Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, alone.

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 bruisèd arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbèd 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 see 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 determinèd 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, guarded, and Brakenbury.

Brother, good day. What means this armèd 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.
O, belike his Majesty hath some intent
That you should be new christened in the Tower.
But what’s the matter, Clarence? May I know?

---

CLARENCE
Yea, Richard, when I know, for I protest
As yet I do not. But, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,
And from the crossrow 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 tempers him to this extremity.
Was it not she and that good man of worship,
Anthony Woodeville, 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 to her for his 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 favor with the King,
To be her men and wear her livery.
The jealous o’erworn 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. An please your Worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of anything 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 naught 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
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,
Were it to call King Edward’s widow “sister,”
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.
Exit Clarence, Brakenbury , and guard.
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 the 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,
Whiles kites and buzzards prey 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.
O, he hath kept an evil diet long,
And overmuch 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.
He exits.

Enter the corse of Henry the Sixth on a bier, with
Halberds to guard it, Lady Anne being the mourner,
accompanied by Gentlemen.

ANNE
Set down, set down your honorable load,
If honor may be shrouded in a hearse,
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
Th’ untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
They set down the bier.
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.
O, cursèd be the hand that made these holes;
Cursèd the heart that had the heart to do it;
Cursèd 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 aspect
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 interrèd there.
They take up the bier.
And still, as you are weary of this weight,
Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry’s corse.

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

RICHARD
Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.
ANNE
What black magician conjures up this fiend
To stop devoted charitable deeds?
RICHARD
Villains, set down the corse or, by Saint Paul,
I’ll make a corse 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.
They set down the bier.
ANNE , to the Gentlemen and Halberds
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 begone.
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.
She points to the corpse.
O, gentlemen, see, see dead Henry’s wounds
Open their congealed 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 heaven with lightning strike the murderer
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 butcherèd.
RICHARD
Lady, you know no rules of charity,
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
ANNE
Villain, thou know’st nor 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
O, wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
RICHARD
More wonderful, when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these supposèd 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 cursèd 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 excuse current but to hang thyself.
RICHARD
By such despair I should accuse myself.
ANNE
And by despairing shalt thou stand excused
For doing worthy vengeance on thyself
That 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 provokèd by her sland’rous tongue,
That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
ANNE
Thou wast provokèd by thy bloody mind,
That never dream’st on aught but butcheries.
Didst thou not kill this king?
RICHARD I grant you.
ANNE
Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me too

---

Thou mayst be damnèd for that wicked deed.
O, 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 not endure that beauty’s wrack.
You should not blemish it, if I stood by.
As all the world is cheerèd 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 thee.
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 aspects with store of childish drops.
These eyes, which 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 kneels and lays his breast open;
she offers at it with his sword.
Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry—
But ’twas thy beauty that provokèd 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 thy executioner.
RICHARD , rising
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,
This 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 accessory.
ANNE I would I knew thy heart.
RICHARD ’Tis figured in my tongue.
ANNE I fear me both are false.
RICHARD Then never was man 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.
He places the ring on her hand.
RICHARD
Look how my 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 favor at thy gracious hand,
Thou dost confirm his happiness forever.
ANNE What is it?
RICHARD
That it may please you leave these sad designs
To him that hath most 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.
Two exit with Anne. The bier is taken up.
GENTLEMAN Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
RICHARD
No, to Whitefriars. There attend my coming.
Halberds and gentlemen exit with corse.

---

Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor 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 at all
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 favor 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.
He exits.

Enter Queen Elizabeth , the Lord Marquess of Dorset,
Lord Rivers, and Lord Grey.

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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
If he were dead, what would betide on me?
GREY
No other harm but loss of such a lord.
QUEEN 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.
QUEEN 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 he shall be Protector?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
It is determined, not concluded yet;
But so it must be if the King miscarry.

---

Enter Buckingham and Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby.

GREY
Here comes the lord of Buckingham, and Derby.
BUCKINGHAM , to Queen Elizabeth
Good time of day unto your royal Grace.
STANLEY
God make your Majesty joyful, as you have been.
QUEEN 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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Saw you the King today, my lord of Derby?
STANLEY
But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
Are come from visiting his Majesty.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
BUCKINGHAM
Madam, good hope. His Grace speaks cheerfully.
QUEEN 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.

---

QUEEN ELIZABETH
Would all were well—but that will never be.
I fear our happiness is at the height.

