For Queen, a very caitiff, crown’d with care;
For she that scorn’d at me, now scorn’d of me;
For she being fear’d of all, now fearing one;
For she commanding all, obey’d of none.
Thus hath the course of justice whirl’d about
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And left thee but a very prey to time,
Having no more but thought of what thou wast
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?
110
Now thy proud neck bears half my burden’d 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.
115
ELIZABETH O thou, well skill’d in curses, stay awhile
And teach me how to curse mine enemies.
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,
120
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.
ELIZABETH
My words are dull: O quicken them with thine.
MARGARET
Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine.
125
Exit.
DUCHESS Why should calamity be full of words?
ELIZABETH Windy attorneys to their clients’ woes,
Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
Poor breathing orators of miseries:
Let them have scope, though what they will impart
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Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.
DUCHESS 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 smother’d.
The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.
135
Enter KING RICHARD and his train including CATESBY, marching with drums and trumpets.
KING RICHARD Who intercepts me in my expedition?
DUCHESS O, she that might have intercepted thee –
By strangling thee in her accursed womb –
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done.
ELIZABETH
Hid’st thou that forehead with a golden crown
140
Where should be branded, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the Prince that ow’d that crown,
And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children?
DUCHESS
Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence,
145
And little Ned Plantagenet his son?
ELIZABETH Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?
DUCHESS Where is kind Hastings?
KING RICHARD
A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
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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.
DUCHESS Art thou my son?
155
KING RICHARD
Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.
DUCHESS Then patiently hear my impatience.
KING RICHARD
Madam, I have a touch of your condition,
That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
DUCHESS O let me speak.
KING RICHARD Do then, but I’ll not hear.
160
DUCHESS I will be mild and gentle in my words.
KING RICHARD
And brief, good mother, for I am in haste.
DUCHESS Art thou so hasty? I have stay’d for thee,
God knows, in torment and in agony.
KING RICHARD And came I not at last to comfort you?
165
DUCHESS 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 school-days frightful, desp’rate, wild, and furious;
170
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;
Thy age confirm’d, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody:
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred.
What comfortable hour canst thou name
That ever grac’d me with thy company?
175
KING RICHARD
Faith, none but Humphrey Hower, that call’d 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 I prithee, hear me speak.
180
KING RICHARD You speak too bitterly.
DUCHESS Hear me a word,
For I shall never speak to thee again.
KING RICHARD So!
DUCHESS Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance
Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,
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Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,
And nevermore behold thy face again.
Therefore, take with thee my most grievous 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.
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Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.
Exit.
ELIZABETH
Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse
Abides in me, I say Amen to her.
KING RICHARD
Stay, madam: I must talk a word with you.
ELIZABETH I have no more sons of the royal blood
200
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 call’d Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.
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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 unscarr’d of bleeding slaughter
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I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.
KING RICHARD
Wrong not her birth; she is a royal princess.
ELIZABETH To save her life I’ll say she is not so.
KING RICHARD Her life is safest only in her birth.
ELIZABETH And only in that safety died her brothers.
215
KING RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.
ELIZABETH No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.
KING RICHARD All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
ELIZABETH True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destin’d to a fairer death,
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If grace had blest thee with a fairer life.
KING RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed! And by their uncle cozen’d
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life:
Whose hand soever lanc’d their tender hearts,
225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murd’rous 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 desp’rate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
235
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 harm’d.
ELIZABETH
What good is cover’d with the face of heaven,
240
To be discover’d, that can do me good?
KING RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.
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!
245
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;
250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.
ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.
255
KING RICHARD
Then know that from my soul I love thy daughter.
ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.
KING RICHARD What do you think?
ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,
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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.
ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?
265
KING RICHARD
Even he that makes her Queen. Who else should be?
ELIZABETH What, thou?
KING RICHARD Even so. How think you of it?
ELIZABETH How canst thou woo her?
KING RICHARD That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.
ELIZABETH And wilt thou learn of me?
KING RICHARD Madam, with all my heart!
270
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, steep’d in Rutland’s blood –
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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:
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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!
ELIZABETH There is no other way –
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Unless thou couldst put on some other shape,
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.
KING RICHARD Say that I did all this for love of her?
ELIZABETH
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 319
