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Richard III - Act 1, scene 3
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Richard III - Act 1, scene 3Act 1, scene 3
Scene 3
Synopsis:
Queen Elizabeth bemoans her situation in the face of her husband’s serious illness; Richard quarrels with Queen Elizabeth, her brother, and Grey, her son by her first marriage. Queen Margaret, King Henry VI’s widow, curses them all. After the others have departed, Richard dispatches his agents to kill Clarence.
Enter Queen ⌜Elizabeth, the Lord Marquess of Dorset,⌝Lord Rivers, and Lord Grey.
RIVERS
0451 Have patience, madam. There’s no doubt his
0452 Majesty
0453 Will soon recover his accustomed health.
GREY
0454 In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse.
0455 5 Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort
0456 And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0457 If he were dead, what would betide on me?
GREY
0458 No other harm but loss of such a lord.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0459 The loss of such a lord includes all harms.
GREY
0460 10 The heavens have blessed you with a goodly son
0461 To be your comforter when he is gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0462 Ah, he is young, and his minority
0463 Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
0464 A man that loves not me nor none of you.
RIVERS
0465 15 Is it concluded he shall be Protector?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0466 It is determined, not concluded yet;
0467 But so it must be if the King miscarry.
p.
43
Enter Buckingham and ⌜Lord Stanley, Earl of⌝ Derby.GREY
0468 Here comes the lord of Buckingham, and Derby.
BUCKINGHAM, ⌜to Queen Elizabeth⌝
0469 Good time of day unto your royal Grace.
STANLEY
0470 20 God make your Majesty joyful, as you have been.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0471 The Countess Richmond, good my lord of Derby,
0472 To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
0473 Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife
0474 And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured
0475 25 I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
STANLEY
0476 I do beseech you either not believe
0477 The envious slanders of her false accusers,
0478 Or if she be accused on true report,
0479 Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
0480 30 From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0481 Saw you the King today, my lord of Derby?
STANLEY
0482 But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
0483 Are come from visiting his Majesty.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0484 What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
BUCKINGHAM
0485 35 Madam, good hope. His Grace speaks cheerfully.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0486 God grant him health. Did you confer with him?
BUCKINGHAM
0487 Ay, madam. He desires to make atonement
0488 Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
0489 And between them and my Lord Chamberlain,
0490 40 And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
p.
45
QUEEN ELIZABETH 0491 Would all were well—but that will never be.
0492 I fear our happiness is at the height.
Enter Richard, ⌜Duke of Gloucester, and Hastings.⌝
RICHARD
0493 They do me wrong, and I will not endure it!
0494 Who is it that complains unto the King
0495 45 That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?
0496 By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
0497 That fill his ears with such dissentious rumors.
0498 Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
0499 Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
0500 50 Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
0501 I must be held a rancorous enemy.
0502 Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
0503 But thus his simple truth must be abused
0504 With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
GREY
0505 55 To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?
RICHARD
0506 To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
0507 When have I injured thee? When done thee
0508 wrong?—
0509 Or thee?—Or thee? Or any of your faction?
0510 60 A plague upon you all! His royal Grace,
0511 Whom God preserve better than you would wish,
0512 Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while
0513 But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0514 Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.
0515 65 The King, on his own royal disposition,
0516 And not provoked by any suitor else,
0517 Aiming belike at your interior hatred
0518 That in your outward action shows itself
0519 Against my children, brothers, and myself,
0520 70 Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground.
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RICHARD 0521 I cannot tell. The world is grown so bad
0522 That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
0523 Since every Jack became a gentleman,
0524 There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0525 75 Come, come, we know your meaning, brother
0526 Gloucester.
0527 You envy my advancement, and my friends’.
0528 God grant we never may have need of you.
RICHARD
0529 Meantime God grants that ⟨we⟩ have need of
0530 80 you.