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Hastings.

RICHARD
They do me wrong, and I will not endure it!
Who is it that complains 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 rumors.
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
With 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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.
The King, on his own royal disposition,
And not provoked by any suitor else,
Aiming belike at your interior hatred
That in your outward action 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.
QUEEN 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 we have need of
you.
Our brother is imprisoned by your means,
Myself 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.
QUEEN 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 suspects.
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 honors 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, and a handsome stripling too.
Iwis, your grandam had a worser match.
QUEEN 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 stormèd at.

Enter old Queen Margaret, apart from the others.

Small joy have I in being England’s queen.
QUEEN MARGARET , aside
And lessened be that small, God I beseech Him!
Thy honor, state, and seat is due to me.
RICHARD , to Queen Elizabeth
What, threat you me with telling of the King?
Tell him and spare not. Look, what I have said,
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.
QUEEN MARGARET , aside
Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
Thou killed’st my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewkesbury.
RICHARD , to Queen Elizabeth
Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a packhorse in his great affairs,
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,

---

A liberal rewarder of his friends.
To royalize his blood, I spent mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET , aside
Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.
RICHARD , to Queen Elizabeth
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 Albans 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.
QUEEN MARGARET , aside
A murd’rous villain, and so still thou art.
RICHARD , to Queen Elizabeth
Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,
Ay, and forswore himself—which Jesu pardon!—
QUEEN 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.
QUEEN MARGARET , aside
Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this 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 peddler.
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.

---

QUEEN ELIZABETH
As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy were you this country’s king,
As little joy you may suppose in me
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
QUEEN MARGARET , aside
As little joy enjoys the queen thereof,
For I am she, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient.
She steps forward.
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?
QUEEN MARGARET
But repetition of what thou hast marred.
That will I make before I let thee go.
RICHARD
Wert thou not banishèd on pain of death?
QUEEN 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;
To Queen Elizabeth. 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.
QUEEN 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.
QUEEN 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.
To Queen Elizabeth. 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.
QUEEN 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,
O, 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 loathèd issue of thy father’s loins,
Thou rag of honor, thou detested—
RICHARD Margaret.

---

QUEEN MARGARET Richard!
RICHARD Ha?
QUEEN MARGARET I call thee not.
RICHARD
I cry thee mercy, then, for I did think
That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET
Why, so I did, but looked for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!
RICHARD
’Tis done by me and ends in “Margaret.”
QUEEN ELIZABETH , to Queen Margaret
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
QUEEN 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 day will come that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed
toad.
HASTINGS
False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
QUEEN MARGARET
Foul shame upon you, you have all moved mine.
RIVERS
Were you well served, you would be taught your
duty.
QUEEN MARGARET
To serve me well, you all should do me duty:
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects.
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
DORSET , to Rivers
Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.

---

QUEEN MARGARET
Peace, Master Marquess, you are malapert.
Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current.
O, 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 touches 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.
QUEEN 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 is won with blood, lost be it so.
BUCKINGHAM
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
QUEEN MARGARET
Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
Addressing the others. 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 sorrows’ rage.
BUCKINGHAM Have done, have done.
QUEEN 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.
QUEEN MARGARET
I will not think but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.
Aside to Buckingham. 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.
QUEEN MARGARET
What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel,
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
O, 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. She exits.
BUCKINGHAM
My hair doth stand an 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.
QUEEN 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— ( speaks to himself ) being well advised,
For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

Enter Catesby.

CATESBY
Madam, his Majesty doth call for you,—
And for your Grace,—and yours, my gracious
lords .
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Catesby, I come.—Lords, will you go with me?
RIVERS We wait upon your Grace.
All but Richard , Duke of Gloucester exit.
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 stol’n forth 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, resolvèd mates?
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
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.
He gives a paper.
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.
MURDERER
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate.
Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
We go 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.
They exit.

Enter Clarence and Keeper.

KEEPER
Why looks your Grace so heavily today?
CLARENCE
O, 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. Thence we looked toward
England
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befall’n 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 my ears,
What sights of ugly death within my eyes.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks,
A 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,
That 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 these 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 find the empty, vast, and wand’ring air,
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Who 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.
O, 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, renownèd Warwick,
Who spake aloud “What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?”
And so he vanished. Then came wand’ring 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 Tewkesbury.
Seize on him, furies. Take him unto torment.”
With that, methoughts , a legion of foul fiends

---

Environed me and howlèd 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,
That now give 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!
O, 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.
Clarence sleeps.

