Act I

Act I

Scene 1

^{Enter Richard Duke of Glouster, solus.}

Richard

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York,

And all the clouds that loured upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,

Our bruis?d arms hung up for monuments,

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front,

And now, instead of mounting barb?d steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I that am not shaped for sportive tricks

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass,

I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph,

I that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity.

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determin?d to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other.

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mewed up

About a prophecy which says that ?G’

Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul, here Clarence comes.

^{Enter Clarence and Brakenbury, guarded.}

Brother, good day. What means this arm?d guard

That waits upon your grace?

Clarence

                                                     His majesty,

Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointed

This conduct to convey me to the Tower.

Richard

Upon what cause?

Clarence

                     Because my name is George.

Richard

Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours.

He should for that commit your godfathers.

Oh, belike his majesty hath some intent

That you shall be new christened in the Tower.

But what’s the matter, Clarence? May I know?

Clarence

Yea, Richard, when I know, but I protest

As yet I do not. But as I can learn,

He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,

And from the cross-row plucks the letter ?G’.

And says a wizard told him that by ?G’

His issue disinherited should be.

And for my name of George begins with ?G’,

It follows in his thought that I am he.

These, as I learn, and such like toys as these

Hath moved his highness to commit me now.

Richard

Why, this it is when men are ruled by women.

?Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower.

My lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, ?tis she

That tempts him to this harsh extremity.

Was it not she and that good man of worship,

Anthony Woodville, her brother there,

That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,

From whence this present day he is delivered?

We are not safe, Clarence, we are not safe.

Clarence

By heaven, I think there is no man secure

But the queen’s kindred and night-walking heralds

That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.

Heard you not what an humble suppliant

Lord Hastings was for her delivery?

Richard

Humbly complaining to her deity

Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.

I’ll tell you what, I think it is our way,

If we will keep in favour with the king,

To be her men and wear her livery.

The jealous, o’er-worn widow and herself,

Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen,

Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.

Brakenbury

I beseech your graces both to pardon me;

His majesty hath straitly given in charge

That no man shall have private conference,

Of what degree soever, with your brother.

Richard

Even so. And please your worship, Brakenbury,

You may partake of any thing we say.

We speak no treason, man. We say the king

Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen

Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous.

We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,

A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue,

And that the queen’s kindred are made gentlefolks.

How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?

Brakenbury

With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.

Richard

Naught to do with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow,

He that doth naught with her (excepting one)

Were best to do it secretly alone.

Brakenbury

What one, my lord?

Richard

Her husband, knave. Wouldst thou betray me?

Brakenbury

I do beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal

Forbear your conference with the noble duke.

Clarence

We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.

Richard

We are the queen’s abjects and must obey.

Brother, farewell. I will unto the king,

And whatsoe’er you will employ me in,

I will perform it to enfranchise you.

Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood

Touches me deeper than you can imagine.

Clarence

I know it pleaseth neither of us well.

Richard

Well, your imprisonment shall not be long.

I will deliver you or else Lie for you.

Meantime, have patience.

Clarence

I must perforce. Farewell.

^{Exeunt Clarence, Brakenbury, and guards.}

Richard

Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.

Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so

That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,

If heaven will take the present at our hands.

But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?

^{Enter Lord Hastings.}

Hastings

Good time of day unto my gracious lord.

Richard

As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain.

Well are you welcome to this open air.

How hath your lordship brooked imprisonment?

Hastings

With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must.

But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks

That were the cause of my imprisonment.

Richard

No doubt, no doubt, and so shall Clarence too,

For they that were your enemies are his

And have prevailed as much on him as you.

Hastings

More pity that the eagles should be mewed

While kites and buzzards play at liberty.

Richard

What news abroad?

Hastings

No news so bad abroad as this at home:

The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,

And his physicians fear him mightily.

Richard

Now by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.

Oh, he hath kept an evil diet long

And over-much consumed his royal person.

