\nUnless thou couldst put on some other shape,\nAnd not be Richard that hath done all this.\nKING RICHARD III Say that I did all this for love of her.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,\nHaving bought love with such a bloody spoil.\nKING RICHARD III Look, what is done cannot be now amended:\nMen shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\nWhich after hours give leisure to repent.\nIf I did take the kingdom from your sons,\nTo make amends, Ill give it to your daughter.\nIf I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\nTo quicken your increase, I will beget\nMine issue of your blood upon your daughter\nA grandam's name is little less in love\nThan is the doting title of a mother;\nThey are as children but one step below,\nEven of your mettle, of your very blood;\nOf an one pain, save for a night of groans\nEndured of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\nYour children were vexation to your youth,\nBut mine shall be a comfort to your age.\nThe loss you have is but a son being king,\nAnd by that loss your daughter is made queen.\nI cannot make you what amends I would,\nTherefore accept such kindness as I can.\nDorset your son, that with a fearful soul\nLeads discontented steps in foreign soil,\nThis fair alliance quickly shall call home\nTo high promotions and great dignity:\nThe king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife.\nFamiliarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\nAgain shall you be mother to a king,\nAnd all the ruins of distressful times\nRepair'd with double riches of content.\nWhat! we have many goodly days to see:\nThe liquid drops of tears that you have shed\nShall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\nAdvantaging their loan with interest\nOf ten times double gain of happiness.\nGo, then my mother, to thy daughter go\nMake bold her bashful years with your experience;\nPrepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale\nPut in her tender heart the aspiring flame\nOf golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess\nWith the sweet silent hours of marriage joys\nAnd when this arm of mine hath chastised\nThe petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\nBound with triumphant garlands will I come\nAnd lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\nTo whom I will retail my conquest won,\nAnd she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Caesar.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH What were I best to say? her father's brother\nWould be her lord? or shall I say, her uncle?\nOr, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\nUnder what title shall I woo for thee,\nThat God, the law, my honour and her love,\nCan make seem pleasing to her tender years?\nKING RICHARD III Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.\nKING RICHARD III Say that the king, which may command, entreats.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH That at her hands which the king's King forbids.\nKING RICHARD III Say, she shall be a high and mighty queen.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH To wail the tide, as her mother doth.\nKING RICHARD III Say, I will love her everlastingly.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH But how long shall that title 'ever' last?\nKING RICHARD III Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH But how long fairly shall her sweet lie last?\nKING RICHARD III So long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH So long as hell and Richard likes of it.\nKING RICHARD III Say, I, her sovereign, am her subject love.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.\nKING RICHARD III Be eloquent in my behalf to her.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.\nKING RICHARD III Then in plain terms tell her my loving tale.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.\nKING RICHARD III Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH O no, my reasons are too deep and dead;\nToo deep and dead, poor infants, in their grave.\nKING RICHARD III Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Harp on it still shall I till heart-strings break.\nKING RICHARD III Now, by my George, my garter, and my crown,--\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Profaned, dishonour'd, and the third usurp'd.\nKING RICHARD III I swear--\nQUEEN ELIZABETH By nothing; for this is no oath:\nThe George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;\nThe garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\nThe crown, usurp'd, disgraced his kingly glory.\nif something thou wilt swear to be believed,\nSwear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\nKING RICHARD III Now, by the world--\nQUEEN ELIZABETH 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\nKING RICHARD III My father's death--\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Thy life hath that dishonour'd.\nKING RICHARD III Then, by myself--\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Thyself thyself misusest.\nKING RICHARD III Why then, by God--\nQUEEN ELIZABETH God's wrong is most of all.\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe unity the king thy brother made\nHad not been broken, nor my brother slain:\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe imperial metal, circling now thy brow,\nHad graced the tender temples of my child,\nAnd both the princes had been breathing here,\nWhich now, two tender playfellows to dust,\nThy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.\nWhat canst thou swear by now?\nKING RICHARD III The time to come.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH That thou hast wronged in the time o'erpast;\nFor I myself have many tears to wash\nHereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\nThe children live, whose parents thou hast\nslaughter'd,\nUngovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\nThe parents live, whose children thou hast butcher'd,\nOld wither'd plants, to wail it with their age.