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 honor 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 the commission.
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.
He hands them keys.
I’ll to the King and signify to him
That thus I have resigned to you my charge.
FIRST MURDERER You may, sir. ’Tis a point of wisdom.
Fare you well.
Brakenbury and the Keeper exit.
SECOND MURDERER What, shall I 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 Judgment 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 humor 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 Faith , some certain dregs of conscience
are yet within me.
FIRST MURDERER Remember our reward when the
deed’s done.
SECOND MURDERER Zounds , he dies! I had forgot the
reward.
FIRST MURDERER Where’s thy conscience now?
SECOND MURDERER O, in the Duke of Gloucester’s
purse.
FIRST MURDERER 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 neighbor’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 towns and cities for a
dangerous thing, and every man that means to live
well endeavors to trust to himself and live without it.
FIRST MURDERER Zounds , ’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 on the costard with the
hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the
malmsey butt in the next room.
SECOND MURDERER O, excellent device—and make a
sop of him!
FIRST MURDERER Soft, he wakes.
SECOND MURDERER Strike!
FIRST MURDERER No, we’ll reason with him.
Clarence wakes.
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?
FIRST MURDERER A man, as you are.
CLARENCE But not, as I am, royal.
FIRST MURDERER Nor you, as we are, loyal.
CLARENCE
Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.
FIRST 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 offense?
Where is 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 to have redemption,
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 fulfill 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 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
Unrippedst the bowels of thy sovereign’s son.
SECOND MURDERER
Whom thou wast 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 avengèd for the deed,
O, know you yet He doth it publicly!
Take not the quarrel from His powerful arm;
He needs no indirect or 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 are 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
You are deceived. Your brother Gloucester hates
you.
CLARENCE
O no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.
Go you to him from me.
FIRST MURDERER Ay, so we will.
CLARENCE
Tell him, when that our princely father York
Blessed his three sons with his victorious arm,
He little thought of this divided friendship.
Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
FIRST MURDERER
Ay, millstones, as he lessoned us to weep.
CLARENCE
O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
FIRST MURDERER
Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you deceive
yourself.
’Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.
CLARENCE
It cannot be, for he bewept my fortune,
And hugged me in his arms, and swore with sobs
That he would labor my delivery.
FIRST MURDERER
Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
From this Earth’s thralldom to the joys of heaven.
SECOND MURDERER
Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.
CLARENCE
Have you that holy feeling in your souls
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And are you yet to your own souls so blind

---

That you will war with God by murd’ring me?
O sirs, consider: they that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
SECOND MURDERER , to First Murderer
What shall we do?
CLARENCE Relent, and save your souls.
Which of you—if you were a prince’s son
Being pent from liberty, as I am now—
If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
Would not entreat for life? Ay , you would beg,
Were you in my distress.
FIRST MURDERER
Relent? No. ’Tis cowardly and womanish.
CLARENCE
Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
To Second Murderer. My friend, I spy some pity
in thy looks.
O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side and entreat for me.
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
SECOND MURDERER Look behind you, my lord.
FIRST MURDERER
Take that, and that. ( Stabs him. ) If all this will not
do,
I’ll drown you in the malmsey butt within.
He exits with the body.
SECOND MURDERER
A bloody deed, and desperately dispatched.
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous murder.

Enter First Murderer.

FIRST MURDERER
How now? What mean’st thou that thou help’st me
not?

---

By heavens , the Duke shall know how slack you
have been.
SECOND MURDERER
I would he knew that I had saved his brother.
Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say,
For I repent me that the Duke is slain. He exits.
FIRST MURDERER
So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.
Well, I’ll go hide the body in some hole
Till that the Duke give order for his burial.
And when I have my meed, I will away,
For this will out, and then I must not stay.
He exits.

Flourish. Enter King Edward , sick, Queen Elizabeth ,
Lord Marquess Dorset, Rivers, Hastings, Buckingham,
Woodeville, Grey , and Scales.

KING EDWARD
Why, so. Now have I done a good day’s work.
You peers, continue this united league.
I every day expect an embassage
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence,
And more in peace my soul shall part to heaven
Since I have made my friends at peace on Earth.
Rivers and Hastings, take each other’s hand.
Dissemble not your hatred. Swear your love.
RIVERS , taking Hastings’ hand
By heaven, my soul is purged from grudging hate,
And with my hand I seal my true heart’s love.
HASTINGS
So thrive I as I truly swear the like.
KING EDWARD
Take heed you dally not before your king,
Lest He that is the supreme King of kings
Confound your hidden falsehood and award
Either of you to be the other’s end.
HASTINGS
So prosper I as I swear perfect love.

