Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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4.1 Enter Queen Elizabeth, the old Duchess of York, and Marquis Dorset at one door; Lady Anne (Duchess of Gloucester) with Clarence’s daughter at another door

DUCHESS OF YORK

Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,

Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?

Now for my life, she’s wand’ring to the Tower,

On pure heart’s love, to greet the tender Prince.—

Daughter, well met.

LADY ANNE

God give your graces both 5

A happy and a joyful time of day.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

As much to you, good sister. Whither away?

LADY ANNE

No farther than the Tower, and—as I guess—

Upon the like devotion as yourselves:

To gratulate the gentle princes there.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Kind sister, thanks. We’ll enter all together—

Enter from the Tower ⌈Brackenbury⌉ the Lieutenant

And in good time, here the Lieutenant comes.

Master Lieutenant, pray you by your leave,

How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?

BRACKENBURY

Right well, dear madam. By your patience,

I may not suffer you to visit them.

The King hath strictly charged the contrary.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

The King? Who’s that?

BRACKENBURY

I mean, the Lord Protector.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

The Lord protect him from that kingly title.

Hath he set bounds between their love and me?

I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?

DUCHESS OF YORK

I am their father’s mother; I will see them.

LADY ANNE

Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother;

Then bring me to their sights. I’ll bear thy blame,

And take thy office from thee on my peril.

BRACKENBURY

No, madam, no; I may not leave it so.

I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me. Exit

Enter Lord Stanley Earl of Derby

STANLEY

Let me but meet you ladies one hour hence,

And I’ll salute your grace of York as mother

And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.

(To Anne) Come, madam, you must straight to

Westminster,

There to be crowned Richard’s royal queen.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, cut my lace asunder, that my pent heart

May have some scope to beat, or else I swoon

With this dead-killing news.

LADY ANNE

Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!

DORSET (to Anne)

Be of good cheer.—Mother, how fares your grace?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O Dorset, speak not to me. Get thee gone.

Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels.

Thy mother’s name is ominous to children.

If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,

And live with Richmond from the reach of hell.

Go, hie thee! Hie thee from this slaughterhouse,

Lest thou increase the number of the dead,

And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curses:

‘Nor mother, wife, nor counted England’s Queen’.

STANLEY

Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.

(To Dorset) Take all the swift advantage of the hours.

You shall have letters from me to my son

In your behalf, to meet you on the way.

Be not ta’en tardy by unwise delay.

DUCHESS OF YORK

O ill-dispersing wind of misery!

O my accursed womb, the bed of death!

A cockatrice hast thou hatched to the world,

Whose unavoided eye is murderous.

STANLEY (to Anne)

Come, madam, come. I in all haste was sent.

LADY ANNE

And I in all unwillingness will go.

O would to God that the inclusive verge

Of golden metal that must round my brow

Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains.

Anointed let me be with deadly venom,

And die ere men can say ‘God save the Queen’.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Go, go, poor soul. I envy not thy glory.

To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.

LADY ANNE

No? Why? When he that is my husband now

Came to me as I followed Henry’s corpse,

When scarce the blood was well washed from his

hands,

Which issued from my other angel husband

And that dear saint which then I weeping followed—

O when, I say, I looked on Richard’s face,

This was my wish: ‘Be thou’, quoth I, ‘accursed

For making me, so young, so old a widow,

And when thou wedd’st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;

And be thy wife—if any be so mad—

More miserable made by the life of thee

Than thou hast made me by my dear lord’s death.’

Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,

Within so small a time, my woman’s heart

Grossly grew captive to his honey words

And proved the subject of mine own soul’s curse,

Which hitherto hath held mine eyes from rest—

For never yet one hour in his bed

Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,

But with his timorous dreams was still awaked.

Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick,

And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Poor heart, adieu. I pity thy complaining.

LADY ANNE

No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.

DORSET

Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory.

LADY ANNE

Adieu, poor soul, that tak’st thy leave of it.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Go thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee.

⌈Exit Dorset⌉

Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee.

⌈Exeunt Anne, Stanley, and Clarence’s daughter⌉

Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee.

⌈Exit Elizabeth⌉

I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me.

Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,

And each hour’s joy racked with a week of teen.

⌈Exit⌉

4.2 Sound a sennet. Enter King Richard in pomp, the Duke of Buckingham, Sir William Catesby, ⌈other nobles⌉, and a Page

KING RICHARD

Stand all apart.—Cousin of Buckingham.

BUCKINGHAM My gracious sovereign?

KING RICHARD Give me thy hand.