0531 Our brother is imprisoned by your means,
0532 Myself disgraced, and the nobility
0533 Held in contempt, while great promotions
0534 Are daily given to ennoble those
0535 85 That scarce some two days since were worth a
0536 noble.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0537 By Him that raised me to this careful height
0538 From that contented hap which I enjoyed,
0539 I never did incense his Majesty
0540 90 Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
0541 An earnest advocate to plead for him.
0542 My lord, you do me shameful injury
0543 Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
RICHARD
0544 You may deny that you were not the mean
0545 95 Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.
RIVERS 0546 She may, my lord, for—
RICHARD
0547 She may, Lord Rivers. Why, who knows not so?
0548 She may do more, sir, than denying that.
0549 She may help you to many fair preferments
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0550
100 And then deny her aiding hand therein,0551 And lay those honors on your high desert.
0552 What may she not? She may, ay, marry, may she—
RIVERS 0553 What, marry, may she?
RICHARD
0554 What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
0555 105 A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.
0556 Iwis, your grandam had a worser match.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0557 My lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne
0558 Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
0559 By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
0560 110 Of those gross taunts that oft I have endured.
0561 I had rather be a country servant-maid
0562 Than a great queen with this condition,
0563 To be so baited, scorned, and stormèd at.
Enter old Queen Margaret, ⌜apart from the others.⌝
0564 Small joy have I in being England’s queen.
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝
0565 115 And lessened be that small, God I beseech Him!
0566 Thy honor, state, and seat is due to me.
RICHARD, ⌜to Queen Elizabeth⌝
0567 What, threat you me with telling of the King?
0568 ⟨Tell him and spare not. Look, what I have said,⟩
0569 I will avouch ’t in presence of the King;
0570 120 I dare adventure to be sent to th’ Tower.
0571 ’Tis time to speak. My pains are quite forgot.
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝
0572 Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
0573 Thou killed’st my husband Henry in the Tower,
0574 And Edward, my poor son, at Tewkesbury.
RICHARD, ⌜to Queen Elizabeth⌝
0575 125 Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
0576 I was a packhorse in his great affairs,
0577 A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
p.
51
0578
A liberal rewarder of his friends.0579 To royalize his blood, I spent mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝
0580 130 Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.
RICHARD, ⌜to Queen Elizabeth⌝
0581 In all which time, you and your husband Grey
0582 Were factious for the House of Lancaster.—
0583 And, Rivers, so were you.—Was not your husband
0584 In Margaret’s battle at Saint Albans slain?
0585 135 Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
0586 What you have been ere this, and what you are;
0587 Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝
0588 A murd’rous villain, and so still thou art.
RICHARD, ⌜to Queen Elizabeth⌝
0589 Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,
0590 140 Ay, and forswore himself—which Jesu pardon!—
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝ 0591 Which God revenge!
RICHARD
0592 To fight on Edward’s party for the crown;
0593 And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
0594 I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,
0595 145 Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine.
0596 I am too childish-foolish for this world.
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝
0597 Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,
0598 Thou cacodemon! There thy kingdom is.
RIVERS
0599 My lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
0600 150 Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
0601 We followed then our lord, our sovereign king.
0602 So should we you, if you should be our king.
RICHARD
0603 If I should be? I had rather be a peddler.
0604 Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.
p.
53
QUEEN ELIZABETH 0605 155 As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
0606 You should enjoy were you this country’s king,
0607 As little joy you may suppose in me
0608 That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
QUEEN MARGARET, ⌜aside⌝
0609 ⌜As⌝ little joy enjoys the queen thereof,
0610 160 For I am she, and altogether joyless.
0611 I can no longer hold me patient.
⌜She steps forward.⌝
0612 Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
0613 In sharing that which you have pilled from me!
0614 Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
0615 165 If not, that I am queen, you bow like subjects,
0616 Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels.—
0617 Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away.
RICHARD
0618 Foul, wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my
0619 sight?
QUEEN MARGARET
0620 170 But repetition of what thou hast marred.