---

RIVERS
And I as I love Hastings with my heart.
KING EDWARD , to Queen Elizabeth
Madam, yourself is not exempt from this,—
Nor you, son Dorset,—Buckingham, nor you.
You have been factious one against the other.—
Wife, love Lord Hastings. Let him kiss your hand,
And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
There, Hastings, I will never more remember
Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine.
Hastings kisses her hand.
KING EDWARD
Dorset, embrace him.—Hastings, love Lord
Marquess.
DORSET
This interchange of love, I here protest,
Upon my part shall be inviolable.
HASTINGS And so swear I. They embrace.
KING EDWARD
Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league
With thy embracements to my wife’s allies
And make me happy in your unity.
BUCKINGHAM , to Queen Elizabeth
Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate
Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love
Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most love.
When I have most need to employ a friend,
And most assurèd that he is a friend,
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile
Be he unto me: this do I beg of God ,
When I am cold in love to you or yours.
Queen Elizabeth and Buckingham embrace.
KING EDWARD
A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,

---

Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here
To make the blessèd period of this peace.
BUCKINGHAM And in good time
Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe and the Duke.

Enter Ratcliffe, and Richard , Duke of Gloucester.

RICHARD
Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen,
And, princely peers, a happy time of day.
KING EDWARD
Happy indeed, as we have spent the day.
Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,
Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,
Between these swelling, wrong-incensèd peers.
RICHARD
A blessèd labor, my most sovereign lord.
Among this princely heap, if any here
By false intelligence or wrong surmise
Hold me a foe,
If I unwittingly , or in my rage,
Have aught committed that is hardly borne
By any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his friendly peace.
’Tis death to me to be at enmity;
I hate it, and desire all good men’s love.
First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my duteous service;—
Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
If ever any grudge were lodged between us;—
Of you and you, Lord Rivers and of Dorset,
That all without desert have frowned on me;—
Of you, Lord Woodeville and Lord Scales;—of you,
Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.
I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds

---

More than the infant that is born tonight.
I thank my God for my humility.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
RICHARD
Why, madam, have I offered love for this,
To be so flouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the gentle duke is dead?
They all start.
You do him injury to scorn his corse.
KING EDWARD
Who knows not he is dead! Who knows he is?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!
BUCKINGHAM
Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?
DORSET
Ay, my good lord, and no man in the presence
But his red color hath forsook his cheeks.
KING EDWARD
Is Clarence dead? The order was reversed.
RICHARD
But he, poor man, by your first order died,
And that a wingèd Mercury did bear.
Some tardy cripple bare the countermand,
That came too lag to see him burièd.
God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
Nearer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood,
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
And yet go current from suspicion.

Enter Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby.

---

STANLEY , kneeling
A boon, my sovereign, for my service done.
KING EDWARD
I prithee, peace. My soul is full of sorrow.
STANLEY
I will not rise unless your Highness hear me.
KING EDWARD
Then say at once what is it thou requests.
STANLEY
The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant’s life,
Who slew today a riotous gentleman
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
KING EDWARD
Have I a tongue to doom my brother’s death,
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
My brother killed no man; his fault was thought,
And yet his punishment was bitter death.
Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,
Kneeled at my feet, and bade me be advised?
Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?
Who told me, in the field at Tewkesbury,
When Oxford had me down, he rescued me,
And said “Dear brother, live, and be a king”?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
Even in his garments and did give himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully plucked, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But when your carters or your waiting vassals
Have done a drunken slaughter and defaced
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,

---

You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon,
And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.
Stanley rises.
But for my brother, not a man would speak,
Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
Have been beholding to him in his life,
Yet none of you would once beg for his life.
O God, I fear Thy justice will take hold
On me and you, and mine and yours for this!—
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.—
Ah, poor Clarence.
Some exit with King and Queen.
RICHARD
This is the fruits of rashness. Marked you not
How that the guilty kindred of the Queen
Looked pale when they did hear of Clarence’ death?
O, they did urge it still unto the King.
God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go
To comfort Edward with our company?
BUCKINGHAM We wait upon your Grace.
They exit.