Sound ⌈a sennet⌉. Here Richard ascendeth the throne

Thus high by thy advice

And thy assistance is King Richard seated.

But shall we wear these glories for a day?

Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?

BUCKINGHAM

Still live they, and for ever let them last.

KING RICHARD

Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,

To try if thou be current gold indeed.

Young Edward lives. Think now what I would speak.

BUCKINGHAM Say on, my loving lord.

KING RICHARD

Why, Buckingham, I say I would be king.

BUCKINGHAM

Why, so you are, my thrice-renownèd liege.

KING RICHARD

Ha? Am I king? ‘Tis so. But Edward lives.

BUCKINGHAM

True, noble prince.

KING RICHARD

O bitter consequence,

That Edward still should live ‘true noble prince’.

Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.

Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead,

And I would have it immediately performed.

What sayst thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.

BUCKINGHAM Your grace may do your pleasure.

KING RICHARD

Tut, tut, thou art all ice. Thy kindness freezes.

Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?

BUCKINGHAM

Give me some little breath, some pause, dear lord,

Before I positively speak in this.

I will resolve you herein presently. Exit

CATESBY (to another, aside)

The King is angry. See, he gnaws his lip.

KING RICHARD (aside)

I will converse with iron-witted fools

And unrespective boys. None are for me

That look into me with considerate eyes.

High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.—

Boy.

PAGE My lord?

KING RICHARD

Know’st thou not any whom corrupting gold

Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?

PAGE

I know a discontented gentleman

Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.

Gold were as good as twenty orators,

And will no doubt tempt him to anything.

KING RICHARD

What is his name?

PAGE

His name, my lord, is Tyrrell.

KING RICHARD

I partly know the man. Go call him hither, boy.

Exit Page

⌈Aside⌉ The deep-revolving, witty Buckingham

No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.

Hath he so long held out with me untired,

And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.

Enter Lord Stanley Earl of Derby

How now, Lord Stanley? What’s the news?

STANLEY Know, my loving lord,

The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled

To Richmond, in those parts beyond the seas

Where he abides.

KING RICHARD

Come hither, Catesby. (Aside to Catesby) Rumour it abroad

That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick.

I will take order for her keeping close.

Enquire me out some mean-born gentleman,

Whom I will marry straight to Clarence’ daughter.

The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.

Look how thou dream’st. I say again, give out

That Anne, my queen, is sick, and like to die.

About it, for it stands me much upon

To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.

⌈Exit Catesby⌉

(Aside) I must be married to my brother’s daughter,

Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.

Murder her brothers, and then marry her?

Uncertain way of gain, but I am in

So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.

Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.—

Enter Sir James Tyrrell; ⌈he kneels⌉

Is thy name Tyrrell?

TYRRELL

James Tyrrell, and your most obedient subject.

KING RICHARD

Art thou indeed?

TYRRELL

Prove me, my gracious lord.

KING RICHARD

Dar’st thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?

TYRRELL

Please you, but I had rather kill two enemies.

KING RICHARD

Why there thou hast it: two deep enemies,

Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep’s disturbers,

Are they that I would have thee deal upon.

Tyrrell, I mean those bastards in the Tower.

TYRRELL

Let me have open means to come to them,

And soon I’ll rid you from the fear of them.

KING RICHARD

Thou sing’st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrell.

Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.

Richard whispers in his ear

‘Tis no more but so. Say it is done,

And I will love thee, and prefer thee for it.

TYRRELL I will dispatch it straight. ⌈KING RICHARD⌉

Shall we hear from thee, Tyrrell, ere we sleep?

Enter Buckingham

⌈TYRRELL⌉ Ye shall, my lord. Exit

BUCKINGHAM

My lord, I have considered in my mind

The late request that you did sound me in.

KING RICHARD

Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to Richmond.

BUCKINGHAM I hear the news, my lord.

KING RICHARD

Stanley, he is your wife’s son. Well, look to it.

BUCKINGHAM

My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,

For which your honour and your faith is pawned:

Th’earldom of Hereford, and the movables

Which you have promised I shall possess.

KING RICHARD

Stanley, look to your wife. If she convey

Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.

BUCKINGHAM

What says your highness to my just request?

KING RICHARD

I do remember me, Henry the Sixth

Did prophesy that Richmond should be king,

When Richmond was a little peevish boy.

A king... perhaps... perhaps.

BUCKINGHAM

My lord?

KING RICHARD

How chance the prophet could not at that time

Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?

BUCKINGHAM

My lord, your promise for the earldom.

