Buckingham
Nor no one here, for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
Margaret
I will not think but they ascend the sky
And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog.
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
Have not to do with him; beware of him.
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.
Richard
What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buckingham
Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Margaret
What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
Oh, but remember this another day,
When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
And say poor Margaret was a prophetess.
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God’s.
Exit.
Hastings
My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
Rivers
And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.
Richard
I cannot blame her, by God’s holy mother,
She hath had too much wrong, and I repent
My part thereof that I have done to her.
Elizabeth
I never did her any to my knowledge.
Richard
Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do somebody good
That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
He is franked up to fatting for his pains.
God pardon them that are the cause thereof.
Rivers
A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
Richard
So do I ever, being well-advised.
(Speaks to himself.) For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
Enter Catesby.
Catesby
Madam, his majesty doth call for you,
And for your grace, and you, my gracious lord.
Queen Elizabeth
Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?
Rivers
We wait upon your grace.
Exeunt all but Glouceter.
Richard
I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls,
Namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham,
And tell them ʼtis the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it, and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stolen out of holy writ.
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Enter two Murderers.
But, soft, here come my executioners —
How now, my hardy, stout, resolvèd mates,
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
First Murderer
We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant
That we may be admitted where he is.
Richard
Well thought upon, I have it here about me.
When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate. Do not hear him plead,
For Clarence is well spoken and perhaps
May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.
First Murderer
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.
Richard
Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes fall tears.
I like you, lads. About your business straight.
Go, go, dispatch.
Murderers
We will, my noble lord.
Exeunt.
Scene 4
Enter Clarence and Keeper.
Keeper
Why looks your grace so heavily today?
Clarence
Oh, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time.
Keeper
What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.
Clarence
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,
And, in my company my brother Gloucester,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. There we looked toward England
And cited up a thousand heavy times
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown,
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears,
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As ʼtwere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.