Enter the old Duchess of York with the two
children of Clarence.

BOY
Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?
DUCHESS No, boy.
DAUGHTER
Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,
And cry “O Clarence, my unhappy son”?
BOY
Why do you look on us and shake your head,

---

And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,
If that our noble father were alive?
DUCHESS
My pretty cousins, you mistake me both.
I do lament the sickness of the King,
As loath to lose him, not your father’s death.
It were lost sorrow to wail one that’s lost.
BOY
Then, you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.
The King mine uncle is to blame for it.
God will revenge it, whom I will importune
With earnest prayers, all to that effect.
DAUGHTER And so will I.
DUCHESS
Peace, children, peace. The King doth love you
well.
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.
BOY
Grandam, we can, for my good uncle Gloucester
Told me the King, provoked to it by the Queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him;
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kissed my cheek,
Bade me rely on him as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as a child.
DUCHESS
Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice.
He is my son, ay, and therein my shame,
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
BOY
Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?
DUCHESS Ay, boy.
BOY
I cannot think it. Hark, what noise is this?

---

Enter Queen Elizabeth with her hair about her ears,
Rivers and Dorset after her.

QUEEN ELIZABETH
Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune and torment myself?
I’ll join with black despair against my soul
And to myself become an enemy.
DUCHESS
What means this scene of rude impatience?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
To make an act of tragic violence.
Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
If you will live, lament. If die, be brief,
That our swift-wingèd souls may catch the King’s,
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night.
DUCHESS
Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
As I had title in thy noble husband.
I have bewept a worthy husband’s death
And lived with looking on his images;
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are cracked in pieces by malignant death,
And I, for comfort, have but one false glass
That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left,
But death hath snatched my husband from mine
arms
And plucked two crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my moan,
To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries!

---

BOY , to Queen Elizabeth
Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father’s death.
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
DAUGHTER , to Queen Elizabeth
Our fatherless distress was left unmoaned.
Your widow-dolor likewise be unwept!
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Give me no help in lamentation.
I am not barren to bring forth complaints.
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being governed by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.
Ah, for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!
CHILDREN
Ah, for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!
DUCHESS
Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What stay had I but Edward? And he’s gone.
CHILDREN
What stay had we but Clarence? And he’s gone.
DUCHESS
What stays had I but they? And they are gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Was never widow had so dear a loss.
CHILDREN
Were never orphans had so dear a loss.
DUCHESS
Was never mother had so dear a loss.
Alas, I am the mother of these griefs.
Their woes are parceled; mine is general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep ; so doth not she.
These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I;
I for an Edward weep; so do not they.
Alas, you three, on me, threefold distressed,

---

Pour all your tears. I am your sorrow’s nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentation.
DORSET , to Queen Elizabeth
Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness His doing.
In common worldly things, ’tis called ungrateful
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
RIVERS
Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son. Send straight for
him.
Let him be crowned. In him your comfort lives.
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave
And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Buckingham, Lord
Stanley, Earl of Derby, Hastings, and Ratcliffe.

RICHARD , to Queen Elizabeth
Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause
To wail the dimming of our shining star,
But none can help our harms by wailing them.—
Madam my mother, I do cry you mercy;
I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee
I crave your blessing. He kneels.
DUCHESS
God bless thee, and put meekness in thy breast,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty.
RICHARD , standing
Amen. Aside . And make me die a good old man!
That is the butt end of a mother’s blessing;
I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.
BUCKINGHAM
You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers

---

That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,
Now cheer each other in each other’s love.
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancor of your high-swoll’n hates,
But lately splintered, knit, and joined together,
Must gently be preserved, cherished, and kept.
Meseemeth good that with some little train
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet
Hither to London, to be crowned our king.
RIVERS
Why “with some little train,” my lord of
Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM
Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude
The new-healed wound of malice should break out,
Which would be so much the more dangerous
By how much the estate is green and yet
ungoverned.
Where every horse bears his commanding rein
And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
RICHARD
I hope the King made peace with all of us;
And the compact is firm and true in me.
RIVERS
And so in me, and so, I think, in all.
Yet since it is but green, it should be put
To no apparent likelihood of breach,
Which haply by much company might be urged.
Therefore I say with noble Buckingham
That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.
HASTINGS And so say I.
RICHARD
Then be it so, and go we to determine

---

Who they shall be that straight shall post to
Ludlow . —
Madam, and you, my sister, will you go
To give your censures in this business?
All but Buckingham and Richard exit.
BUCKINGHAM
My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
For God’s sake let not us two stay at home.
For by the way I’ll sort occasion,
As index to the story we late talked of,
To part the Queen’s proud kindred from the Prince.
RICHARD
My other self, my council’s consistory,
My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,
I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
Toward Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind.
They exit.