KING RICHARD

Richmond? When last I was at Exeter,

The Mayor in courtesy showed me the castle,

And called it ‘Ruge-mount’—at which name I started,

Because a bard of Ireland told me once

I should not live long after I saw ‘Richmond’.

BUCKINGHAM My lord?

KING RICHARD Ay? What’s o’clock?

BUCKINGHAM

I am thus bold to put your grace in mind

Of what you promised me.

KING RICHARD

But what’s o’clock?

BUCKINGHAM Upon the stroke of ten.

KING RICHARD Well, let it strike!

BUCKINGHAM Why ‘let it strike’?

KING RICHARD

Because that, like a jack, thou keep’st the stroke

Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.

I am not in the giving vein today.

BUCKINGHAM

Why then resolve me, whe’er you will or no?

KING RICHARD

Thou troublest me. I am not in the vein.

Exit Richard, followed by all but Buckingham

BUCKINGHAM

And is it thus? Repays he my deep service

With such contempt? Made I him king for this?

O let me think on Hastings, and be gone

To Brecon, while my fearful head is on.

Exit ⌈at another door⌉

4.3 Enter Sir James Tyrrell

TYRRELL

The tyrannous and bloody act is done—

The most arch deed of piteous massacre

That ever yet this land was guilty of.

Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn

To do this piece of ruthless butchery,

Albeit they were fleshed villains, bloody dogs,

Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,

Wept like two children in their deaths’ sad story.

‘O thus’, quoth Dighton, ‘lay the gentle babes’;

‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest, ‘girdling one another

Within their alabaster innocent arms.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

And in their summer beauty kissed each other.

A book of prayers on their pillow lay,

Which once’, quoth Forrest, ‘almost changed my mind.

But O, the devil’—there the villain stopped,

When Dighton thus told on, ‘We smothered

The most replenishèd sweet work of nature,

That from the prime creation e’er she framed.’

Hence both are gone, with conscience and remorse.

They could not speak, and so I left them both,

To bear this tidings to the bloody king.

Enter King Richard

And here he comes.—AH health, my sovereign lord.

KING RICHARD

Kind Tyrrell, am I happy in thy news?

TYRRELL

If to have done the thing you gave in charge

Beget your happiness, be happy then,

For it is done.

KING RICHARD

But didst thou see them dead?

TYRRELL

I did, my lord.

KING RICHARD

And buried, gentle Tyrrell?

TYRRELL

The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;

But where, to say the truth, I do not know.

KING RICHARD

Come to me, Tyrrell, soon, at after-supper,

When thou shalt tell the process of their death.

Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,

And be inheritor of thy desire.

Farewell till then.

TYRRELL

I humbly take my leave.

Exit

KING RICHARD

The son of Clarence have I pent up close.

His daughter meanly have I matched in marriage.

The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom,

And Anne, my wife, hath bid this world goodnight.

Now, for I know the Breton Richmond aims

At young Elizabeth, my brother’s daughter,

And by that knot looks proudly o’er the crown,

To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer—

Enter Sir Richard Ratcliffe, ⌈running⌉

RATCLIFFE My lord.

KING RICHARD

Good news or bad, that thou com’st in so bluntly?

RATCLIFFE

Bad news, my lord. Ely is fled to Richmond,

And Buckingham, backed with the hardy Welshmen,

Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.

KING RICHARD

Ely with Richmond troubles me more near

Than Buckingham. and his rash-levied strength.

Come, I have learned that fearful commenting

Is leaden servitor to dull delay.

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.

Then fiery expedition be my wing:

Jove’s Mercury, an herald for a king.

Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.

We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.

Exeunt

4.4 Enter old Queen Margaret

QUEEN MARGARET

So now prosperity begins to mellow

And drop into the rotten mouth of death.

Here in these confines slyly have I lurked

To watch the waning of mine enemies.

A dire induction am I witness to,

And will to France, hoping the consequence

Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.

⌈Enter the old Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth⌉

Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, my poor princes! Ah, my tender babes!

My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,

And be not fixed in doom perpetual,

Hover about me with your airy wings

And hear your mother’s lamentation.

QUEEN MARGARET (aside)

Hover about her, say that right for right

Hath dimmed your infant morn to aged night.

DUCHESS OF YORK

So many miseries have crazed my voice

That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.

Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?

QUEEN MARGARET (aside)

Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet;

Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

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?

QUEEN MARGARET (aside)

When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,

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

usurped,

Brief abstract and record of tedious days,

Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth,

Unlawfully made drunk with innocents’ blood.

They sit

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah that thou wouldst as soon afford a grave

As thou canst yield a melancholy seat.

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

Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?