\nSwear not by time to come; for that thou hast\nMisused ere used, by time misused o'erpast.\nKING RICHARD III As I intend to prosper and repent,\nSo thrive I in my dangerous attempt\nOf hostile arms! myself myself confound!\nHeaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\nDay, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\nBe opposite all planets of good luck\nTo my proceedings, if, with pure heart's love,\nImmaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\nI tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!\nIn her consists my happiness and thine;\nWithout her, follows to this land and me,\nTo thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,\nDeath, desolation, ruin and decay:\nIt cannot be avoided but by this;\nIt will not be avoided but by this.\nTherefore, good mother,--I must can you so--\nBe the attorney of my love to her:\nPlead what I will be, not what I have been;\nNot my deserts, but what I will deserve:\nUrge the necessity and state of times,\nAnd be not peevish-fond in great designs.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?\nKING RICHARD III Ay, if the devil tempt thee to do good.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Shall I forget myself to be myself?\nKING RICHARD III Ay, if yourself's remembrance wrong yourself.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH But thou didst kill my children.\nKING RICHARD III But in your daughter's womb I bury them:\nWhere in that nest of spicery they shall breed\nSelves of themselves, to your recomforture.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?\nKING RICHARD III And be a happy mother by the deed.\nQUEEN ELIZABETH I go. Write to me very shortly.\nAnd you shall understand from me her mind.\nKING RICHARD III Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\n[Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH]\nRelenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\n[Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following]\nHow now! what news?\nRATCLIFF My gracious sovereign, on the western coast\nRideth a puissant navy; to the shore\nThrong many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\nUnarm'd, and unresolved to beat them back:\n'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\nAnd there they hull, expecting but the aid\nOf Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\nKING RICHARD III Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:\nRatcliff, thyself, or Catesby; where is he?\nCATESBY Here, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III Fly to the duke:\n[To RATCLIFF]\nPost thou to Salisbury\nWhen thou comest thither--\n[To CATESBY]\nDull, unmindful villain,\nWhy stand'st thou still, and go'st not to the duke?\nCATESBY First, mighty sovereign, let me know your mind,\nWhat from your grace I shall deliver to him.\nKING RICHARD III O, true, good Catesby: bid him levy straight\nThe greatest strength and power he can make,\nAnd meet me presently at Salisbury.\nCATESBY I go.\n[Exit]\nRATCLIFF What is't your highness' pleasure I shall do at\nSalisbury?\nKING RICHARD III Why, what wouldst thou do there before I go?\nRATCLIFF Your highness told me I should post before.\nKING RICHARD III My mind is changed, sir, my mind is changed.\n[Enter STANLEY]\nHow now, what news with you?\nSTANLEY None good, my lord, to please you with the hearing;\nNor none so bad, but it may well be told.\nKING RICHARD III Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\nWhy dost thou run so many mile about,\nWhen thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way?\nOnce more, what news?\nSTANLEY Richmond is on the seas.\nKING RICHARD III There let him sink, and be the seas on him!\nWhite-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\nSTANLEY I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\nKING RICHARD III Well, sir, as you guess, as you guess?\nSTANLEY Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Ely,\nHe makes for England, there to claim the crown.\nKING RICHARD III Is the chair empty? is the sword unsway'd?\nIs the king dead? the empire unpossess'd?\nWhat heir of York is there alive but we?\nAnd who is England's king but great York's heir?\nThen, tell me, what doth he upon the sea?\nSTANLEY Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\nKING RICHARD III Unless for that he comes to be your liege,\nYou cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\nThou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.\nSTANLEY No, mighty liege; therefore mistrust me not.\nKING RICHARD III Where is thy power, then, to beat him back?\nWhere are thy tenants and thy followers?\nAre they not now upon the western shore.\nSafe-conducting the rebels from their ships!\nSTANLEY No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\nKING RICHARD III Cold friends to Richard: what do they in the north,\nWhen they should serve their sovereign in the west?\nSTANLEY They have not been commanded, mighty sovereign:\nPlease it your majesty to give me leave,\nI'll muster up my friends, and meet your grace\nWhere and what time your majesty shall please.\nKING RICHARD III Ay, ay. thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond:\nI will not trust you, sir.\nSTANLEY Most mighty sovereign,\nYou have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful:\nI never was nor never will be false.\nKING RICHARD III Well,\nGo muster men; but, hear you, leave behind\nYour son, George Stanley: look your faith be firm.\nOr else his head's assurance is but frail.\nSTANLEY So deal with him as I prove true to you.\n[Exit]\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\nAs I by friends am well advertised,\nSir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate\nBishop of Exeter, his brother there,\nWith many more confederates, are in arms.