The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9]

fdd SCENE IV. Before the palace.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET.

♦ Q. Mar. So, now prosperity begins to mellow

And drop into the rotten mouth of death.

♦ Here in these confines slily have I lurk’d,

♦ To watch the waning of mine adversaries.

5 A dire induction am I witness to,

And will to France, hoping the consequence

♦ Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.

♦ Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK.

♦ Q. Eliz. Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!

10 My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air

And be not fix’d in doom perpetual,

♦ Hover about me with your airy wings

And hear your mother’s lamentation!

15 Q. Mar. Hover about her; say, that right for right

Hath dimm’d your infant morn to aged night.

♦ Duch. So many miseries have crazed my voice,

♦ That my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb.

Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?

20 Q. Mar. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,

Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.

Q. Eliz. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,

And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?

♦ When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?

25 Q. Mar. When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.

♦ Duch. Blind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,

Woe’s scene, world’s shame, grave’s due by life usurp’d,

♦ Brief abstract and record of tedious days,

♦ Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth, [Sitting down.

30 Unlawfully made drunk with innocents’ blood!

♦ Q. Eliz. O, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave

As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!

Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.

♦ O, who hath any cause to mourn but I? [Sitting down by her.

35 Q. Mar. If ancient sorrow be most reverend,

♦ Give mine the benefit of seniory,

♦ And let my woes frown on the upper hand.

♦ If sorrow can admit society, [Sitting down with them.

♦ Tell o’er your woes again by viewing mine:

40 I had an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him;

♦ I had a Harry, till a Richard kill’d him:

Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him;

Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill’d him.

Duch. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;

45 I had a Rutland too, thou holp’st to kill him.

♦ Q. Mar. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill’d him.

From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept

A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:

That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,

50 To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,

That foul defacer of God’s handiwork,

♦ That excellent grand tyrant of the earth,

That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,

♦ Thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.

55 O upright, just, and true-disposing God,

♦ How do I thank thee, that this carnal cur

Preys on the issue of his mother’s body,

♦ And makes her pew-fellow with others’ moan!

♦ Duch. O Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes!

60 God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

Q. Mar. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,

And now I cloy me with beholding it.

♦ Thy Edward he is dead, that stabb’d my Edward;

♦ Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;

65 Young York he is but boot, because both they

♦ Match not the high perfection of my loss:

♦ Thy Clarence he is dead that kill’d my Edward;

♦ And the beholders of this tragic play,

♦ The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,

70 Untimely smother’d in their dusky graves.

♦ Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer,

♦ Only reserved their factor, to buy souls

♦ And send them thither: but at hand, at hand,

Ensues his piteous and unpitied end:

75 Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,

♦ To have him suddenly convey’d away.

♦ Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,

♦ That I may live to say, The dog is dead!

♦ Q. Eliz. O, thou didst prophesy the time would come

80 That I should wish for thee to help me curse

♦ That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back’d toad!

♦ Q. Mar. I call’d thee then vain flourish of my fortune;

I call’d thee then poor shadow, painted queen;

The presentation of but what I was;

85 The flattering index of a direful pageant;

♦ One heaved a-high, to be hurl’d down below;

♦ A mother only mock’d with two sweet babes;

♦ A dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,

A sign of dignity, a garish flag

90 To be the aim of every dangerous shot;

A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.

Where is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?

♦ Where are thy children? wherein dost thou joy?

♦ Who sues to thee and cries ‘God save the queen’?

95 Where be the bending peers that flatter’d thee?

♦ Where be the thronging troops that follow’d thee?

Decline all this, and see what now thou art:

For happy wife, a most distressed widow;

For joyful mother, one that wails the name;

100 For queen, a very caitiff crown’d with care;

♦ For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;

♦ For one that scorn’d at me, now scorn’d of me;

♦ For one being fear’d of all, now fearing one;

For one commanding all, obey’d of none.

105 Thus hath the course of justice wheel’d about,

♦ And left thee but a very prey to time;

♦ Having no more but thought of what thou wert,

To torture thee the more, being what thou art.

Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not

110 Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?

♦ Now thy proud neck bears half my burthen’d yoke;

♦ From which even here I slip my weary neck,

And leave the burthen of it all on thee.

Farewell, York’s wife, and queen of sad mischance:

115 These English woes will make me smile in France.

Q. Eliz. O thou well skill’d in curses, stay awhile,

And teach me how to curse mine enemies!

♦ Q. Mar. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;

♦ Compare dead happiness with living woe;

120 Think that thy babes were fairer than they were,

And he that slew them fouler than he is:

♦ Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:

Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.