?Tis very grievous to be thought upon.

Where is he, in his bed?

Hastings

He is.

Richard

Go you before, and I will follow you.

^{Exit Hastings.}

He cannot live, I hope, and must not die

Till George be packed with post-horse up to heaven.

I’ll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence

With lies well steeled with weighty arguments,

And if I fail not in my deep intent,

Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy

And leave the world for me to bustle in!

For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.

What though I killed her husband and her father?

The readiest way to make the wench amends

Is to become her husband and her father,

The which will I, not all so much for love

As for another secret close intent

By marrying her which I must reach unto.

But yet I run before my horse to market.

Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns;

When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

^Exit.

Scene 2

^{Enter the corpse of Henry the Sixth, Halberds to guard it, lady Anne being the mourner [attended by Tressel, Berkeley, and other Gentlemen].}

Anne

Set down, set down your honourable load,

If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,

Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament

Th’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.

^{The bearers set down the hearse.}

Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,

Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,

Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood,

Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost

To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,

Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,

Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds.

Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,

I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.

Oh, curs?d be the hand that made these holes,

Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it,

Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence.

More direful hap betide that hated wretch

That makes us wretched by the death of thee

Than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads,

Or any creeping venomed thing that lives.

If ever he have child, abortive be it,

Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,

Whose ugly and unnatural asp?ct

May fright the hopeful mother at the view,

And that be heir to his unhappiness.

If ever he have wife, let her be made

More miserable by the death of him

Than I am made by my young lord and thee.

Come now towards Chertsey with your holy load,

Taken from Paul’s to be interr?d there.

And still as you are weary of this weight,

Rest you while I lament King Henry’s corpse.

^{Enter Richard duke of Gloucester.}

Richard

Stay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.

Anne

What black magician conjures up this fiend

To stop devoted charitable deeds?

Richard

Villains, set down the corpse, or by Saint Paul,

I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys.

Gentleman

My lord, stand back and let the coffin pass.

Richard

Unmannered dog, stand thou when I command.

Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,

Or by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot

And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

^{The bearers set down the hearse.}

Anne

What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?

Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,

And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.

Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell.

Thou hadst but power over his mortal body;

His soul thou canst not have. Therefore be gone.

Richard

Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.

Anne

Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, and trouble us not,

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,

Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,

Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.

O gentlemen, see, see, dead Henry’s wounds

Open their c?ngealed mouths and bleed afresh.

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,

For ?tis thy presence that exhales this blood

From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells.

Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural

Provokes this deluge most unnatural.

O God, which this blood mad?st, revenge his death.

O earth, which this blood drink?st?revenge his death.

Either heav?n with lightning strike the murd?rer dead,

Or earth gape open wide and eat him quick,

As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood,

Which his hell-governed arm hath butcher?d.

Richard

Lady, you know no rules of charity,

Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.

Anne

Villain, thou know?st no law of God nor man.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.

Richard

But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

Anne

Oh, wonderful, when devils tell the truth!

Richard

More wonderful, when angels are so angry.

Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,

Of these suppos?d crimes to give me leave

By circumstance but to acquit myself.

Anne

Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,

Of these known evils but to give me leave

By circumstance to curse thy curs?d self.

Richard

Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have

Some patient leisure to excuse myself.

Anne

Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make

No ?xcuse current but to hang thyself.

Richard

By such despair I should accuse myself.

Anne

And by despairing, shalst thou stand excused

For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,

Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others.

Richard

Say that I slew them not.

Anne

Then say they were not slain.

But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.

Richard

I did not kill your husband.

Anne

Why, then he is alive.

Richard

Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward’s hands.

Anne

In thy foul throat thou liest. Queen Margaret saw

Thy murd’rous falchion smoking in his blood,

The which thou once didst bend against her breast,

But that thy brothers beat aside the point.

Richard

I was provok?d by her sland’rous tongue,

That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.