\n[Enter another Messenger]\nSecond Messenger My liege, in Kent the Guildfords are in arms;\nAnd every hour more competitors\nFlock to their aid, and still their power increaseth.\n[Enter another Messenger]\nThird Messenger My lord, the army of the Duke of Buckingham--\nKING RICHARD III Out on you, owls! nothing but songs of death?\n[He striketh him]\nTake that, until thou bring me better news.\nThird Messenger The news I have to tell your majesty\nIs, that by sudden floods and fall of waters,\nBuckingham's army is dispersed and scatter'd;\nAnd he himself wander'd away alone,\nNo man knows whither.\nKING RICHARD III I cry thee mercy:\nThere is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\nHath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\nReward to him that brings the traitor in?\nThird Messenger Such proclamation hath been made, my liege.\n[Enter another Messenger]\nFourth Messenger Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis Dorset,\n'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\nYet this good comfort bring I to your grace,\nThe Breton navy is dispersed by tempest:\nRichmond, in Yorkshire, sent out a boat\nUnto the shore, to ask those on the banks\nIf they were his assistants, yea or no;\nWho answer'd him, they came from Buckingham.\nUpon his party: he, mistrusting them,\nHoisted sail and made away for Brittany.\nKING RICHARD III March on, march on, since we are up in arms;\nIf not to fight with foreign enemies,\nYet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n[Re-enter CATESBY]\nCATESBY My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken;\nThat is the best news: that the Earl of Richmond\nIs with a mighty power landed at Milford,\nIs colder tidings, yet they must be told.\nKING RICHARD III Away towards Salisbury! while we reason here,\nA royal battle might be won and lost\nSome one take order Buckingham be brought\nTo Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n[Flourish. Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT IV\nSCENE V Lord Derby's house.\n[Enter DERBY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK]\nDERBY Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\nThat in the sty of this most bloody boar\nMy son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold:\nIf I revolt, off goes young George's head;\nThe fear of that withholds my present aid.\nBut, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\nCHRISTOPHER At Pembroke, or at Harford-west, in Wales.\nDERBY What men of name resort to him?\nCHRISTOPHER Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\nSir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;\nOxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\nAnd Rice ap Thomas with a valiant crew;\nAnd many more of noble fame and worth:\nAnd towards London they do bend their course,\nIf by the way they be not fought withal.\nDERBY Return unto thy lord; commend me to him:\nTell him the queen hath heartily consented\nHe shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\nThese letters will resolve him of my mind. Farewell.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT V\nSCENE I Salisbury. An open place.\n[Enter the Sheriff, and BUCKINGHAM, with halberds,\nled to execution]\nBUCKINGHAM Will not King Richard let me speak with him?\nSheriff No, my good lord; therefore be patient.\nBUCKINGHAM Hastings, and Edward's children, Rivers, Grey,\nHoly King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\nVaughan, and all that have miscarried\nBy underhand corrupted foul injustice,\nIf that your moody discontented souls\nDo through the clouds behold this present hour,\nEven for revenge mock my destruction!\nThis is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?\nSheriff It is, my lord.\nBUCKINGHAM Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.\nThis is the day that, in King Edward's time,\nI wish't might fall on me, when I was found\nFalse to his children or his wife's allies\nThis is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\nBy the false faith of him I trusted most;\nThis, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\nIs the determined respite of my wrongs:\nThat high All-Seer that I dallied with\nHath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\nAnd given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\nThus doth he force the swords of wicked men\nTo turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:\nNow Margaret's curse is fallen upon my head;\n'When he,' quoth she, 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\nRemember Margaret was a prophetess.'\nCome, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;\nWrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT V\nSCENE II The camp near Tamworth.\n[Enter RICHMOND, OXFORD, BLUNT, HERBERT, and others,\nwith drum and colours]\nRICHMOND Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\nBruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,\nThus far into the bowels of the land\nHave we march'd on without impediment;\nAnd here receive we from our father Stanley\nLines of fair comfort and encouragement.\nThe wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\nThat spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\nSwills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\nIn your embowell'd bosoms, this foul swine\nLies now even in the centre of this isle,\nNear to the town of Leicester, as we learn\nFrom Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\nIn God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,\nTo reap the harvest of perpetual peace\nBy this one bloody trial of sharp war.\nOXFORD Every man's conscience is a thousand swords,\nTo fight against that bloody homicide.\nHERBERT I doubt not but his friends will fly to us.\nBLUNT He hath no friends but who are friends for fear.\nWhich in his greatest need will shrink from him.