QUEEN MARGARET (coming forward)

If ancient sorrow be most reverend,

Give mine the benefit of seniory,

And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.

If sorrow can admit society,

Tell o’er your woes again by viewing mine.

I had an Edward, till a Richard killed him;

I had a husband, till a Richard killed him.

(To Elizabeth) Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him;

Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him.

DUCHESS OF YORK rising

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

I had a Rutland too, thou holpst to kill him.

QUEEN MARGARET

Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard killed 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,

To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood;

That foul defacer of God’s handiwork,

That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls;

That excellent grand tyrant of the earth

Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.

O upright, just, and true-disposing God,

How do I thank thee that this charnel cur

Preys on the issue of his mother’s body,

And makes her pewfellow with others’ moan.

DUCHESS OF YORK

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

God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

QUEEN MARGARET

Bear with me. I am hungry for revenge,

And now I cloy me with beholding it.

Thy Edward, he is dead, that killed my Edward;

Thy other Edward dead, to quite my Edward;

Young York, he is but boot, because both they

Matched not the high perfection of my loss;

Thy Clarence, he is dead, that stabbed my Edward,

And the beholders of this frantic plays—

Th’adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Gray—

Untimely smothered 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.

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

To have him suddenly conveyed from hence.

Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I plead,

That I may live and say, ‘The dog is dead’.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O thou didst prophesy the time would come

That I should wish for thee to help me curse

That bottled spider, that foul bunch-backed toad.

QUEEN MARGARET

I called thee then ‘vain flourish of my fortune’;

I called thee then, poor shadow, ‘painted queen’—

The presentation of but what I was,

The flattering index of a direful pageant,

One heaved a-high to be hurled down below,

A mother only mocked with two fair babes,

A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag

To be the aim of every dangerous shot,

A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,

A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.

Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?

Where are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?

Who sues, and kneels, and says ‘God save the Queen’?

Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?

Where be the thronging troops that followed 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;

For queen, a very caitiff, crowned with care;

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;

For she that scorned at me, now scorned of me;

For she being feared of all, now fearing one;

For she commanding all, obeyed of none.

Thus hath the course of justice whirled 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

Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?

Now thy proud neck bears half my burdened yoke—

From which, even here, I slip my weary head,

And leave the burden of it all on thee.

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

These English woes shall make me smile in France.

QUEEN ELIZABETH (rising)

O thou, well skilled in curses, stay a while,

And teach me how to curse mine enemies.

QUEEN MARGARET

Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;

Compare dead happiness with living woe;

Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,

And he that slew them fouler than he is.

Bett’ring thy loss makes the bad causer worse.

Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

My words are dull. O quicken them with thine!

QUEEN MARGARET

Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine.

Exit

DUCHESS OF YORK

Why should calamity be full of words?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Windy attorneys to their client woes,

Airy recorders of intestate joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries.

Let them have scope. Though what they will impart

Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.

DUCHESS OF YORK

If so, then be not tongue-tied; go with me,

And in the breath of bitter words let’s smother

My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smothered.

A march within

The trumpet sounds. Be copious in exclaims.

Enter King Richard and his train marching with drummers and trumpeters⌉

KING RICHARD

Who intercepts me in my expedition?

DUCHESS OF YORK

O, she that might have intercepted thee,

By strangling thee in her accursed womb,

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

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Hid’st thou that forehead with a golden crown,

Where should be branded—if that right were right—

The slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,

And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?

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

DUCHESS OF YORK

Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?

And little Ned Plantagenet his son?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Gray?

DUCHESS OF YORK Where is kind Hastings?

KING RICHARD (to his train)

A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women

Rail on the Lord’s anointed. Strike, I say!

Flourish. Alarums

(To the women) Either be patient and entreat me fair,

Or with the clamorous report of war

Thus will I drown your exclamations.

DUCHESS OF YORK Art thou my son?

KING RICHARD

Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Then patiently hear my impatience.

KING RICHARD

Madam, I have a touch of your condition,

That cannot brook the accent of reproof.

DUCHESS OF YORK

O let me speak!

KING RICHARD

Do, then; but I’ll not hear.

DUCHESS OF YORK

I will be mild and gentle in my words.

KING RICHARD

And brief, good mother, for I am in haste.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Art thou so hasty? I have stayed for thee,

God knows, in torment and in agony—

KING RICHARD

And came I not at last to comfort you?

DUCHESS OF YORK

No, by the Holy Rood, thou know‘st it well.

Thou cam’st on earth to make the earth my hell.

A grievous burden was thy birth to me;

Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy schooldays frightful, desp’rate, wild, and furious;

Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;

Thy age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody;

More mild, but yet more harmful; kind in hatred.

