King Richard The Third

1 Enter the old Duchess of York with the two Children of Clarence.
2 BOY.
3 Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?
4 DUCHESS.
5 No, boy.
6 GIRL.
7 Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,
8 And cry “O Clarence, my unhappy son”?
9 BOY.
10 Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
11 And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,
12 If that our noble father were alive?
13 DUCHESS.
14 My pretty cousins, you mistake me both.
15 I do lament the sickness of the King,
16 As loath to lose him, not your father’s death.
17 It were lost sorrow to wail one that’s lost.
18 BOY.
19 Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.
20 The King mine uncle is to blame for it.
21 God will revenge it, whom I will importune
22 With earnest prayers all to that effect.
23 GIRL.
24 And so will I.
25 DUCHESS.
26 Peace, children, peace. The King doth love you well.
27 Incapable and shallow innocents,
28 You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.
29 BOY.
30 Grandam, we can, for my good uncle Gloucester
31 Told me, the King, provoked to it by the Queen,
32 Devised impeachments to imprison him;
33 And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
34 And pitied me, and kindly kissed my cheek;
35 Bade me rely on him as on my father,
36 And he would love me dearly as his child.
37 DUCHESS.
38 Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,
39 And with a virtuous visard hide deep vice!
40 He is my son, ay, and therein my shame;
41 Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
42 BOY.
43 Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?
44 DUCHESS.
45 Ay, boy.
46 BOY.
47 I cannot think it. Hark, what noise is this?
48 Enter Queen Elizabeth with her hair about her ears, Rivers and Dorset
49 after her.
50 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
51 Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
52 To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
53 I’ll join with black despair against my soul
54 And to myself become an enemy.
55 DUCHESS.
56 What means this scene of rude impatience?
57 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
58 To make an act of tragic violence.
59 Edward, my lord, thy son, our King, is dead.
60 Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
61 Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
62 If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
63 That our swift-winged souls may catch the King’s
64 Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
65 To his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night.
66 DUCHESS.
67 Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
68 As I had title in thy noble husband.
69 I have bewept a worthy husband’s death,
70 And lived by looking on his images;
71 But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
72 Are cracked in pieces by malignant death,
73 And I, for comfort, have but one false glass,
74 That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
75 Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother,
76 And hast the comfort of thy children left;
77 But death hath snatched my husband from mine arms
78 And plucked two crutches from my feeble hands,
79 Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I,
80 Thine being but a moiety of my moan,
81 To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries.
82 BOY.
83 Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father’s death.
84 How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
85 GIRL.
86 Our fatherless distress was left unmoaned.
87 Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!
88 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
89 Give me no help in lamentation.
90 I am not barren to bring forth complaints.
91 All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
92 That I, being governed by the watery moon,
93 May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.
94 Ah, for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!
95 CHILDREN.
96 Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!
97 DUCHESS.
98 Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
99 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
100 What stay had I but Edward? And he’s gone.
101 CHILDREN.
102 What stay had we but Clarence? And he’s gone.
103 DUCHESS.
104 What stays had I but they? And they are gone.
105 QUEEN ELIZABETH.
106 Was never widow had so dear a loss.
107 CHILDREN.
108 Were never orphans had so dear a loss.
109 DUCHESS.
110 Was never mother had so dear a loss.
111 Alas, I am the mother of these griefs.
112 Their woes are parcelled, mine is general.
113 She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
114 I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she;
115 These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I;
116 I for an Edward weep, so do not they.
117 Alas, you three, on me, threefold distressed,
118 Pour all your tears. I am your sorrow’s nurse,
119 And I will pamper it with lamentation.
120 DORSET.
121 Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeased
122 That you take with unthankfulness His doing.
123 In common worldly things ’tis called ungrateful
124 With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
125 Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
126 Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
127 For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
128 RIVERS.
129 Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
130 Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;
131 Let him be crowned; in him your comfort lives.
132 Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave,
133 And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.
134 Enter Richard, Buckingham, Stanley Earl of Derby, Hastings and
135 Ratcliffe.
136 RICHARD.
137 Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause
138 To wail the dimming of our shining star,
139 But none can help our harms by wailing them.
140 Madam my mother, I do cry you mercy;
141 I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee
142 I crave your blessing.
143 [_Kneels._]
144 DUCHESS.
145 God bless thee, and put meekness in thy breast,
146 Love, charity, obedience, and true duty.
147 RICHARD.
148 Amen. [_Aside_.] And make me die a good old man!
149 That is the butt end of a mother’s blessing;
150 I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.
151 BUCKINGHAM.
152 You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers
153 That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,
154 Now cheer each other in each other’s love.
155 Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
156 We are to reap the harvest of his son.
157 The broken rancour of your high-swoll’n hates,
158 But lately splintered, knit, and joined together,
159 Must gently be preserved, cherished, and kept.
160 Me seemeth good that with some little train,
161 Forthwith from Ludlow the young Prince be fet
162 Hither to London, to be crowned our King.
163 RIVERS.
164 Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?
165 BUCKINGHAM.
166 Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude
167 The new-healed wound of malice should break out,
168 Which would be so much the more dangerous
169 By how much the estate is green and yet ungoverned.
170 Where every horse bears his commanding rein
171 And may direct his course as please himself,
172 As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,
173 In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
174 RICHARD.
175 I hope the King made peace with all of us;
176 And the compact is firm and true in me.
177 RIVERS.
178 And so in me, and so, I think, in all.
179 Yet since it is but green, it should be put
180 To no apparent likelihood of breach,
181 Which haply by much company might be urged.
182 Therefore I say with noble Buckingham
183 That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.
184 HASTINGS.
185 And so say I.
186 RICHARD.
187 Then be it so, and go we to determine
188 Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
189 Madam, and you, my sister, will you go
190 To give your censures in this business?
191 [_Exeunt all but Buckingham and Richard._]
192 BUCKINGHAM.
193 My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
194 For God’s sake, let not us two stay at home.
195 For by the way I’ll sort occasion,
196 As index to the story we late talked of,
197 To part the Queen’s proud kindred from the Prince.
198 RICHARD.
199 My other self, my counsel’s consistory,
200 My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,
201 I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
202 Toward Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind.
203 [_Exeunt._]