\nRICHMOND All for our vantage. Then, in God's name, march:\nTrue hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:\nKings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT V\nSCENE III Bosworth Field.\n[Enter KING RICHARD III in arms, with NORFOLK,\nSURREY, and others]\nKING RICHARD III Here pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field.\nMy Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\nSURREY My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\nKING RICHARD III My Lord of Norfolk,--\nNORFOLK Here, most gracious liege.\nKING RICHARD III Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we not?\nNORFOLK We must both give and take, my gracious lord.\nKING RICHARD III Up with my tent there! here will I lie tonight;\nBut where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.\nWho hath descried the number of the foe?\nNORFOLK Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.\nKING RICHARD III Why, our battalion trebles that account:\nBesides, the king's name is a tower of strength,\nWhich they upon the adverse party want.\nUp with my tent there! Valiant gentlemen,\nLet us survey the vantage of the field\nCall for some men of sound direction\nLet's want no discipline, make no delay,\nFor, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.\n[Exeunt]\n[Enter, on the other side of the field, RICHMOND,\nSir William Brandon, OXFORD, and others. Some of\nthe Soldiers pitch RICHMOND's tent]\nRICHMOND The weary sun hath made a golden set,\nAnd by the bright track of his fiery car,\nGives signal, of a goodly day to-morrow.\nSir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\nGive me some ink and paper in my tent\nI'll draw the form and model of our battle,\nLimit each leader to his several charge,\nAnd part in just proportion our small strength.\nMy Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,\nAnd you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.\nThe Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment:\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him\nAnd by the second hour in the morning\nDesire the earl to see me in my tent:\nYet one thing more, good Blunt, before thou go'st,\nWhere is Lord Stanley quarter'd, dost thou know?\nBLUNT Unless I have mista'en his colours much,\nWhich well I am assured I have not done,\nHis regiment lies half a mile at least\nSouth from the mighty power of the king.\nRICHMOND If without peril it be possible,\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him,\nAnd give him from me this most needful scroll.\nBLUNT Upon my life, my lord, I'll under-take it;\nAnd so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\nRICHMOND Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,\nLet us consult upon to-morrow's business\nIn to our tent; the air is raw and cold.\n[They withdraw into the tent]\n[Enter, to his tent, KING RICHARD III, NORFOLK,\nRATCLIFF, CATESBY, and others]\nKING RICHARD III What is't o'clock?\nCATESBY It's supper-time, my lord;\nIt's nine o'clock.\nKING RICHARD III I will not sup to-night.\nGive me some ink and paper.\nWhat, is my beaver easier than it was?\nAnd all my armour laid into my tent?\nCATESBY If is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\nKING RICHARD III Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\nUse careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\nNORFOLK I go, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\nNORFOLK I warrant you, my lord.\n[Exit]\nKING RICHARD III Catesby!\nCATESBY My lord?\nKING RICHARD III Send out a pursuivant at arms\nTo Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\nBefore sunrising, lest his son George fall\nInto the blind cave of eternal night.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nFill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\nSaddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\nLook that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\nRatcliff!\nRATCLIFF My lord?\nKING RICHARD III Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord Northumberland?\nRATCLIFF Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,\nMuch about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\nWent through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\nKING RICHARD III So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:\nI have not that alacrity of spirit,\nNor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.\nSet it down. Is ink and paper ready?\nRATCLIFF It is, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III Bid my guard watch; leave me.\nRatcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent\nAnd help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n[Exeunt RATCLIFF and the other Attendants]\n[Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent, Lords and\nothers attending]\nDERBY Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!\nRICHMOND All comfort that the dark night can afford\nBe to thy person, noble father-in-law!\nTell me, how fares our loving mother?\nDERBY I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother\nWho prays continually for Richmond's good:\nSo much for that. The silent hours steal on,\nAnd flaky darkness breaks within the east.\nIn brief,--for so the season bids us be,--\nPrepare thy battle early in the morning,\nAnd put thy fortune to the arbitrement\nOf bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\nI, as I may--that which I would I cannot,--\nWith best advantage will deceive the time,\nAnd aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms:\nBut on thy side I may not be too forward\nLest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\nBe executed in his father's sight.\nFarewell: the leisure and the fearful time\nCuts off the ceremonious vows of love\nAnd ample interchange of sweet discourse,\nWhich so long sunder'd friends should dwell upon:\nGod give us leisure for these rites of love!