Richard III - William Shakespeare (ebooks online reader txt) 📗

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, your son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches now the root is wither’d?
Why wither not the leaves the sap being gone?
If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king’s;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.

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 by looking on his images:
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack’d in pieces by malignant death,
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
Which 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 thee:
But death hath snatch’d my husband from mine arms,
And pluck’d two crutches from my feeble limbs,
Edward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my grief,
To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!

Boy

Good aunt, you wept not for our father’s death;
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?

Girl

Our fatherless distress was left unmoan’d;
Your widow-dolour 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 govern’d by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
Oh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!

Children Oh 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 moans!
Their woes are parcell’d, mine are 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 distress’d,
Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow’s nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.

Dorset

Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness his doing:
In common worldly things, ’tis call’d ungrateful,
With dull unwilligness 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 crown’d; in him your comfort lives:
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.

Enter Gloucester, Buckingham, Derby, Hastings, and Ratcliff. Gloucester

Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause
To wail the dimming of our shining star;
But none can cure their 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.

Duchess

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

Gloucester

Aside. Amen; and make me die a good old man!
That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing:
I marvel why her grace did leave it out.

Buckingham

You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
That bear this mutual heavy 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 rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
But lately splinter’d, knit, and join’d together,
Must gently be preserved, cherish’d, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch’d
Hither to London, to be crown’d our king.

Rivers Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham? Buckingham

Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
The new-heal’d wound of malice should break out;
Which would be so much the more dangerous,
By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern’d:
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.

Gloucester

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. Gloucester

Then be it so; and go we to determine
Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
Madam, and you, my mother, will you go
To give your censures in this weighty business?

Queen Elizabeth
Duchess With all our hearts. Exeunt all but Buckingham and Gloucester. Buckingham

My lord, whoever journeys to the prince.
For God’s sake, let not us two be behind;
For, by the way, I’ll sort occasion,
As index to the story we late talk’d of,
To part the queen’s proud kindred from the king.

Gloucester

My other self, my counsel’s consistory,
My oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,
I, like a child, will go by thy direction.
Towards Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind. Exeunt.

Scene III

London. A street.

Enter two Citizens, meeting. First Citizen Neighbour, well met: whither away so fast? Second Citizen

I promise you, I scarcely know myself:
Hear you the news abroad?

First Citizen Ay, that the king is dead. Second Citizen

Bad news, by’r lady; seldom comes the better:
I fear, I fear ’twill prove a troublous world.

Enter another Citizen. Third Citizen Neighbours, God speed! First Citizen Give you good morrow, sir. Third Citizen Doth this news hold of good King Edward’s death? Second Citizen Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while! Third Citizen Then,