King Richard The Third

1 Enter Queen Elizabeth, the Marquess of Dorset, Lord Rivers and Lord
2 Grey.
3 RIVERS.
4 Have patience, madam. There’s no doubt his Majesty
5 Will soon recover his accustomed health.
6 GREY.
7 In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse.
8 Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort,
9 And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.
10 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
11 If he were dead, what would betide on me?
12 GREY.
13 No other harm but loss of such a lord.
14 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
15 The loss of such a lord includes all harms.
16 GREY.
17 The heavens have blessed you with a goodly son
18 To be your comforter when he is gone.
19 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
20 Ah, he is young, and his minority
21 Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
22 A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
23 RIVERS.
24 Is it concluded he shall be Protector?
25 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
26 It is determined, not concluded yet;
27 But so it must be, if the King miscarry.
28 Enter Buckingham and Stanley, Earl of Derby.
29 GREY.
30 Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.
31 BUCKINGHAM.
32 Good time of day unto your royal Grace.
33 STANLEY.
34 God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.
35 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
36 The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby,
37 To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
38 Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife,
39 And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured
40 I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
41 STANLEY.
42 I do beseech you, either not believe
43 The envious slanders of her false accusers,
44 Or if she be accused on true report,
45 Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
46 From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.
47 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
48 Saw you the King today, my Lord of Derby?
49 STANLEY.
50 But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
51 Are come from visiting his Majesty.
52 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
53 What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
54 BUCKINGHAM.
55 Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks cheerfully.
56 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
57 God grant him health! Did you confer with him?
58 BUCKINGHAM.
59 Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement
60 Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
61 And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;
62 And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
63 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
64 Would all were well—but that will never be.
65 I fear our happiness is at the height.
66 Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester and Hastings.
67 RICHARD.
68 They do me wrong, and I will not endure it!
69 Who is it that complains unto the King
70 That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?
71 By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
72 That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
73 Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
74 Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
75 Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
76 I must be held a rancorous enemy.
77 Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
78 But thus his simple truth must be abused
79 With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
80 GREY.
81 To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?
82 RICHARD.
83 To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
84 When have I injured thee? When done thee wrong?
85 Or thee? Or thee? Or any of your faction?
86 A plague upon you all! His royal Grace,
87 Whom God preserve better than you would wish,
88 Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while
89 But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
90 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
91 Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.
92 The King, on his own royal disposition,
93 And not provoked by any suitor else,
94 Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred
95 That in your outward action shows itself
96 Against my children, brothers, and myself,
97 Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground
98 Of your ill will, and thereby to remove it.
99 RICHARD.
100 I cannot tell. The world is grown so bad
101 That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
102 Since every Jack became a gentleman,
103 There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.
104 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
105 Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester.
106 You envy my advancement, and my friends’.
107 God grant we never may have need of you.
108 RICHARD.
109 Meantime, God grants that we have need of you.
110 Our brother is imprisoned by your means,
111 Myself disgraced, and the nobility
112 Held in contempt, while great promotions
113 Are daily given to ennoble those
114 That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.
115 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
116 By Him that raised me to this careful height
117 From that contented hap which I enjoyed,
118 I never did incense his Majesty
119 Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
120 An earnest advocate to plead for him.
121 My lord, you do me shameful injury
122 Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
123 RICHARD.
124 You may deny that you were not the mean
125 Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.
126 RIVERS.
127 She may, my lord; for—
128 RICHARD.
129 She may, Lord Rivers; why, who knows not so?
130 She may do more, sir, than denying that.
131 She may help you to many fair preferments,
132 And then deny her aiding hand therein,
133 And lay those honours on your high desert.
134 What may she not? She may, ay, marry, may she—
135 RIVERS.
136 What, marry, may she?
137 RICHARD.
138 What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
139 A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.
140 Iwis your grandam had a worser match.
141 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
142 My lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne
143 Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
144 By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
145 Of those gross taunts that oft I have endured.
146 I had rather be a country servant-maid
147 Than a great queen with this condition,
148 To be so baited, scorned, and stormed at.
149 Enter old Queen Margaret behind.
150 Small joy have I in being England’s queen.
151 QUEEN MARGARET.
152 [_Aside._] And lessened be that small, God, I beseech Him!