\nOnce more, adieu: be valiant, and speed well!\nRICHMOND Good lords, conduct him to his regiment:\nI'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap,\nLest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow,\nWhen I should mount with wings of victory:\nOnce more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\n[Exeunt all but RICHMOND]\nO Thou, whose captain I account myself,\nLook on my forces with a gracious eye;\nPut in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,\nThat they may crush down with a heavy fall\nThe usurping helmets of our adversaries!\nMake us thy ministers of chastisement,\nThat we may praise thee in the victory!\nTo thee I do commend my watchful soul,\nEre I let fall the windows of mine eyes:\nSleeping and waking, O, defend me still!\n[Sleeps]\n[Enter the Ghost of Prince Edward, son to King Henry VI]\nGhost\nof Prince Edward [To KING RICHARD III]\nLet me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!\nThink, how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth\nAt Tewksbury: despair, therefore, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nBe cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged souls\nOf butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf\nKing Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.\n[Enter the Ghost of King Henry VI]\nGhost\nof King Henry VI [To KING RICHARD III]\nWhen I was mortal, my anointed body\nBy thee was punched full of deadly holes\nThink on the Tower and me: despair, and die!\nHarry the Sixth bids thee despair, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nVirtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!\nHarry, that prophesied thou shouldst be king,\nDoth comfort thee in thy sleep: live, and flourish!\n[Enter the Ghost of CLARENCE]\nGhost of CLARENCE [To KING RICHARD III]\nLet me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!\nI, that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,\nPoor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death!\nTo-morrow in the battle think on me,\nAnd fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!--\n[To RICHMOND]\nThou offspring of the house of Lancaster\nThe wronged heirs of York do pray for thee\nGood angels guard thy battle! live, and flourish!\n[Enter the Ghosts of RIVERS, GRAY, and VAUGHAN]\nGhost of RIVERS [To KING RICHARD III]\nLet me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow,\nRivers. that died at Pomfret! despair, and die!\nGhost of GREY [To KING RICHARD III]\nThink upon Grey, and let thy soul despair!\nGhost of VAUGHAN [To KING RICHARD III]\nThink upon Vaughan, and, with guilty fear,\nLet fall thy lance: despair, and die!\nAll [To RICHMOND]\nAwake, and think our wrongs in Richard's bosom\nWill conquer him! awake, and win the day!\n[Enter the Ghost of HASTINGS]\nGhost of HASTINGS [To KING RICHARD III]\nBloody and guilty, guiltily awake,\nAnd in a bloody battle end thy days!\nThink on Lord Hastings: despair, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nQuiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!\nArm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!\n[Enter the Ghosts of the two young Princes]\nGhosts\nof young Princes [To KING RICHARD III]\nDream on thy cousins smother'd in the Tower:\nLet us be led within thy bosom, Richard,\nAnd weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!\nThy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nSleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in joy;\nGood angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!\nLive, and beget a happy race of kings!\nEdward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.\n[Enter the Ghost of LADY ANNE]\nGhost of LADY ANNE [To KING RICHARD III]\nRichard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,\nThat never slept a quiet hour with thee,\nNow fills thy sleep with perturbations\nTo-morrow in the battle think on me,\nAnd fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nThou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep\nDream of success and happy victory!\nThy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.\n[Enter the Ghost of BUCKINGHAM]\nGhost\nof BUCKINGHAM [To KING RICHARD III]\nThe last was I that helped thee to the crown;\nThe last was I that felt thy tyranny:\nO, in the battle think on Buckingham,\nAnd die in terror of thy guiltiness!\nDream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death:\nFainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!\n[To RICHMOND]\nI died for hope ere I could lend thee aid:\nBut cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismay'd:\nGod and good angel fight on Richmond's side;\nAnd Richard falls in height of all his pride.\n[The Ghosts vanish]\n[KING RICHARD III starts out of his dream]\nKING RICHARD III Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.\nHave mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.\nO coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\nThe lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\nCold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\nWhat do I fear? myself? there's none else by:\nRichard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\nIs there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:\nThen fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:\nLest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?\nAlack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good\nThat I myself have done unto myself?\nO, no! alas, I rather hate myself\nFor hateful deeds committed by myself!\nI am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.\nFool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.\nMy conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\nAnd every tongue brings in a several tale,\nAnd every tale condemns me for a villain.