Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.’
40
And even here brake off, and came away.
RICHARD
What, tongueless blocks were they? Would they not speak!
Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?
BUCKINGHAM
The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;
Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit.
45
And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand between two churchmen, good my lord:
For on that ground I’ll build a holy descant.
And be not easily won to our requests:
Play the maid’s part: still answer nay, and take it.
50
RICHARD I go, and if you plead as well for them
As I can say nay to thee for myself,
No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.
BUCKINGHAM
Go, go up to the leads, the Lord Mayor knocks.
Exit Richard.
Enter the Lord Mayor and citizens.
Welcome, my lord: I dance attendance here.
55
I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.
Enter CATESBY above.
Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?
CATESBY He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,
To visit him tomorrow, or next day:
He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
60
Divinely bent to meditation;
And in no worldly suits would he be mov’d
To draw him from his holy exercise.
BUCKINGHAM
Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;
Tell him myself, the Mayor and aldermen,
65
In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
No less importing than our general good,
Are come to have some conference with his Grace.
CATESBY I’ll signify so much unto him straight. Exit.
BUCKINGHAM
Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward:
70
He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,
But on his knees at meditation;
Not dallying with a brace of courtesans,
But meditating with two deep divines;
Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
75
But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.
Happy were England, would this virtuous Prince
Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof.
But sure I fear we shall not win him to it.
MAYOR
Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!
80
BUCKINGHAM I fear he will.
Enter CATESBY.
Here Catesby comes again.
Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?
CATESBY He wonders to what end you have assembled
Such troops of citizens to come to him,
His Grace not being warn’d thereof before.
85
He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.
BUCKINGHAM Sorry I am my noble cousin should
Suspect me that I mean no good to him.
By heaven, we come to him in perfect love:
And so once more return and tell his Grace.
90
Exit Catesby.
When holy and devout religious men
Are at their beads, ’tis much to draw them thence,
So sweet is zealous contemplation.
Enter RICHARD aloft, between two bishops with CATESBY.
MAYOR
See where his Grace stands, ’tween two clergymen!
BUCKINGHAM
Two props of virtue for a Christian Prince,
95
To stay him from the fall of vanity;
And see, a book of prayer in his hand –
True ornaments to know a holy man.
Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,
Lend favourable ear to our requests,
100
And pardon us the interruption
Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
RICHARD My lord, there needs no such apology;
I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,
Who – earnest in the service of my God –
105
Deferr’d the visitation of my friends.
But leaving this, what is your Grace’s pleasure?
BUCKINGHAM
Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
And all good men of this ungovern’d isle.
RICHARD I do suspect I have done some offence
110
That seems disgracious in the City’s eye.
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
BUCKINGHAM
You have, my lord: would it might please your Grace
On our entreaties to emend your fault.
RICHARD Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
115
BUCKINGHAM
Know then, it is your fault that you resign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The sceptred office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal House,
120
To the corruption of a blemish’d stock;
Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts –
Which here we waken to our country’s good –
The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
Her face defac’d with scars of infamy,
125
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
And almost shoulder’d in the swallowing gulf
Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion;
Which to recure, we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge
130
And kingly government of this your land,
Not as Protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another’s gain,
But as successively from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
135
For this, consorted with the citizens –
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation –
In this just cause come I to move your Grace.
RICHARD I cannot tell if to depart in silence
140
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
If not to answer, you might haply think
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty
145
Which fondly you would here impose on me;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
So season’d with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I check’d my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,
150
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,
Definitively thus I answer you:
Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert
Unmeritable shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
155
And that my path were even to the crown
As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty and so many my defects,
That I would rather hide me from my greatness –
160
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea –
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother’d.
But, God be thank’d, there is no need of me –
And much I need, to help you, were there need.
165
The r
oyal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellow’d by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay that you would lay on me:
170
The right and fortune of his happy stars,
Which God defend that I should wring from him.
BUCKINGHAM
My lord, this argues conscience in your Grace;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.
175
You say that Edward is your brother’s son:
So say we too – but not by Edward’s wife.
For first was he contract to Lady Lucy
(Your mother lives a witness to his vow),
And afterward by substitute betroth’d
180
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put off, a poor petitioner,
A care-craz’d mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days
185
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduc’d the pitch and height of his degree
To base declension and loath’d bigamy.
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.
190
More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that for reverence to some alive
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffer’d benefit of dignity:
195
If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing times
Unto a lineal, true-derived course.
MAYOR Do, good my lord: your citizens entreat you.
200
BUCKINGHAM
Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.
CATESBY O make them joyful; grant their lawful suit.
RICHARD Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty.
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
205
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
BUCKINGHAM If you refuse it, as in love and zeal
Loath to despose the child, your brother’s son –
As well we know your tenderness of heart,
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
210
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally indeed to all estates –
Yet know, whe’er you accept our suit or no,
Your brother’s son shall never reign our king,
But we will plant some other in the throne
215
To the disgrace and downfall of your House;
And with this resolution here we leave you.
Come, citizens; zounds, I’ll entreat no more.
RICHARD O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham!
Exeunt Buckingham, Lord Mayor, and citizens.
CATESBY
Call him again, sweet Prince; accept their suit.
220
If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
RICHARD Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Call them again. I am not made of stones,
But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
225
Enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest.
Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back
To bear her burden whe’er I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load.
But if black scandal, or foul-fac’d reproach,
230
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof:
For God doth know, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.
235
MAYOR God bless your Grace: we see it, and will say it.
RICHARD In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
BUCKINGHAM Then I salute you with this royal title:
Long live Richard, England’s worthy King!
ALL Amen.
240
BUCKINGHAM
Tomorrow may it please you to be crown’d?
RICHARD Even when you please, for you will have it so.
BUCKINGHAM
Tomorrow then we will attend your Grace;
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 316