0621 That will I make before I let thee go.
RICHARD
0622 Wert thou not banishèd on pain of death?
QUEEN MARGARET
0623 I was, but I do find more pain in banishment
0624 Than death can yield me here by my abode.
0625 175 A husband and a son thou ow’st to me;
0626 ⌜To Queen Elizabeth.⌝ And thou a kingdom;—all
0627 of you, allegiance.
0628 This sorrow that I have by right is yours,
0629 And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
RICHARD
0630 180 The curse my noble father laid on thee
0631 When thou didst crown his warlike brows with
0632 paper,
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55
0633
And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,0634 And then, to dry them, gav’st the Duke a clout
0635 185 Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland—
0636 His curses then, from bitterness of soul
0637 Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,
0638 And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0639 So just is God to right the innocent.
HASTINGS
0640 190 O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
0641 And the most merciless that e’er was heard of!
RIVERS
0642 Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
DORSET
0643 No man but prophesied revenge for it.
BUCKINGHAM
0644 Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
QUEEN MARGARET
0645 195 What, were you snarling all before I came,
0646 Ready to catch each other by the throat,
0647 And turn you all your hatred now on me?
0648 Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with
0649 heaven
0650 200 That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
0651 Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,
0652 Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
0653 Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
0654 Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick
0655 205 curses!
0656 Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
0657 As ours by murder to make him a king.
0658 ⌜To Queen Elizabeth.⌝ Edward thy son, that now is
0659 Prince of Wales,
0660 210 For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
0661 Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
0662 Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
p.
57
0663
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.0664 Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death
0665 215 And see another, as I see thee now,
0666 Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine.
0667 Long die thy happy days before thy death,
0668 And, after many lengthened hours of grief,
0669 Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen.—
0670 220 Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
0671 And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
0672 Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God I pray Him
0673 That none of you may live his natural age,
0674 But by some unlooked accident cut off.
RICHARD
0675 225 Have done thy charm, thou hateful, withered hag.
QUEEN MARGARET
0676 And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear
0677 me.
0678 If heaven have any grievous plague in store
0679 Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
0680 230 O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe
0681 And then hurl down their indignation
0682 On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace.
0683 The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.
0684 Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
0685 235 And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends.
0686 No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
0687 Unless it be while some tormenting dream
0688 Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.
0689 Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,
0690 240 Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
0691 The slave of nature and the son of hell,
0692 Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,
0693 Thou loathèd issue of thy father’s loins,
0694 Thou rag of honor, thou detested—
RICHARD 0695 245 Margaret.
p.
59
QUEEN MARGARET
0696
Richard!RICHARD 0697 Ha?
QUEEN MARGARET 0698 I call thee not.
RICHARD
0699 I cry thee mercy, then, for I did think
0700 250 That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET
0701 Why, so I did, but looked for no reply.
0702 O, let me make the period to my curse!
RICHARD
0703 ’Tis done by me and ends in “Margaret.”
QUEEN ELIZABETH, ⌜to Queen Margaret⌝
0704 Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
QUEEN MARGARET
0705 255 Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,
0706 Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider,
0707 Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
0708 Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
0709 The day will come that thou shalt wish for me
0710 260 To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed
0711 toad.
HASTINGS
0712 False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
0713 Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
QUEEN MARGARET
0714 Foul shame upon you, you have all moved mine.
RIVERS
0715 265 Were you well served, you would be taught your
0716 duty.
QUEEN MARGARET
0717 To serve me well, you all should do me duty:
0718 Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects.
0719 O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
DORSET, ⌜to Rivers⌝
0720 270 Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
p.
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QUEEN MARGARET 0721 Peace, Master Marquess, you are malapert.
0722 Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current.
0723 O, that your young nobility could judge
0724 What ’twere to lose it and be miserable!
0725 275 They that stand high have many blasts to shake
0726 them,
0727 And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
RICHARD
0728 Good counsel, marry.—Learn it, learn it, marquess.
DORSET
0729 It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
RICHARD
0730 280 Ay, and much more; but I was born so high.
