The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 311
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:
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’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,
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If ever any grudge were lodg’d between us;
Of you, Lord Rivers, and Lord Grey, of you,
That all without desert have frown’d on me:
Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen: indeed of all.
I do not know that Englishmen alive
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With whom my soul is any jot at odds,
More than the infant that is born tonight –
I thank my God for my humility.
ELIZABETH A holy day shall this be kept hereafter;
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
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My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
RICHARD Why, madam, have I offer’d love for this,
To be so flouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?
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[They all start.]
You do him injury to scorn his corse!
RIVERS Who knows not he is dead! Who knows he is?
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
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But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
KING Is Clarence dead? The order was revers’d.
RICHARD But he, poor man, by your first order died,
And that a winged Mercury did bear;
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,
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That came too lag to see him buried.
God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
And yet go current from suspicion.
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Enter STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY.
STANLEY A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!
KING I prithee peace; my soul is full of sorrow.
STANLEY I will not rise unless your Highness hear me.
KING Then say at once what is it thou demand’st.
STANLEY The forfeit, Sovereign, of my servant’s life.
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Who slew today a riotous gentleman
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
KING Have I a tongue to doom my brother’s death,
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
My brother kill’d no man: his fault was thought,
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And yet his punishment was bitter death.
Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,
Kneel’d at my feet and bade me be advis’d?
Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
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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
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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 pluck’d, and not a man of you
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Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But when your carters or your waiting vassals
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac’d
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for ‘Pardon, pardon!’
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And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.
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,
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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!
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Exeunt some with King and Queen.
RICHARD This is the fruits of rashness: mark’d you not
How that the guilty kindred of the Queen
Look’d 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
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To comfort Edward with our company.
BUCKINGHAM We wait upon your Grace. Exeunt.
2.2 Enter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the two Children of Clarence.
BOY Good grandam tell us, is our father dead?
DUCHESS No, boy.
GIRL 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,
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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:
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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.
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GIRL And so will I.
DUCHESS
Peace, children, peace: the King doth love you well.
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caus’d your father’s death.
BOY Grandam, we can: for my good uncle Gloucester
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Told me the King, provok’d to’t by the Queen,
Devis’d impeachments to imprison him;
And when my uncle told me so he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kiss’d my cheek;
Bade me rely on him as on my father,
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And he would love me dearly as a child.
DUCHESS
Ah, that Deceit should steal such gentle shape,
And with a virtuous vizor hide deep Vice!
He is my son, ay, and herein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
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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.
ELIZABETH Ah! who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
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I’ll join with black despair against my soul
And to myself become an enemy.
DUCHESS What means this scene of rude impatience?
ELIZABETH To make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, thy son, our King, is dead.
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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-winged souls may catch the King’s
Or like obedient subjects follow him
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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 liv’d with looking on his images:
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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,
That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow – yet thou art a mother,
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And hast the comfort of thy children left;
But death hath snatch’d my husband from mine arms
And pluck’d two crutches from my feeble hands:
Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my moan,
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To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries.
BOY Ah, 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.
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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.
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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!
ELIZABETH
What stay had I but Edward, and he’s gone.
CHILDREN
What stay had we but Clarence, and he’s gone.
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DUCHESS
What stays had I but they, and they are gone.
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:
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Their woes are parcell’d, 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.
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Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress’d,
Pour all your tears: I am your sorrow’s nurse.
And I will pamper it with lamentation.
DORSET
Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeas’d
That you take with unthankfulness His doing.
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In common worldly things, ’tis call’d ungrateful
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
Which with more bounteous hand was kindly lent:
Much more to be thus opposite with Heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
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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.
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Enter RICHARD, BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY, HASTINGS and RATCLIFFE.
RICHARD 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 your mercy:
I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee
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I crave your blessing. [Kneels.]
DUCHESS
God bless thee, and put meekness in thy breast;
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty.
RICHARD Amen;
[Rises: aside] and make me die a good old man –
That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing:
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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,
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We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancour of your high-swoll’n hates,
But lately splinted, knit, and join’d together
Must gently be preserv’d, cherish’d, and kept.
Meseemeth good, that with some little train,
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