William Shakespeare - KING RICHARD III

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,

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,—

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;—

The royal 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,—

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.

You say that Edward is your brother’s son:

So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife;

For first was he contráct to Lady Lucy,—

Your mother lives a witness to his vow,—

And afterward by substitute betroth’d

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 distressèd widow,

Even in the afternoon of her best days,

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.

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;

If not to bless us and the land withal,

Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry

From the corruption of abusing time

Unto a lineal true-derivèd course.

MAYOR

Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.

BUCKINGHAM

Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.

CATESBY

O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!

GLOSTER

Alas, why would you heap those cares on me?

I am unfit for state and majesty:—

I do beseech you, take it not amiss:

I cannot nor I will not yield to you.

BUCKINGHAM

If you refuse it,—as, in love and zeal,

Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son—

As well we know your tenderness of heart

And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,

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,

To the disgrace and downfall of your house:

And in this resolution here we leave you.—

Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, the MAYOR and citizens retiring.]

CATESBY

Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit:

If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

GLOSTER

Will you enforce me to a world of cares?

Call them again.

[CATESBY goes to the MAYOR, &c., and then exit.]

I am not made of stone,

But penetrable to your kind entreaties,

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

[Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and CATESBY, MAYOR, &c., coming forward.]

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

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.

MAYOR

God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.

GLOSTER

In saying so, you shall but say the truth.

BUCKINGHAM

Then I salute you with this royal title,—

Long live King Richard, England’s worthy king!

ALL

Amen.

BUCKINGHAM

Tomorrow may it please you to be crown’d?

GLOSTER

Even when you please, for you will have it so.

BUCKINGHAM

Tomorrow, then, we will attend your grace:

And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.

GLOSTER

[To the BISHOPS.]

Come, let us to our holy work again.—

Farewell, my cousin;—farewell, gentle friends.

[Exeunt.]

Table of Contents

[Enter, on one side, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET; on the other, ANNE DUCHESS of GLOSTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET, CLARENCE’s young daughter.]

DUCHESS

Who meets us here?—my niece Plantagenet,

Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster?

Now, for my life, she’s wandering to the Tower,

On pure heart’s love, to greet the tender princes.—

Daughter, well met.

ANNE

God give your graces both

A happy and a joyful time of day!

QUEEN ELIZABETH

As much to you, good sister! Whither away?

ANNE

No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,

Upon the like devotion as yourselves,

To gratulate the gentle princes there.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Kind sister, thanks; we’ll enter all together:—

And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.

[Enter BRAKENBURY.]

Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,

How doth the prince, and my young son of York?

BRAKENBURY

Right well, dear madam. By your patience,

I may not suffer you to visit them.

The king hath strictly charg’d the contrary.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

The king! who’s that?

BRAKENBURY

I mean the lord protector.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

The Lord protect him from that kingly title!

Hath he set bounds between their love and me?

I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?

DUCHESS

I am their father’s mother; I will see them.

ANNE

Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother:

Then bring me to their sights; I’ll bear thy blame,

And take thy office from thee on my peril.

BRAKENBURY

No, madam, no,—I may not leave it so:

I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.

[Exit.]

[Enter STANLEY.]

STANLEY

Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,

And I’ll salute your grace of York as mother

And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.—

[To the DUCHESS OF GLOSTER.]

Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,

There to be crownèd Richard’s royal queen.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, cut my lace asunder,

That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,

Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!

ANNE

Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!

DORSET

Be of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee gone!

Death and destruction dog thee at thy heels;

Thy mother’s name is ominous to children.

If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,

And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell:

Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughterhouse,

Lest thou increase the number of the dead;

And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curse,

Nor mother, wife, nor England’s counted queen.