s,
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.
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,
Oh, 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 honour, thou detested —
Richard
Margaret.
Margaret
Richard.
Richard
Ha?
Margaret
I call thee not.
Richard
I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.
Margaret
Why so I did, but looked for no reply.
Oh, let me make the period to my curse.
Richard
ʼTis done by me, and ends in ʼMargaret’.
Elizabeth
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
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 that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-backed toad.
Hastings
False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
Margaret
Foul shame upon you. You have all moved mine.
Rivers
Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
Margaret
To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects;
Oh, serve me well and teach yourselves that duty.
Dorset
Dispute not with her. She is lunatic.
Margaret
Peace, master marquess, you are malapert.
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
Oh, 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 toucheth 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.
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 was won with blood, lost be it so.
Buckingham
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Margaret
Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
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 sorrow’s rage.
Buckingham
Have done, have done.
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.
Margaret
I will not think 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.
Richard
What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buckingham
Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Margaret
What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
Oh, 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.
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.
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, being well-advised.
(Speaks to himself.) 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 gracious lord.
Queen Elizabeth
Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?
Rivers
We wait upon your grace.
Exeunt all but Glouceter.
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 ʼtis 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 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, resolvèd mates,
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
First 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.
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
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers. Be assured