\nPerjury, perjury, in the high'st degree\nMurder, stem murder, in the direst degree;\nAll several sins, all used in each degree,\nThrong to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!\nI shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\nAnd if I die, no soul shall pity me:\nNay, wherefore should they, since that I myself\nFind in myself no pity to myself?\nMethought the souls of all that I had murder'd\nCame to my tent; and every one did threat\nTo-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n[Enter RATCLIFF]\nRATCLIFF My lord!\nKING RICHARD III 'Zounds! who is there?\nRATCLIFF Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\nHath twice done salutation to the morn;\nYour friends are up, and buckle on their armour.\nKING RICHARD III O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\nWhat thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true?\nRATCLIFF No doubt, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,--\nRATCLIFF Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\nKING RICHARD III By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\nHave struck more terror to the soul of Richard\nThan can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\nArmed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.\nIt is not yet near day. Come, go with me;\nUnder our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\nTo see if any mean to shrink from me.\n[Exeunt]\n[Enter the Lords to RICHMOND, sitting in his tent]\nLORDS Good morrow, Richmond!\nRICHMOND Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\nThat you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\nLORDS How have you slept, my lord?\nRICHMOND The sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams\nThat ever enter'd in a drowsy head,\nHave I since your departure had, my lords.\nMethought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder'd,\nCame to my tent, and cried on victory:\nI promise you, my soul is very jocund\nIn the remembrance of so fair a dream.\nHow far into the morning is it, lords?\nLORDS Upon the stroke of four.\nRICHMOND Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\n[His oration to his soldiers]\nMore than I have said, loving countrymen,\nThe leisure and enforcement of the time\nForbids to dwell upon: yet remember this,\nGod and our good cause fight upon our side;\nThe prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\nLike high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\nRichard except, those whom we fight against\nHad rather have us win than him they follow:\nFor what is he they follow? truly, gentlemen,\nA bloody tyrant and a homicide;\nOne raised in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\nOne that made means to come by what he hath,\nAnd slaughter'd those that were the means to help him;\nAbase foul stone, made precious by the foil\nOf England's chair, where he is falsely set;\nOne that hath ever been God's enemy:\nThen, if you fight against God's enemy,\nGod will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\nIf you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\nYou sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\nIf you do fight against your country's foes,\nYour country's fat shall pay your pains the hire;\nIf you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\nYour wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\nIf you do free your children from the sword,\nYour children's children quit it in your age.\nThen, in the name of God and all these rights,\nAdvance your standards, draw your willing swords.\nFor me, the ransom of my bold attempt\nShall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\nBut if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\nThe least of you shall share his part thereof.\nSound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\nGod and Saint George! Richmond and victory!\n[Exeunt]\n[Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, Attendants\nand Forces]\nKING RICHARD III What said Northumberland as touching Richmond?\nRATCLIFF That he was never trained up in arms.\nKING RICHARD III He said the truth: and what said Surrey then?\nRATCLIFF He smiled and said 'The better for our purpose.'\nKING RICHARD III He was in the right; and so indeed it is.\n[Clock striketh]\nTen the clock there. Give me a calendar.\nWho saw the sun to-day?\nRATCLIFF Not I, my lord.\nKING RICHARD III Then he disdains to shine; for by the book\nHe should have braved the east an hour ago\nA black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff!\nRATCLIFF My lord?\nKING RICHARD III The sun will not be seen to-day;\nThe sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\nI would these dewy tears were from the ground.\nNot shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\nMore than to Richmond? for the selfsame heaven\nThat frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n[Enter NORFOLK]\nNORFOLK Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\nKING RICHARD III Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse.\nCall up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:\nI will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\nAnd thus my battle shall be ordered:\nMy foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\nConsisting equally of horse and foot;\nOur archers shall be placed in the midst\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\nShall have the leading of this foot and horse.\nThey thus directed, we will follow\nIn the main battle, whose puissance on either side\nShall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\nThis, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou, Norfolk?\nNORFOLK A good direction, warlike sovereign.\nThis found I on my tent this morning.\n[He sheweth him a paper]\nKING RICHARD III [Reads]\n'Jockey of Norfolk, be not too bold,\nFor Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'\nA thing devised by the enemy.