William Shakespeare - King Richard the Third

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, assuredI 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 proceedsFrom 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 lightlyThat 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 abusedBy 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 itselfAgainst my kindred, brothers, and myself,Makes him to send; that thereby he may gatherThe 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 gentlemanThere'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 nobilityHeld in contempt; whilst many fair promotionsAre daily given to ennoble thoseThat 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 majestyAgainst the Duke of Clarence, but have beenAn 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 majestyWith those gross taunts I often have endured.I had rather be a country servant-maidThan 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 saidI 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 husbandIn 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 mineI 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.