153 Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
154 RICHARD.
155 What, threat you me with telling of the King?
156 Tell him, and spare not. Look what I have said
157 I will avouch ’t in presence of the King;
158 I dare adventure to be sent to th’ Tower.
159 ’Tis time to speak. My pains are quite forgot.
160 QUEEN MARGARET.
161 [_Aside._] Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
162 Thou killed’st my husband Henry in the Tower,
163 And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
164 RICHARD.
165 Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
166 I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
167 A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
168 A liberal rewarder of his friends.
169 To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own.
170 QUEEN MARGARET.
171 [_Aside._] Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.
172 RICHARD.
173 In all which time, you and your husband Grey
174 Were factious for the house of Lancaster.
175 And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
176 In Margaret’s battle at Saint Albans slain?
177 Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
178 What you have been ere this, and what you are;
179 Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
180 QUEEN MARGARET.
181 [_Aside._] A murd’rous villain, and so still thou art.
182 RICHARD.
183 Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,
184 Ay, and forswore himself—which Jesu pardon!—
185 QUEEN MARGARET.
186 [_Aside._] Which God revenge!
187 RICHARD.
188 To fight on Edward’s party for the crown;
189 And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
190 I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,
191 Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine.
192 I am too childish-foolish for this world.
193 QUEEN MARGARET.
194 [_Aside._] Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,
195 Thou cacodemon! There thy kingdom is.
196 RIVERS.
197 My lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
198 Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
199 We followed then our lord, our sovereign king.
200 So should we you, if you should be our king.
201 RICHARD.
202 If I should be! I had rather be a pedler.
203 Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.
204 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
205 As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
206 You should enjoy, were you this country’s king,
207 As little joy you may suppose in me
208 That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.
209 QUEEN MARGARET.
210 [_Aside._] As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof,
211 For I am she, and altogether joyless.
212 I can no longer hold me patient.
213 [_Coming forward._]
214 Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
215 In sharing that which you have pilled from me!
216 Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
217 If not, that I am Queen, you bow like subjects,
218 Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels.
219 Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away.
220 RICHARD.
221 Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my sight?
222 QUEEN MARGARET.
223 But repetition of what thou hast marred.
224 That will I make before I let thee go.
225 RICHARD.
226 Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
227 QUEEN MARGARET.
228 I was, but I do find more pain in banishment
229 Than death can yield me here by my abode.
230 A husband and a son thou ow’st to me;
231 And thou a kingdom; all of you, allegiance.
232 This sorrow that I have by right is yours;
233 And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
234 RICHARD.
235 The curse my noble father laid on thee
236 When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
237 And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,
238 And then to dry them, gav’st the Duke a clout
239 Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland—
240 His curses then, from bitterness of soul
241 Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,
242 And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
243 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
244 So just is God, to right the innocent.
245 HASTINGS.
246 O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
247 And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.
248 RIVERS.
249 Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
250 DORSET.
251 No man but prophesied revenge for it.
252 BUCKINGHAM.
253 Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
254 QUEEN MARGARET.
255 What, were you snarling all before I came,
256 Ready to catch each other by the throat,
257 And turn you all your hatred now on me?
258 Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven
259 That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
260 Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,
261 Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
262 Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
263 Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
264 Though not by war, by surfeit die your King,
265 As ours by murder, to make him a king.
266 Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
267 For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
268 Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
269 Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
270 Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.
271 Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death,
272 And see another, as I see thee now,
273 Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine;
274 Long die thy happy days before thy death,
275 And, after many lengthened hours of grief,
276 Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s Queen.
277 Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
278 And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
279 Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God, I pray Him,
280 That none of you may live his natural age,
281 But by some unlooked accident cut off.
282 RICHARD.
283 Have done thy charm, thou hateful withered hag.
284 QUEEN MARGARET.
285 And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
286 If heaven have any grievous plague in store
287 Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
288 O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
289 And then hurl down their indignation
290 On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace.
291 The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul;
292 Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
293 And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends;
294 No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
295 Unless it be while some tormenting dream
296 Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.
297 Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,
298 Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
299 The slave of nature and the son of hell;
300 Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,
301 Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins,
302 Thou rag of honour, thou detested—
303 RICHARD.
304 Margaret.
305 QUEEN MARGARET.
306 Richard!
307 RICHARD.
308 Ha?
309 QUEEN MARGARET.
310 I call thee not.
311 RICHARD.
312 I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
313 That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.
314 QUEEN MARGARET.
315 Why, so I did, but looked for no reply.
316 O, let me make the period to my curse!
317 RICHARD.
318 ’Tis done by me, and ends in “Margaret”.