Anne

Thou wast provok?d by thy bloody mind,

Which never dream’st on aught but butcheries.

Didst thou not kill this king?

Richard

I grant ye.

Anne

Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then God grant me too

Thou mayst be damn?d for that wicked deed.

Oh, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.

Richard

The better for the king of heaven that hath him.

Anne

He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.

Richard

Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither,

For he was fitter for that place than earth.

Anne

And thou unfit for any place but hell.

Richard

Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.

Anne

Some dungeon.

Richard

Your bedchamber.

Anne

Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest.

Richard

So will it, madam, till I lie with you.

Anne

I hope so.

Richard

I know so. But gentle Lady Anne,

To leave this keen encounter of our wits

And fall something into a slower method,

Is not the causer of the timeless deaths

Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,

As blameful as the executioner?

Anne

Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect.

Richard

Your beauty was the cause of that effect:

Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep

To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

Anne

If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,

These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

Richard

These eyes could never endure sweet beauty’s wreck.

You should not blemish it if I stood by.

As all the world is cheered by the sun,

So I by that. It is my day, my life.

Anne

Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life.

Richard

Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.

Anne

I would I were, to be revenged on thee.

Richard

It is a quarrel most unnatural

To be revenged on him that loveth you.

Anne

It is a quarrel just and reasonable

To be revenged on him that killed my husband.

Richard

He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband

Did it to help thee to a better husband.

Anne

His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

Richard

He lives that loves thee better than he could.

Anne

Name him.

Richard

                                        Plantagenet.

Anne

                                    Why, that was he.

Richard

The selfsame name, but one of better nature.

Anne

Where is he?

Richard

                                   Here.

^{[She] spits at him.}

                                 Why dost thou spit at me?

Anne

Would it were mortal poison for thy sake.

Richard

Never came poison from so sweet a place.

Anne

Never hung poison on a fouler toad.

Out of my sight. Thou dost infect mine eyes.

Richard

Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

Anne

Would they were basilisks’, to strike thee dead.

Richard

I would they were, that I might die at once,

For now they kill me with a living death.

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

Shamed their asp?cts with store of childish drops.

These eyes, that never shed remorseful tear,

No, when my father York and Edward wept

To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made

When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him,

Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,

Told the sad story of my father’s death

And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,

That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks

Like trees bedashed with rain. In that sad time

My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear.

And what these sorrows could not thence exhale

Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

I never sued to friend nor enemy.

My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word.

But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,

My proud heart sues and prompts my tongue to speak.

^{She looks scornfully at him.}

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made

For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,

Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,

Which if thou please to hide in this true breast

And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,

I lay it naked to the deadly stroke

And humbly beg the death upon my knee.

^{He lays his breast open; she offers at with his sword.}

Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry,

But ’twas thy beauty that provok?d me.

Nay, now dispatch; ’twas I that stabbed young Edward,

But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on.

^{She falls the sword.}

Take up the sword again, or take up me.

Anne

Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,

I will not be the executioner.

Richard

Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

Anne

I have already.

Richard

                                     That was in thy rage.

Speak it again, and even with the word,

That hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,

Shall for thy love kill a far truer love.

To both their deaths shalt thou be ?ccessary.

Anne

I would I knew thy heart.

Richard

?Tis figured in my tongue.

Anne

I fear me both are false.

Richard

Then never man was true.

Anne

Well, well, put up your sword.

Richard

Say then my peace is made.

Anne

That shalt thou know hereafter.

Richard

But shall I live in hope?

Anne

All men, I hope, live so.

Richard

Vouchsafe to wear this ring.

Anne

To take is not to give.

Richard

Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger.

Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.

Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.

And if thy poor devoted servant may

But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,

Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.

Anne

What is it?

Richard

That it would please thee leave these sad designs

To him that hath more cause to be a mourner

And presently repair to Crosby House,

Where, after I have solemnly interred

At Chertsey monast’ry this noble king

And wet his grave with my repentant tears,

I will with all expedient duty see you.