Enter one Citizen at one door, and another at the other.

FIRST CITIZEN
Good morrow, neighbor, whither away so fast?
SECOND CITIZEN
I promise you I scarcely know myself.
Hear you the news abroad?
FIRST CITIZEN Yes, that the King is dead.
SECOND CITIZEN
Ill news, by ’r Lady. Seldom comes the better.
I fear, I fear, ’twill prove a giddy world.

Enter another Citizen.

THIRD CITIZEN
Neighbors, God speed.
FIRST CITIZEN Give you good morrow, sir.

---

THIRD CITIZEN
Doth the news hold of good King Edward’s death?
SECOND CITIZEN
Ay, sir, it is too true, God help the while.
THIRD CITIZEN
Then, masters, look to see a troublous world.
FIRST CITIZEN
No, no, by God’s good grace, his son shall reign.
THIRD CITIZEN
Woe to that land that’s governed by a child.
SECOND CITIZEN
In him there is a hope of government,
Which, in his nonage, council under him,
And, in his full and ripened years, himself,
No doubt shall then, and till then, govern well.
FIRST CITIZEN
So stood the state when Henry the Sixth
Was crowned in Paris but at nine months old.
THIRD CITIZEN
Stood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot,
For then this land was famously enriched
With politic grave counsel; then the King
Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.
FIRST CITIZEN
Why, so hath this, both by his father and mother.
THIRD CITIZEN
Better it were they all came by his father,
Or by his father there were none at all,
For emulation who shall now be nearest
Will touch us all too near if God prevent not.
O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester,
And the Queen’s sons and brothers haught and
proud,
And were they to be ruled, and not to rule,
This sickly land might solace as before.

---

FIRST CITIZEN
Come, come, we fear the worst. All will be well.
THIRD CITIZEN
When clouds are seen, wise men put on their
cloaks;
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms makes men expect a dearth.
All may be well; but if God sort it so,
’Tis more than we deserve or I expect.
SECOND CITIZEN
Truly, the hearts of men are full of fear.
You cannot reason almost with a man
That looks not heavily and full of dread.
THIRD CITIZEN
Before the days of change, still is it so.
By a divine instinct, men’s minds mistrust
Ensuing danger, as by proof we see
The water swell before a boist’rous storm.
But leave it all to God. Whither away?
SECOND CITIZEN
Marry, we were sent for to the Justices.
THIRD CITIZEN
And so was I. I’ll bear you company.
They exit.

Enter Archbishop, the young Duke of York,
Queen Elizabeth , and the Duchess of York.

ARCHBISHOP
Last night, I hear , they lay at Stony Stratford,
And at Northampton they do rest tonight.
Tomorrow or next day they will be here.

---

DUCHESS
I long with all my heart to see the Prince.
I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
But I hear no; they say my son of York
Has almost overta’en him in his growth.
YORK
Ay, mother, but I would not have it so.
DUCHESS
Why, my good cousin? It is good to grow.
YORK
Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,
My uncle Rivers talked how I did grow
More than my brother. “Ay,” quoth my uncle
Gloucester,
“Small herbs have grace; great weeds do grow
apace.”
And since, methinks I would not grow so fast
Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make
haste.
DUCHESS
Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
In him that did object the same to thee!
He was the wretched’st thing when he was young,
So long a-growing and so leisurely,
That if his rule were true, he should be gracious.
YORK
And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.
DUCHESS
I hope he is, but yet let mothers doubt.
YORK
Now, by my troth, if I had been remembered,
I could have given my uncle’s Grace a flout
To touch his growth nearer than he touched mine.
DUCHESS
How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.

---

YORK
Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.
’Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
DUCHESS
I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?
YORK Grandam, his nurse.
DUCHESS
His nurse? Why, she was dead ere thou wast born.
YORK
If ’twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
A parlous boy! Go to, you are too shrewd.
DUCHESS
Good madam, be not angry with the child.
QUEEN ELIZABETH Pitchers have ears.

Enter a Messenger.