319 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
320 Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
321 QUEEN MARGARET.
322 Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,
323 Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider,
324 Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
325 Fool, fool; thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
326 The day will come that thou shalt wish for me
327 To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.
328 HASTINGS.
329 False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
330 Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
331 QUEEN MARGARET.
332 Foul shame upon you, you have all moved mine.
333 RIVERS.
334 Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
335 QUEEN MARGARET.
336 To serve me well, you all should do me duty:
337 Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects.
338 O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
339 DORSET.
340 Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
341 QUEEN MARGARET.
342 Peace, Master Marquess, you are malapert.
343 Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
344 O, that your young nobility could judge
345 What ’twere to lose it and be miserable!
346 They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
347 And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.
348 RICHARD.
349 Good counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, Marquess.
350 DORSET.
351 It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
352 RICHARD.
353 Ay, and much more; but I was born so high.
354 Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top,
355 And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
356 QUEEN MARGARET.
357 And turns the sun to shade, alas, alas!
358 Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
359 Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
360 Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
361 Your aery buildeth in our aery’s nest.
362 O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
363 As it is won with blood, lost be it so.
364 BUCKINGHAM.
365 Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
366 QUEEN MARGARET.
367 Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
368 Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
369 And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.
370 My charity is outrage, life my shame,
371 And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.
372 BUCKINGHAM.
373 Have done, have done.
374 QUEEN MARGARET.
375 O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand
376 In sign of league and amity with thee.
377 Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
378 Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
379 Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
380 BUCKINGHAM.
381 Nor no one here, for curses never pass
382 The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
383 QUEEN MARGARET.
384 I will not think but they ascend the sky,
385 And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.
386 O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
387 Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
388 His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
389 Have not to do with him; beware of him;
390 Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
391 And all their ministers attend on him.
392 RICHARD.
393 What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
394 BUCKINGHAM.
395 Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
396 QUEEN MARGARET.
397 What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel,
398 And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
399 O, but remember this another day,
400 When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
401 And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.
402 Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
403 And he to yours, and all of you to God’s!
404 [_Exit._]
405 BUCKINGHAM.
406 My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
407 RIVERS.
408 And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.
409 RICHARD.
410 I cannot blame her. By God’s holy mother,
411 She hath had too much wrong; and I repent
412 My part thereof that I have done to her.
413 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
414 I never did her any, to my knowledge.
415 RICHARD.
416 Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
417 I was too hot to do somebody good
418 That is too cold in thinking of it now.
419 Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
420 He is franked up to fatting for his pains.
421 God pardon them that are the cause thereof.
422 RIVERS.
423 A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
424 To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
425 RICHARD.
426 So do I ever—(_Speaks to himself_) being well advised;
427 For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
428 Enter Catesby.
429 CATESBY.
430 Madam, his Majesty doth call for you,
431 And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.
432 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
433 Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?
434 RIVERS.
435 We wait upon your Grace.
436 [_Exeunt all but Richard._]
437 RICHARD.
438 I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
439 The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
440 I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
441 Clarence, whom I indeed have cast in darkness,
442 I do beweep to many simple gulls,
443 Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;
444 And tell them ’tis the Queen and her allies
445 That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
446 Now they believe it, and withal whet me
447 To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.
448 But then I sigh, and, with a piece of Scripture,
449 Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;
450 And thus I clothe my naked villany
451 With odd old ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ,
452 And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
453 Enter two Murderers.
454 But soft, here come my executioners.
455 How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates;
456 Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
457 FIRST MURDERER.
458 We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant,
459 That we may be admitted where he is.
460 RICHARD.
461 Well thought upon; I have it here about me.
462 [_Gives the warrant._]
463 When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
464 But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
465 Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
466 For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
467 May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
468 SECOND MURDERER.
469 Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate.
470 Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
471 We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
472 RICHARD.
473 Your eyes drop millstones when fools’ eyes fall tears.
474 I like you, lads. About your business straight.
475 Go, go, dispatch.
476 BOTH MURDERERS.
477 We will, my noble lord.
478 [_Exeunt._]