For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,

Grant me this boon.

Anne

With all my heart, and much it joys me, too,

To see you are become so penitent.

Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.

Richard

Bid me farewell.

Anne

                         ?Tis more than you deserve;

But since you teach me how to flatter you,

Imagine I have said farewell already.

^{Exeunt two with Anne.}

Richard

Sirs, take up the corpse.

Gentlemen

Towards Chertsey, noble lord?

Richard

No, to Whitefriars; there attend my coming.

Exeunt all but Richard with the corpse.

Was ever woman in this humour wooed?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long.

What, I that killed her husband and his father,

To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,

With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of my hatred by,

Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,

And I no friends to back my suit withal

But the plain devil and dissembling looks,

And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!

Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave prince,

Edward, her lord, whom I some three months since

Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewkesbury?

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,

Framed in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and (no doubt) right royal,

The spacious world cannot again afford.

And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince

And made her widow to a woeful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety?

On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?

My dukedom to a beggarly denier,

I do mistake my person all this while.

Upon my life, she finds (although I cannot)

Myself to be a marv’lous proper man.

I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass

And entertain a score or two of tailors

To study fashions to adorn my body.

Since I am crept in favour with myself,

I will maintain it with some little cost.

But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave

And then return lamenting to my love.

Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,

That I may see my shadow as I pass.

^Exit.

Scene 3

^{Enter the queen Mother [Elizabeth], lord Rivers, and lord Grey [and the marquess of Dorset].}

Rivers

Have patience, madam. There’s no doubt his majesty

Will soon recover his accustomed health.

Grey

In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse.

Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort,

And cheer his grace with quick and merry eyes.

Elizabeth

If he were dead, what would betide on me?

Rivers

No other harm but loss of such a lord.

Elizabeth

The loss of such a lord includes all harms.

Grey

The heavens have blessed you with a goodly son

To be your comforter when he is gone.

Elizabeth

Ah, he is young, and his minority

Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,

A man that loves not me nor none of you.

Rivers

Is it concluded that he shall be Protector?

Elizabeth

It is determined, not concluded yet,

But so it must be if the king miscarry.

^{Enter Buckingham and Stanley Earl of Derby.}

Grey

Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.

Buckingham

Good time of day unto your royal grace.

Stanley

God make your majesty joyful, as you have been.

Elizabeth

The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby,

To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.

Yet Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife

And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured

I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stanley

I do beseech you, either not believe

The envious slanders of her false accusers,

Or if she be accused on true report,

Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds

From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.

Rivers

Saw you the king today, my lord of Derby?

Elizabeth

But now the Duke of Buckingham and I

Are come from visiting his majesty.

Elizabeth

What likelihood of his amendment, lords?

Buckingham

Madam, good hope. His grace speaks cheerfully.

Elizabeth

God grant him health. Did you confer with him?

Buckingham

Ay, madam. He desires to make atonement

Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,

And between them and my Lord Chamberlain,

And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

Elizabeth

Would all were well, but that will never be.

I fear our happiness is at the hight.

^{Enter Richard and Hastings.}

Richard

They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.

Who is it that complain unto the king

That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?

By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly

That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.

Because I cannot flatter and look fair,

Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,

Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,

I must be held a rancorous enemy.

Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,

But thus his simple truth must be abused

By silken, sly, insinuating jacks?

Grey

To who in all this presence speaks your grace?

Richard

To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.

When have I injured thee? When done thee wrong?

Or thee? Or thee? Or any of your faction?

A plague upon you all. His royal grace,

Whom God preserve better than you would wish,

Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while

But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.

Elizabeth

Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.

The king, of his own royal disposition,

And not provoked by any suitor else,

Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,

That in your outward actions shows itself

Against my children, brothers, and myself,

Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground.

