Richard III - Act 1 - Scene 3

SCENE III. The palace.

    Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, RIVERS, and GREY

RIVERS

    Have patience, madam: there's no doubt his majesty
    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.

GREY

    In that you brook it in, it makes him worse:
    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,
    And cheer his grace with quick and merry words.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    If he were dead, what would betide of me?

RIVERS

    No other harm but loss of such a lord.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    The loss of such a lord includes all harm.

GREY

    The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son,
    To be your comforter when he is gone.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    Oh, he is young and his minority
    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.

RIVERS

    Is it concluded that he shall be protector?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    It is determined, not concluded yet:
    But so it must be, if the king miscarry.

    Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY

GREY

    Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.

BUCKINGHAM

    Good time of day unto your royal grace!

DERBY

    God make your majesty joyful as you have been!

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.
    To your good prayers 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.

DERBY

    I do beseech you, either not believe
    The envious slanders of her false accusers;
    Or, if she be accused in true report,
    Bear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds
    From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.

RIVERS

    Saw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?

DERBY

    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

    Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement
    Betwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
    And betwixt 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 highest.

    Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET

GLOUCESTER

    They do me wrong, and I will not endure it:
    Who are they that complain unto the king,
    That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
    By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly
    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
    Because I cannot flatter and speak fair,
    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,
    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
    I must be held a rancorous enemy.
    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
    But thus his simple truth must be abused
    By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

RIVERS

    To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

GLOUCESTER

    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 person,--
    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, of his own royal disposition,
    And not provoked by any suitor else;
    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
    Which in your outward actions shows itself
    Against my kindred, brothers, and myself,
    Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
    The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.

GLOUCESTER

    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!

GLOUCESTER

    Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:
    Your brother is imprison'd by your means,
    Myself disgraced, and the nobility
    Held in contempt; whilst many fair 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 enjoy'd,
    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.

GLOUCESTER

    You may deny that you were not the cause
    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.

RIVERS

    She may, my lord, for--

GLOUCESTER

    She may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?
    She may do more, sir, than denying that:
    She may help you to many fair preferments,
    And then deny her aiding hand therein,
    And lay those honours on your high deserts.
    What may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she--

RIVERS

    What, marry, may she?

GLOUCESTER

    What, marry, may she! marry with a king,
    A bachelor, a handsome stripling too:
    I wis 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
    With those gross taunts I often have endured.
    I had rather be a country servant-maid
    Than a great queen, with this condition,
    To be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:

    Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind
    Small joy have I in being England's queen.

QUEEN MARGARET

    And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee!
    Thy honour, state and seat is due to me.

GLOUCESTER

    What! threat you me with telling of the king?
    Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said
    I will avouch in presence of the king:
    I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
    'Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.

QUEEN MARGARET

    Out, devil! I remember them too well:
    Thou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,
    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

GLOUCESTER

    Ere you were queen, yea, or your husband king,
    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
    A liberal rewarder of his friends:
    To royalize his blood I spilt mine own.

QUEEN MARGARET

    Yea, and much better blood than his or thine.

GLOUCESTER

    In all which time you and your husband Grey
    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
    In Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?
    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
    What you have been ere now, and what you are;
    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

QUEEN MARGARET

    A murderous villain, and so still thou art.

GLOUCESTER

    Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;
    Yea, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--

QUEEN MARGARET

    Which God revenge!

GLOUCESTER

    To fight on Edward's party for the crown;
    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd 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

    Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,
    Thou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.

RIVERS

    My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
    We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:
    So should we you, if you should be our king.

GLOUCESTER

    If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar:
    Far be it from my heart, the thought of it!

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
    You should enjoy, were you this country's king,
    As little joy may you suppose in me.
    That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

QUEEN MARGARET

    A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;
    For I am she, and altogether joyless.
    I can no longer hold me patient.

    Advancing
    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me!
    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
    If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,
    Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?
    O gentle villain, do not turn away!

GLOUCESTER

    Foul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?

QUEEN MARGARET

    But repetition of what thou hast marr'd;
    That will I make before I let thee go.

GLOUCESTER

    Wert thou not banished 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 owest to me;
    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:
    The sorrow that I have, by right is yours,
    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

GLOUCESTER

    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, gavest the duke a clout
    Steep'd 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 woful banishment,
    Could 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!
    If not by war, by surfeit die your king,
    As ours by murder, to make him a king!
    Edward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,
    For Edward my son, which 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 loss;
    And see another, as I see thee now,
    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!
    Long die thy happy days before thy death;
    And, after many lengthen'd 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 stabb'd with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,
    That none of you may live your natural age,
    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!

GLOUCESTER

    Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd 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 livest,
    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
    Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream
    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
    The slave of nature and the son of hell!
    Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
    Thou rag of honour! thou detested--

GLOUCESTER

    Margaret.

QUEEN MARGARET

    Richard!

GLOUCESTER

    Ha!

QUEEN MARGARET

    I call thee not.

GLOUCESTER

    I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought
    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.

QUEEN MARGARET

    Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.
    O, let me make the period to my curse!

GLOUCESTER

    'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    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 time will come when thou shalt wish for me
    To help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd 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

    Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.

QUEEN MARGARET

    Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:
    Your fire-new stamp of honour 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.

GLOUCESTER

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

DORSET

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

GLOUCESTER

    Yea, and much more: but I was born so high,
    Our aery 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 aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
    O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
    As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

BUCKINGHAM

    Have done! for shame, if not for charity.

QUEEN MARGARET

    Urge neither charity nor shame to me:
    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
    And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
    My charity is outrage, life my shame
    And in that shame still live my sorrow's 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 befal 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'll not believe but they ascend the sky,
    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
    Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
    Have not to do with him, beware of him;
    Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
    And all their ministers attend on him.

GLOUCESTER

    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!

    Exit

HASTINGS

    My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

RIVERS

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

GLOUCESTER

    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.

GLOUCESTER

    But 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 frank'd up to fatting for his pains
    God pardon them that are the cause of it!

RIVERS

    A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
    To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

GLOUCESTER

    So do I ever:

    Aside
    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 you, my noble lords.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

    Catesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?

RIVERS

    Madam, we will attend your grace.

    Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER

GLOUCESTER

    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, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
    I do beweep to many simple gulls
    Namely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;
    And say it is 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, Vaughan, 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 villany
    With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
    And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

    Enter two Murderers
    But, soft! here come my executioners.
    How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!
    Are you now going to dispatch this deed?

First Murderer

    We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant
    That we may be admitted where he is.

GLOUCESTER

    Well thought upon; I have it here about me.

    Gives the warrant
    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
    May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.

First Murderer

    Tush!
    Fear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
    Talkers are no good doers: be assured
    We come to use our hands and not our tongues.

GLOUCESTER

    Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears:
    I like you, lads; about your business straight;
    Go, go, dispatch.

First Murderer

    We will, my noble lord.

    Exeunt