Elizabeth
So just is God, to right the innocent.
Hastings
O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.
Rivers
Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
Dorset
No man but prophesied revenge for it.
Buckingham
Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
Margaret
What? Were you snarling all before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven
That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,
Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven?
Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses.
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
As ours by murder to make him a king.
Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death
And see another, as I see thee now,
Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine.
Long die thy happy days before thy death,
And after many lengthened hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen.
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God I pray him,
That none of you may live his natural age,
But by some unlooked accident cut off.
Richard
Have done thy charm, thou hateful, withered hag.
Margaret
And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
Oh, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee the troubler of the poor world’s peace.
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends.
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.
Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,
Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell.
Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,
Thou loathèd issue of thy father’s loins,
Thou rag of honour, thou detested —
Richard
Margaret.
Margaret
Richard.
Richard
Ha?
Margaret
I call thee not.
Richard
I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.
Margaret
Why so I did, but looked for no reply.
Oh, let me make the period to my curse.
Richard
ʼTis done by me, and ends in ʼMargaret’.
Elizabeth
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
Margaret
Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,
Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-backed toad.
Hastings
False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
Margaret
Foul shame upon you. You have all moved mine.
Rivers
Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
Margaret
To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects;
Oh, serve me well and teach yourselves that duty.
Dorset
Dispute not with her. She is lunatic.
Margaret
Peace, master marquess, you are malapert.
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
Oh, that your young nobility could judge
What ’twere to lose it and be miserable.
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
Richard
Good counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, marquess.
Dorset
It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.
Richard
Ay, and much more. But I was born so high.
Our aerie buildeth in the cedar’s top,
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.
Margaret
And turns the sun to shade, alas, alas.
Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aerie buildeth in our aerie’s nest.
O God that seest it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so.
Buckingham
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Margaret
Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,
And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.
Buckingham
Have done, have done.
Margaret
O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand
In sign of league and amity with thee.
Now fair befall thee and thy noble house.
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.