Richard

I cannot tell. The world is grown so bad

That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

Since every jack became a gentleman,

There’s many a gentle person made a jack.

Elizabeth

Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester.

You envy my advancement and my friends’.

God grant we never may have need of you.

Richard

Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.

Your brother is imprisoned by your means,

My self disgraced, and the nobility

Held in contempt, while great promotions

Are daily given to ennoble those

That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.

Elizabeth

By Him that raised me to this careful height

From that contented hap which I enjoyed,

I never did incense his majesty

Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been

An earnest advocate to plead for him.

My lord, you do me shameful injury

Falsely to draw me in these vile susp?cts.

Richard

You may deny that you were not the mean

Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.

Rivers

She may, my lord, for —

Richard

She may, Lord Rivers, why, who knows not so?

She may do more, sir, than denying that.

She may help you to many fair preferments,

And then deny her aiding hand therein,

And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not? She may, ay, marry, may she.

Rivers

What, marry, may she?

Richard

What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,

A bachelor, a handsome stripling too.

I wis your grandam had a worser match.

Elizabeth

My lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne

Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.

By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty

Of those gross taunts that oft I have endured.

I had rather be a country servant maid

Than a great queen, with this condition,

To be so baited, scorned, and storm?d at.

Small joy have I in being England’s queen.

^{Enter old queen Margaret.}

Margaret (aside)

And lessened be that small, God I beseech him.

Thy honour, state and seat is due to me.

Richard

What? Threat you me with telling of the king?

I will avouch’t in presence of the king.

I dare adventure to be sent to th’Tower.

?Tis time to speak. My pains are quite forgot.

Margaret (aside)

Out, devil. I do remember them too well.

Thou kill’dst my husband, Henry, in the Tower,

And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Richard

Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,

I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,

A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,

A liberal rewarder of his friends.

To royalise his blood I spent mine own.

Margaret (aside)

Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.

Richard

In all which time, you and your husband Grey

Were factious for the house of Lancaster,

And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband

In Margaret’s battle at Saint Alban’s slain?

Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

What you have been ere this, and what you are;

Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Margaret (aside)

A murderous villain, and so still thou art.

Richard

Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,

Ay, and forswore himself, which Jesu pardon.

Margaret (aside)

Which God revenge.

Richard

To fight on Edward’s party for the crown.

And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.

I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,

Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine.

I am too childish-foolish for this world.

Margaret (aside)

Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,

Thou cacodemon. There thy kingdom is.

Rivers

My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days

Which here you urge to prove us enemies,

We followed then our lord, our sovereign king.

So should we you, if you should be our king.

Richard

If I should be? I had rather be a pedlar.

Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.

Elizabeth

As little joy, my lord, as you suppose

You should enjoy were you this country’s king.

As little joy may you suppose in me

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

Margaret (aside)

A little joy enjoys the queen thereof,

For I am she, and altogether joyless.

I can no longer hold me patient —

(Advancing.)

Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out

In sharing that which you have pilled from me.

Which of you trembles not that looks on me?

If not that I am queen, you bow like subjects,

Yet that by you deposed, you quake like rebels.

Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away.

Richard

Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my sight?

Margaret

But repetition of what thou hast marred,

That will I make before I let thee go.

Richard

Wert thou not banish?d on pain of death?

Margaret

I was. But I do find more pain in banishment

Than death can yield me here by my abode.

A husband and a son thou ow’st to me —

And thou a kingdom — all of you allegiance.

This sorrow that I have by right is yours,

And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

Richard

The curse my noble father laid on thee

When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper

And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,

And then to dry them gav’st the duke a clout

Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland —

His curses then, from bitterness of soul

Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,

And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.

Elizabeth

So just is God, to right the innocent.

Hastings

 O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,

And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.

Rivers

Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.

Dorset

No man but prophesied revenge for it.

Buckingham

Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.

Margaret

 What? Were you snarling all before I came,

Ready to catch each other by the throat,

And turn you all your hatred now on me?

Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven

That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,

Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,

Should all but answer for that peevish brat?

Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven?

Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses.

Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,

As ours by murder to make him a king.

Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,

For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,

Die in his youth by like untimely violence.

Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,

Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.

Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death

And see another, as I see thee now,

Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine.

Long die thy happy days before thy death,

And after many lengthened hours of grief,

Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen.

Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,

And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son

Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God I pray him,

That none of you may live his natural age,

But by some unlooked accident cut off.

Richard

Have done thy charm, thou hateful, withered hag.

Margaret

 And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.

If heaven have any grievous plague in store

Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,

Oh, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe

And then hurl down their indignation

On thee the troubler of the poor world’s peace.

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.

Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,

And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends.

No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,

Unless it be while some tormenting dream

Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.

Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,

Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity

The slave of nature and the son of hell.

Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,

Thou loath?d issue of thy father’s loins,

Thou rag of honour, thou detested —

Richard

               Margaret.

Margaret

Richard.

Richard

Ha?

Margaret

I call thee not.

Richard

I cry thee mercy then, for I did think

That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.

Margaret

Why so I did, but looked for no reply.

Oh, let me make the period to my curse.

Richard

?Tis done by me, and ends in ?Margaret’.

Elizabeth

Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.

Margaret

Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,

Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider

Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.

The time will come that thou shalt wish for me

To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-backed toad.

Hastings

False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,

Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

Margaret

Foul shame upon you. You have all moved mine.

Rivers

Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.

Margaret

To serve me well, you all should do me duty,

Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects;

Oh, serve me well and teach yourselves that duty.

Dorset

Dispute not with her. She is lunatic.

Margaret

Peace, master marquess, you are malapert.

Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.

Oh, that your young nobility could judge

What ’twere to lose it and be miserable.

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,

And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Richard

Good counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, marquess.

Dorset

It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.

Richard

Ay, and much more. But I was born so high.

Our aerie buildeth in the cedar’s top,

And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

Margaret

And turns the sun to shade, alas, alas.

Witness my son, now in the shade of death,

Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath

Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aerie buildeth in our aerie’s nest.

O God that seest it, do not suffer it;

As it was won with blood, lost be it so.

Buckingham

Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.

Margaret

Urge neither charity nor shame to me.

Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.

My charity is outrage, life my shame,

And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.

Buckingham

Have done, have done.

Margaret

O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand

In sign of league and amity with thee.

Now fair befall thee and thy noble house.

Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,

Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

Buckingham

Nor no one here, for curses never pass

The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

Margaret

I will not think but they ascend the sky

And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.

O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog.

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,

His venom tooth will rankle to the death.

Have not to do with him; beware of him.

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,

And all their ministers attend on him.

Richard

What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?

Buckingham

Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

Margaret

What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel

And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?

Oh, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,

And say poor Margaret was a prophetess.

Live each of you the subjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God’s.

^Exit.

Hastings

My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

Rivers

And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.

Richard

I cannot blame her, by God’s holy mother,

She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof that I have done to her.

Elizabeth

I never did her any to my knowledge.

Richard

Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.

I was too hot to do somebody good

That is too cold in thinking of it now.

Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;

He is franked up to fatting for his pains.

God pardon them that are the cause thereof.

Rivers

A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,

To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

Richard

So do I ever, being well-advised.

(Speaks to himself.) For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

^{Enter Catesby.}

Catesby

Madam, his majesty doth call for you,

And for your grace, and you, my gracious lord.

Queen Elizabeth

Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?

Rivers

We wait upon your grace.

^{Exeunt all but Glouceter.}

Richard

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs that I set abroach

I lay unto the grievous charge of others.

Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,

I do beweep to many simple gulls,

Namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham,

And tell them ?tis the queen and her allies

That stir the king against the duke my brother.

Now they believe it, and withal whet me

To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.

But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture

Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends stolen out of holy writ.