ARCHBISHOP Here comes a messenger.—What news?
MESSENGER
Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.
QUEEN ELIZABETH How doth the Prince?
MESSENGER Well, madam, and in health.
DUCHESS What is thy news?
MESSENGER
Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,
And, with them, Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
DUCHESS Who hath committed them?
MESSENGER
The mighty dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.
ARCHBISHOP For what offense?
MESSENGER
The sum of all I can, I have disclosed.
Why, or for what, the nobles were committed
Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.

---

QUEEN ELIZABETH
Ay me! I see the ruin of my house.
The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind.
Insulting tyranny begins to jut
Upon the innocent and aweless throne.
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre.
I see, as in a map, the end of all.
DUCHESS
Accursèd and unquiet wrangling days,
How many of you have mine eyes beheld?
My husband lost his life to get the crown,
And often up and down my sons were tossed
For me to joy, and weep, their gain and loss.
And being seated, and domestic broils
Clean overblown, themselves the conquerors
Make war upon themselves, brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous
And frantic outrage, end thy damnèd spleen,
Or let me die, to look on Earth no more.
QUEEN ELIZABETH , to York
Come, come, my boy. We will to sanctuary.—
Madam, farewell.
DUCHESS Stay, I will go with you.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
You have no cause.
ARCHBISHOP , to Queen Elizabeth My gracious lady, go,
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I’ll resign unto your Grace
The seal I keep; and so betide to me
As well I tender you and all of yours.
Go. I’ll conduct you to the sanctuary.
They exit.

The trumpets sound. Enter young Prince Edward ,
Richard Duke of Gloucester, Buckingham,
the Cardinal, Catesby , and others.

BUCKINGHAM
Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.
RICHARD , to Prince
Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts’ sovereign.
The weary way hath made you melancholy.
PRINCE
No, uncle, but our crosses on the way
Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.
I want more uncles here to welcome me.
RICHARD
Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet dived into the world’s deceit;
Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show, which, God He knows,
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles which you want were dangerous.
Your Grace attended to their sugared words
But looked not on the poison of their hearts.
God keep you from them, and from such false
friends.

---

PRINCE
God keep me from false friends, but they were none.
RICHARD
My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet you.

Enter Lord Mayor with others.

MAYOR
God bless your Grace with health and happy days.
PRINCE
I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.—
I thought my mother and my brother York
Would long ere this have met us on the way.
Fie, what a slug is Hastings that he comes not
To tell us whether they will come or no!

Enter Lord Hastings.

BUCKINGHAM
And in good time here comes the sweating lord.
PRINCE
Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?
HASTINGS
On what occasion God He knows, not I,
The Queen your mother and your brother York
Have taken sanctuary. The tender prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.
BUCKINGHAM
Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers!—Lord Cardinal, will your Grace
Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York
Unto his princely brother presently?—
If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,
And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
CARDINAL
My lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory

---

Can from his mother win the Duke of York,
Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
We should infringe the holy privilege
Of blessèd sanctuary! Not for all this land
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.
BUCKINGHAM
You are too senseless obstinate, my lord,
Too ceremonious and traditional.
Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,
You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
The benefit thereof is always granted
To those whose dealings have deserved the place
And those who have the wit to claim the place.
This prince hath neither claimed it nor deserved it
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.
Then taking him from thence that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.
Oft have I heard of sanctuary men,
But sanctuary children, never till now.
CARDINAL
My lord, you shall o’errule my mind for once.—
Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?
HASTINGS I go, my lord.
PRINCE
Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.
The Cardinal and Hastings exit.
Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?
RICHARD
Where it seems best unto your royal self.
If I may counsel you, some day or two
Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower;
Then where you please and shall be thought most fit
For your best health and recreation.

---

PRINCE
I do not like the Tower, of any place.—
Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?
BUCKINGHAM
He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.
PRINCE
Is it upon record, or else reported
Successively from age to age, he built it?
BUCKINGHAM Upon record, my gracious lord.
PRINCE
But say, my lord, it were not registered,
Methinks the truth should live from age to age,
As ’twere retailed to all posterity,
Even to the general all-ending day.
RICHARD , aside
So wise so young, they say, do never live long.
PRINCE What say you, uncle?
RICHARD
I say, without characters fame lives long.
Aside . Thus, like the formal Vice, Iniquity,
I moralize two meanings in one word.
PRINCE
That Julius Caesar was a famous man.
With what his valor did enrich his wit,
His wit set down to make his valor live.
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror,
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
I’ll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham—
BUCKINGHAM What, my gracious lord?
PRINCE
An if I live until I be a man,
I’ll win our ancient right in France again
Or die a soldier, as I lived a king.
RICHARD , aside
Short summers lightly have a forward spring.