0731 Our aerie buildeth in the cedar’s top,
0732 And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.
QUEEN MARGARET
0733 And turns the sun to shade. Alas, alas,
0734 Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
0735 285 Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
0736 Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
0737 Your aerie buildeth in our aerie’s nest.
0738 O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
0739 As it is won with blood, lost be it so.
BUCKINGHAM
0740 290 Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
QUEEN MARGARET
0741 Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
0742 ⌜Addressing the others.⌝ Uncharitably with me have
0743 you dealt,
0744 And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.
0745 295 My charity is outrage, life my shame,
0746 And in that shame still live my sorrows’ rage.
BUCKINGHAM 0747 Have done, have done.
QUEEN MARGARET
0748 O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand
p.
63
0749
In sign of league and amity with thee.0750 300 Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
0751 Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
0752 Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
BUCKINGHAM
0753 Nor no one here, for curses never pass
0754 The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
QUEEN MARGARET
0755 305 I will not think but they ascend the sky,
0756 And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.
0757 ⌜Aside to Buckingham.⌝ O Buckingham, take heed of
0758 yonder dog!
0759 Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
0760 310 His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
0761 Have not to do with him. Beware of him.
0762 Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
0763 And all their ministers attend on him.
RICHARD
0764 What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM
0765 315 Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
QUEEN MARGARET
0766 What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel,
0767 And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
0768 O, but remember this another day,
0769 When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
0770 320 And say poor Margaret was a prophetess.—
0771 Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
0772 And he to yours, and all of you to God’s.She exits.
BUCKINGHAM
0773 My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.
RIVERS
0774 And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.
RICHARD
0775 325 I cannot blame her. By God’s holy mother,
p.
65
0776
She hath had too much wrong, and I repent0777 My part thereof that I have done to her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0778 I never did her any, to my knowledge.
RICHARD
0779 Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
0780 330 I was too hot to do somebody good
0781 That is too cold in thinking of it now.
0782 Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
0783 He is franked up to fatting for his pains.
0784 God pardon them that are the cause thereof.
RIVERS
0785 335 A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion
0786 To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
RICHARD
0787 So do I ever—(speaks to himself) being well advised,
0788 For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
Enter Catesby.
CATESBY
0789 Madam, his Majesty doth call for you,—
0790 340 And for your Grace,—and yours, my gracious
0791 ⟨lords.⟩
QUEEN ELIZABETH
0792 Catesby, I come.—Lords, will you go with me?
RIVERS 0793 We wait upon your Grace.
All but ⌜Richard, Duke of⌝ Gloucester exit.
RICHARD
0794 I do the wrong and first begin to brawl.
0795 345 The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
0796 I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
0797 Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
0798 I do beweep to many simple gulls,
0799 Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham,
0800 350 And tell them ’tis the Queen and her allies
0801 That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
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0802
Now they believe it and withal whet me0803 To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;
0804 But then I sigh and, with a piece of scripture,
0805 355 Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;
0806 And thus I clothe my naked villainy
0807 With odd old ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ,
0808 And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
Enter two Murderers.
0809 But soft, here come my executioners.—
0810 360 How now, my hardy, stout, resolvèd mates?
0811 Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
⌜MURDERER⌝
0812 We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant
0813 That we may be admitted where he is.
RICHARD
0814 Well thought upon. I have it here about me.
⌜He gives a paper.⌝
0815 365 When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
0816 But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
0817 Withal obdurate; do not hear him plead,
0818 For Clarence is well-spoken and perhaps
0819 May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.
⌜MURDERER⌝
0820 370 Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate.
0821 Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
0822 We go to use our hands and not our tongues.
RICHARD
0823 Your eyes drop millstones when fools’ eyes fall
0824 tears.
0825 375 I like you lads. About your business straight.
0826 Go, go, dispatch.
⌜MURDERERS⌝ 0827 We will, my noble lord.
⟨They exit.⟩