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

^{Enter two Murderers.}

But, soft, here come my executioners —

How now, my hardy, stout, resolv?d mates,

Are you now going to dispatch this thing?

First Murderer

We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant

That we may be admitted where he is.

Richard

Well thought upon, I have it here about me.

When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.

But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,

Withal obdurate. Do not hear him plead,

For Clarence is well spoken and perhaps

May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.

First Murderer

Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate;

Talkers are no good doers. Be assured

We come to use our hands and not our tongues.

Richard

Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes fall tears.

I like you, lads. About your business straight.

Go, go, dispatch.

Murderers

We will, my noble lord.

^Exeunt.

Scene 4

^{Enter Clarence and Keeper.}

Keeper

Why looks your grace so heavily today?

Clarence

Oh, I have passed a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,

That as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night

Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal terror was the time.

Keeper

What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.

Clarence

Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,

And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,

And, in my company my brother Gloucester,

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches. There we looked toward England

And cited up a thousand heavy times

During the wars of York and Lancaster

That had befallen us. As we paced along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling

Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard

Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown,

What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears,

What sights of ugly death within mine eyes.

Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks,

Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes

Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,

As ?twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,

Which wooed the slimy bottom of the deep

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.

Keeper

 Had you such leisure in the time of death

To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?

Clarence

 Methought I had, and often did I strive

To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood

Stopped in my soul and would not let it forth

To seek the empty, vast and wandering air,

But smothered it within my panting bulk,

Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Keeper

Awaked you not in this sore agony?

Clarence

 No, no, my dream was lengthened after life.

Oh, then began the tempest to my soul.

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,

With that sour ferryman which poets write of,

Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger-soul

Was my great father-in-law, renown?d Warwick,

Who spake aloud, ?What scourge for perjury

Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?’

And so he vanished. Then came wandering by

A shadow like an angel, with bright hair

Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud,

?Clarence is come: false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,

That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury.

Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment.’

With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends

Environed me, and howl?d in mine ears

Such hideous cries that with the very noise

I trembling waked, and for a season after

Could not believe but that I was in hell,

Such terrible impression made my dream.

Keeper

 No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you.

I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

Clarence

Ah keeper, keeper, I have done these things

Which now bear evidence against my soul

For Edward’s sake, and see how he requites me.

O God, if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,

But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,

Yet execute thy wrath in me alone.

Oh, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children.

Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile.

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

Keeper

I will, my lord. God give your grace good rest.

^{Enter Brakenbury, the Lieutenant.}

Brakenbury

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,

Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.

Princes have but their titles for their glories,

An outward honour for an inward toil,

And for unfelt imaginations

They often feel a world of restless cares;

So that between their titles and low name

There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.

^{Enter two Murderers.}

First Murderer

Ho, who’s here?

Brakenbury

What wouldst thou, fellow? And how cam’st thou hither?

Second Murderer

I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.

Brakenbury

What, so brief?

First Murderer

?Tis better, sir, than to be tedious.

Let him see our commission, and talk no more.

^{Brakenbury reads.}

Brakenbury

I am in this commanded to deliver

The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.

I will not reason what is meant hereby,

Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.

There lies the duke asleep, and there the keys.

I’ll to the king and signify him

That thus I have resigned to you my charge.

First Murderer

You may, sir, ?tis a point of wisdom. Fare you well.

^{Exeunt Brakenbury and Keeper.}

Second Murderer

What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?

First Murderer

No. He’ll say ?twas done cowardly, when he wakes.

Second Murderer

Why, he shall never wake until the great judgement day.

First Murderer

Why, then he’ll say we stabbed him sleeping.

Second Murderer

The urging of that word judgment hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

First Murderer

What? Art thou afraid?

Second Murderer

Not to kill him, having a warrant,

But to be damned for killing him, from the which

No warrant can defend me.

First Murderer

I thought thou hadst been resolute.