\nGo, gentleman, every man unto his charge\nLet not our babbling dreams affright our souls:\nConscience is but a word that cowards use,\nDevised at first to keep the strong in awe:\nOur strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.\nMarch on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell\nIf not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.\n[His oration to his Army]\nWhat shall I say more than I have inferr'd?\nRemember whom you are to cope withal;\nA sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,\nA scum of Bretons, and base lackey peasants,\nWhom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth\nTo desperate ventures and assured destruction.\nYou sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;\nYou having lands, and blest with beauteous wives,\nThey would restrain the one, distain the other.\nAnd who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,\nLong kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost?\nA milk-sop, one that never in his life\nFelt so much cold as over shoes in snow?\nLet's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;\nLash hence these overweening rags of France,\nThese famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;\nWho, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,\nFor want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves:\nIf we be conquer'd, let men conquer us,\nAnd not these bastard Bretons; whom our fathers\nHave in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,\nAnd in record, left them the heirs of shame.\nShall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives?\nRavish our daughters?\n[Drum afar off]\nHark! I hear their drum.\nFight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yoemen!\nDraw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!\nSpur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;\nAmaze the welkin with your broken staves!\n[Enter a Messenger]\nWhat says Lord Stanley? will he bring his power?\nMessenger My lord, he doth deny to come.\nKING RICHARD III Off with his son George's head!\nNORFOLK My lord, the enemy is past the marsh\nAfter the battle let George Stanley die.\nKING RICHARD III A thousand hearts are great within my bosom:\nAdvance our standards, set upon our foes\nOur ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\nInspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\nUpon them! victory sits on our helms.\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT V\nSCENE IV Another part of the field.\n[Alarum: excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces\nfighting; to him CATESBY]\nCATESBY Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\nThe king enacts more wonders than a man,\nDaring an opposite to every danger:\nHis horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\nSeeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\nRescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!\n[Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD III]\nKING RICHARD III A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\nCATESBY Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.\nKING RICHARD III Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,\nAnd I will stand the hazard of the die:\nI think there be six Richmonds in the field;\nFive have I slain to-day instead of him.\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n[Exeunt]\nKING RICHARD III\nACT V\nSCENE V Another part of the field.\n[Alarum. Enter KING RICHARD III and RICHMOND; they\nfight. KING RICHARD III is slain. Retreat and\nflourish. Re-enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the\ncrown, with divers other Lords]\nRICHMOND God and your arms be praised, victorious friends,\nThe day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\nDERBY Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.\nLo, here, this long-usurped royalty\nFrom the dead temples of this bloody wretch\nHave I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal:\nWear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\nRICHMOND Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!\nBut, tell me, is young George Stanley living?\nDERBY He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;\nWhither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\nRICHMOND What men of name are slain on either side?\nDERBY John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\nSir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\nRICHMOND Inter their bodies as becomes their births:\nProclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\nThat in submission will return to us:\nAnd then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\nWe will unite the white rose and the red:\nSmile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\nThat long have frown'd upon their enmity!\nWhat traitor hears me, and says not amen?\nEngland hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\nThe brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\nThe father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\nThe son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:\nAll this divided York and Lancaster,\nDivided in their dire division,\nO, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,\nThe true succeeders of each royal house,\nBy God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\nAnd let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.\nEnrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,\nWith smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!\nAbate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\nThat would reduce these bloody days again,\nAnd make poor England weep in streams of blood!\nLet them not live to taste this land's increase\nThat would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\nNow civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:\nThat she may long live here, God say amen!\n[Exeunt]","title":"King Richard the Third","type":"page"}