What comfortable hour canst thou name

That ever graced me in thy company?

KING RICHARD

Faith, none but Humphrey Hewer, that called your grace

To breakfast once, forth of my company.

If I be so disgracious in your eye,

Let me march on, and not offend you, madam.—

Strike up the drum.

DUCHESS OF YORK

I pray thee, hear me speak.

KING RICHARD

You speak too bitterly.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Hear me a word,

For I shall never speak to thee again.

KING RICHARD SO.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance

Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,

Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,

And never more behold 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.

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;

Shame serves thy life, and doth thy death attend.

Exit

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse

Abides in me; I say ‘Amen’ to all.

KING RICHARD

Stay, madam. I must talk a word with you.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

I have no more sons of the royal blood

For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,

They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,

And therefore level not to hit their lives.

KING RICHARD

You have a daughter called Elizabeth,

Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

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 unscarred of bleeding slaughter,

I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

KING RICHARD

Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

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

KING RICHARD

Her life is safest only in her birth.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

And only in that safety died her brothers.

KING RICHARD

Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

KING RICHARD

All unavoided is the doom of destiny—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

True, when avoided grace makes destiny.

My babes were destined to a fairer death,

If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

KING RICHARD

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 by me were harmed.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What good is covered with the face of heaven,

To be discovered, that can do me good?

KING RICHARD

Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

KING RICHARD

Unto the dignity and height of fortune,

The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Flatter my sorrow with report of it.

Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,

Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

KING RICHARD

Even all I have—ay, and myself and all,

Will I withal endow a child of thine,

So in the Lethe of thy angry soul

Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs,

Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness

Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.

KING RICHARD

Then know that, from my soul, I love thy daughter.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

My daughter’s mother thinks that with her soul.

KING RICHARD What do you think?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;

So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,

And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

KING RICHARD

Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.

I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,

And do intend to make her queen of England.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?

KING RICHARD

Even he that makes her queen. Who else should be?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What, thou?

KING RICHARD Even so. How think you of it?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

How canst thou woo her?

KING RICHARD

That would I learn of you,

As one being best acquainted with her humour.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

And wilt thou learn of me?

KING RICHARD

Madam, with all my heart.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,

A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave

‘Edward’ and ‘York’; then haply will she weep.

Therefore present to her—as sometimes Margaret

Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood—

A handkerchief which, say to her, did drain

The purple sap from her sweet brother’s body,

And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.

If this inducement move her not to love,

Send her a letter of thy noble deeds.

Tell her thou mad’st away her uncle Clarence,

Her uncle Rivers—ay, and for her sake

Mad’st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.

KING RICHARD

You mock me, madam. This is not the way

To win your daughter.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

There is no other way,

Unless thou couldst put on some other shape,

And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

KING RICHARD

Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Which she shall purchase with still-lasting war.

KING RICHARD

Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

That at her hands which the King’s King forbids.

KING RICHARD

Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

To vail the title, as her mother doth.

KING RICHARD

Say I will love her everlastingly.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?

KING RICHARD

Sweetly in force unto her fair life’s end.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

KING RICHARD

As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

KING RICHARD

Say I, her sovereign, am her subject love.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

KING RICHARD

Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

KING RICHARD

Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.

KING RICHARD

Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O no, my reasons are too deep and dead—

Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

KING RICHARD

Harp not on that string, madam. That is past.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.

KING RICHARD

Now by my George, my garter, and my crown—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Profaned, dishonoured, and the third usurped.

KING RICHARD

I swear—

QUEEN ELIZABETH By nothing, for this is no oath.

Thy George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;

Thy garter, blemished, pawned his lordly virtue;

Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.

If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,

Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

KING RICHARD

Then by mysetf—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Thy self is self-misused.

KING RICHARD

Now by the world—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

‘Tis full of thy foul wrongs.

KING RICHARD

My father’s death—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Thy life hath that dishonoured.

KING RICHARD

Why then, by God—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

God’s wrong is most of all.

If thou didst fear to break an oath with him,

The unity the King my husband made

Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.

If thou hadst feared to break an oath by him,

Th’imperial metal circling now thy head

Had graced the tender temples of my child,

And both the princes had been breathing here,

Which now—two tender bedfellows for dust—

Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.

What canst thou swear by now?

KING RICHARD

The time to come.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou hast wronged in the time o‘erpast,

For I myself have many tears to wash

Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.

The children live, whose fathers thou hast slaughtered—

Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age.

The parents live, whose children thou hast butchered—

Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.

Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast

Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast.

KING RICHARD