Second Murderer

So I am, to let him live.

First Murderer

I’ll back to the Duke of Gloucester and tell him so.

Second Murderer

Nay, I prithee, stay a little.

I hope this passionate humour of mine will change.

It was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.

First Murderer

How dost thou feel thyself now?

Second Murderer

Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.

First Murderer

Remember our reward when the deed’s done.

Second Murderer

Come, he dies. I had forgot the reward.

First Murderer

Where’s thy conscience now?

Second Murderer

In the Duke of Gloucester’s purse.

First Murderer

So when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.

Second Murderer

?Tis no matter, let it go. There’s few or none will entertain it.

First Murderer

What if it come to thee again?

Second Murderer

I’ll not meddle with it; it makes a man a coward. A man cannot steal but it accuseth him. A man cannot swear but it checks him. A man cannot lie with his neighbour’s wife, but it detects him. ’Tis a blushing, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust to himself and to live without it.

First Murderer

?Tis even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

Second Murderer

Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him not. He would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.

First Murderer

I am strong framed, he cannot prevail with me.

Second Murderer

Spoke like a tall man that respects thy reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?

First Murderer

Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him in the malmsey butt in the next room.

Second Murderer

Oh, excellent devise. And make a sop of him.

First Murderer

Soft, he wakes.

Second Murderer

Strike!

First Murderer

No, we’ll reason with him.

Clarence

Where art thou, keeper? Give me a cup of wine.

Second Murderer

You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.

Clarence

In God’s name, what art thou?

Second Murderer

A man, as you are.

Clarence

But not, as I am, royal.

Second Murderer

Nor you, as we are, loyal.

Clarence

Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.

Second Murderer

My voice is now the king’s, my looks mine own.

Clarence

How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!

Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?

Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?

Second Murderer

To, to, to —

Clarence

To murder me?

Both

Ay, ay.

Clarence

You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,

And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.

Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?

First Murderer

Offended us you have not, but the king.

Clarence

I shall be reconciled to him again.

Second Murderer

Never, my lord. Therefore prepare to die.

Clarence

 Are you drawn forth among a world of men

To slay the innocent? What is my offence?

Where are the evidence that doth accuse me?

What lawful quest have given their verdict up

Unto the frowning judge? Or who pronounced

The bitter sentence of poor Clarence’ death

Before I be convict by course of law?

To threaten me with death is most unlawful.

I charge you, as you hope for any goodness,

By Christ’s dear blood shed for our grievous sins,

That you depart and lay no hands on me.

The deed you undertake is damnable.

First Murderer

What we will do, we do upon command.

Second Murderer

And he that hath commanded is our king.

Clarence

Erroneous vassals! The great King of kings

Hath in the table of his law commanded

That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then

Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man’s?

Take heed, for he holds vengeance in his hand

To hurl upon their heads that break his law.

Second Murderer

And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee

For false forswearing and for murder, too.

Thou didst receive the holy sacrament to fight

In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.

First Murderer

And, like a traitor to the name of God,

Didst break that vow, and with thy treacherous blade

Unripped’st the bowels of thy sovereign’s son.

Second Murderer

Whom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.

First Murderer

How canst thou urge God’s dreadful law to us

When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?

Clarence

Alas! For whose sake did I that ill deed?

For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.

He sends you not to murder me for this,

For in that sin he is as deep as I.

If God will be aveng?d for the deed,

Oh, know you yet, he doth it publicly.

Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm.

He needs no indirect nor lawless course

To cut off those that have offended him.

First Murderer

Who made thee, then, a bloody minister

When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,

That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?

Clarence

My brother’s love, the devil, and my rage.

First Murderer

Thy brother’s love, our duty, and thy faults

Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.

Clarence

If you do love my brother, hate not me.

I am his brother, and I love him well.

If you be hired for meed, go back again,

And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,

Who shall reward you better for my life

Than Edward will for tidings of my death.

Second Murderer