---

Enter young Duke of York, Hastings, and the
Cardinal.

BUCKINGHAM
Now in good time here comes the Duke of York.
PRINCE
Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?
YORK
Well, my dread lord—so must I call you now.
PRINCE
Ay, brother, to our grief, as it is yours.
Too late he died that might have kept that title,
Which by his death hath lost much majesty.
RICHARD
How fares our cousin, noble lord of York?
YORK
I thank you, gentle uncle. O my lord,
You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.
The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
RICHARD
He hath, my lord.
YORK And therefore is he idle?
RICHARD
O my fair cousin, I must not say so.
YORK
Then he is more beholding to you than I.
RICHARD
He may command me as my sovereign,
But you have power in me as in a kinsman.
YORK
I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.
RICHARD
My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart.
PRINCE A beggar, brother?
YORK
Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,
And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.

---

RICHARD
A greater gift than that I’ll give my cousin.
YORK
A greater gift? O, that’s the sword to it.
RICHARD
Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.
YORK
O, then I see you will part but with light gifts.
In weightier things you’ll say a beggar nay.
RICHARD
It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.
YORK
I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.
RICHARD
What, would you have my weapon, little lord?
YORK
I would, that I might thank you as you call me.
RICHARD How?
YORK Little.
PRINCE
My lord of York will still be cross in talk.
Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.
YORK
You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.—
Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me.
Because that I am little, like an ape,
He thinks that you should bear me on your
shoulders.
BUCKINGHAM , aside
With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!
To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,
He prettily and aptly taunts himself.
So cunning and so young is wonderful.
RICHARD , to Prince
My lord, will ’t please you pass along?

---

Myself and my good cousin Buckingham
Will to your mother, to entreat of her
To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.
YORK , to Prince
What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?
PRINCE
My Lord Protector needs will have it so.
YORK
I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.
RICHARD Why, what should you fear?
YORK
Marry, my uncle Clarence’ angry ghost.
My grandam told me he was murdered there.
PRINCE I fear no uncles dead.
RICHARD Nor none that live, I hope.
PRINCE
An if they live, I hope I need not fear.
To York. But come, my lord. With a heavy heart,
Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.
A sennet. Prince Edward , the Duke of York,
and Hastings exit. Richard, Buckingham,
and Catesby remain.
BUCKINGHAM , to Richard
Think you, my lord, this little prating York
Was not incensèd by his subtle mother
To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?
RICHARD
No doubt, no doubt. O, ’tis a parlous boy,
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.
He is all the mother’s, from the top to toe.
BUCKINGHAM
Well, let them rest.—Come hither, Catesby.
Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend
As closely to conceal what we impart.
Thou knowest our reasons, urged upon the way.

---

What thinkest thou? Is it not an easy matter
To make William Lord Hastings of our mind
For the installment of this noble duke
In the seat royal of this famous isle?
CATESBY
He, for his father’s sake, so loves the Prince
That he will not be won to aught against him.
BUCKINGHAM
What think’st thou then of Stanley? Will not he?
CATESBY
He will do all in all as Hastings doth.
BUCKINGHAM
Well then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,
And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings
How he doth stand affected to our purpose
And summon him tomorrow to the Tower
To sit about the coronation.
If thou dost find him tractable to us,
Encourage him and tell him all our reasons.
If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,
Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,
And give us notice of his inclination;
For we tomorrow hold divided councils,
Wherein thyself shalt highly be employed.
RICHARD
Commend me to Lord William. Tell him, Catesby,
His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries
Tomorrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle,
And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,
Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.
BUCKINGHAM
Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.
CATESBY
My good lords both, with all the heed I can.
RICHARD
Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?

---

CATESBY You shall, my lord.
RICHARD
At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.
Catesby exits.
BUCKINGHAM
Now, my lord, what shall we do if we perceive
Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?
RICHARD
Chop off his head. Something we will determine.
And look when I am king, claim thou of me
The earldom of Hereford, and all the movables
Whereof the King my brother was possessed.
BUCKINGHAM
I’ll claim that promise at your Grace’s hand.
RICHARD
And look to have it yielded with all kindness.
Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards
We may digest our complots in some form.
They exit.