♦ Q. Eliz. My words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!

125 Q. Mar. Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine. [Exit.

Duch. Why should calamity be full of words?

♦ Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their client woes,

♦ Airy succeeders of intestate joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

130 Let them have scope: though what they do impart

♦ Help not at all, yet do they ease the heart.

♦ Duch. If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me,

And in the breath of bitter words let’s smother

♦ My damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother’d.

135 I hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.

Enter KING RICHARD, marching, with drums and trumpets.

♦ K. Rich. Who intercepts my expedition?

♦ Duch. O, she that might have intercepted thee,

By strangling thee in her accursed womb,

From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!

140 Q. Eliz. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,

♦ Where should be graven, if that right were right,

The slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,

♦ And the dire death of my two sons and brothers?

Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?

145 Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?

♦ And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

♦ Q. Eliz. Where is kind Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women

150 Rail on the Lord’s anointed: strike, I say! [Flourish. Alarums.

Either be patient, and entreat me fair,

♦ Or with the clamorous report of war

♦ Thus will I drown your exclamations.

Duch. Art thou my son?

155 K. Rich. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.

♦ Duch. Then patiently hear my impatience.

K. Rich. Madam, I have a touch of your condition,

♦ Which cannot brook the accent of reproof.

Duch. O, let me speak!

♦ K. Rich. Do then; but I’ll not hear.

160 Duch. I will be mild and gentle in my speech.

K. Rich. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.

♦ Duch. Art thou so hasty? I have stay’d for thee,

♦ God knows, in anguish, pain and agony.

K. Rich. And came I not at last to comfort you?

165 Duch. No, by the holy rood, thou know’st it well,

Thou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.

A grievous burthen was thy birth to me;

Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,

170 Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,

♦ Thy age confirm’d, proud, subtle, bloody, treacherous,

♦ More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:

What comfortable hour canst thou name,

♦ That ever graced me in thy company?

175 K. Rich. Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call’d your grace

♦ To breakfast once forth of my company.

♦ If I be so disgracious in your sight,

♦ Let me march on, and not offend your grace.

Strike up the drum.

♦ Duch. I prithee, hear me speak.

K. Rich. You speak too bitterly.

180 Duch. Hear me a word;

For I shall never speak to thee again.

K. Rich. So.

♦ Duch. Either thou wilt die, by God’s just ordinance,

♦ Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,

185 Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish

♦ And never look upon thy face again.

♦ Therefore take with thee my most heavy curse;

Which, in the day of battle, tire thee more

Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st!

190 My prayers on the adverse party fight;

♦ And there the little souls of Edward’s children

♦ Whisper the spirits of thine enemies

♦ And promise them success and victory.

♦ Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;

195 Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend. [Exit.

Q. Eliz. Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse

♦ Abides in me; I say amen to all.

♦ K. Rich. Stay, madam; I must speak a word with you.

♦ Q. Eliz. I have no moe sons of the royal blood

200 For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,

They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;

And therefore level not to hit their lives.

K. Rich. You have a daughter call’d Elizabeth,

Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

205 Q. Eliz. And must she die for this? O, let her live,

And I’ll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;

Slander myself as false to Edward’s bed;

♦ Throw over her the veil of infamy:

♦ So she may live unscarr’d of bleeding slaughter,

210 I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

♦ K. Rich. Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.

Q. Eliz. To save her life, I’ll say she is not so.

♦ K. Rich. Her life is only safest in her birth.

Q. Eliz. And only in that safety died her brothers.

215 K. Rich. Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.

♦ Q. Eliz. No, to their lives bad friends were contrary.

K. Rich. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

Q. Eliz. True, when avoided grace makes destiny:

My babes were destined to a fairer death,

220 If grace had bless’d thee with a fairer life.

♦ K. Rich. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

♦ Q. Eliz. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen’d

Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.

♦ Whose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,

225 Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction:

No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt

Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,

To revel in the entrails of my lambs.

But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,

230 My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys

Till that my nails were anchor’d in thine eyes;

And I, in such a desperate bay of death,

Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,

Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.

235 K. Rich. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise

And dangerous success of bloody wars.

♦ As I intend more good to you and yours

♦ Than ever you or yours were by me wrong’d!

Q. Eliz. What good is cover’d with the face of heaven,

240 To be discover’d, that can do me good?

♦ K. Rich. The advancement of your children, gentle lady.

Q. Eliz. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?

♦ K. Rich. No, to the dignity and height of honour,

♦ The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.

245 Q. Eliz. Flatter my sorrows with report of it;

Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,

♦ Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

♦ K. Rich. Even all I have; yea, and myself and all,