The Life and Death of King Richard III by William Shakespeare (books for men to read .TXT) 📕

wish upon thee,
O, 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 be-gnaw 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-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour! thou detested -

GLOSTER.
Margaret.

QUEEN MARGARET.
Richard!

GLOSTER.
Ha!

QUEEN MARGARET.
I call thee not.

GLOSTER.
I cry thee mercy then; for I did think
That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.

QUEEN MARGARET.
Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!

GLOSTER.
'Tis done by me, and ends in - Margaret.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Thus have you breath'd your curse against yourself.

QUEEN 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 whett'st a knife to kill thyself.
The day will come that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.

HASTINGS.
False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

QUEEN MARGARET.
Foul shame upon you! you have all mov'd mine.

RIVERS.
Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your duty.

QUEEN MARGARET.
To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!

DORSET.
Dispute not with her, - she is lunatic.

QUEEN MARGARET.
Peace, master marquis, you are malapert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current:
O, 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.

GLOSTER.
Good counsel, marry: - learn it, learn it, marquis.

DORSET.
It touches you, my lord, as much as me.

GLOSTER.
Ay, and much more: but I was born so high,
Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

QUEEN 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 aery buildeth in our aery's nest: -
O God that seest it, do not suffer it;
As it is won with blood, lost be it so!

BUCKINGHAM.
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.

QUEEN MARGARET.
Urge neither charity nor shame to me:
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame, -
And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!

BUCKINGHAM.
Have done, have done.

QUEEN 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.

BUCKINGHAM.
Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

QUEEN 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.

GLOSTER.
What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?

BUCKINGHAM.
Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

QUEEN MARGARET.
What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
O, 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.]

BUCKINGHAM.
My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.

RIVERS.
And so doth mine: I muse why she's at liberty.

GLOSTER.
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.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.
I never did her any, to my knowledge.

GLOSTER.
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 frank'd 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!

GLOSTER.
So do I ever being well advis'd;
[Aside.] For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.

[Enter CATESBY.]

CATESBY.
Madam, his majesty doth can for you, -
And for your grace, - and you, my noble lords.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Catesby, I come. - Lords, will you go with me?

RIVERS.
We wait upon your grace.

[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.]

GLOSTER.
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, - whom I indeed have cast in darkness, -
I do beweep to many simple gulls;
Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham;
And tell them 'tis the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it; and withal whet me
To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughn, 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 villany
With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil. -
But, soft, here come my executioners.

[Enter two MURDERERS.]

How now, my hardy stout resolved 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.

GLOSTER.
Well thought upon; - I have it here about me:

[Gives the warrant.]

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 assur'd
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.

GLOSTER.
Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall tears:
I like you, lads; - about your business straight;
Go, go, despatch.

FIRST MURDERER.
We will, my noble lord.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower.

[Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.]

BRAKENBURY.
Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?

CLARENCE.
O, I have pass'd 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!

BRAKENBURY.
What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me.

CLARENCE.
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloster;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches: thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloster 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 my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatt'red 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 'twere in scorn of eyes, - reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

BRAKENBURY.
Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

CLARENCE.
Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Stopp'd in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.

BRAKENBURY.
Awak'd you not in this sore agony?

CLARENCE.
No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who spake aloud, "What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanish'd: then came wandering by
A shadow like an Angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shriek'd out aloud
"Clarence is come, - false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence, -
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury; -
Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!"
With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,
I trembling wak'd, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell, -
Such terrible impression made my dream.

BRAKENBURY.
No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

CLARENCE.
Ah, Brakenbury, I have done these things
That now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward's sake; and see how he requites me! -
O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,
But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone, -
O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children! -
Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

BRAKENBURY.
I will, my lord; God give your grace good rest! -

[CLARENCE reposes himself on a chair.]

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning and the noontide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,
They often feel a world of restless cares:
So that, between their tides and low name,
There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

[Enter the two MURDERERS.]

FIRST MURDERER.
Ho! who's here?

BRAKENBURY.
What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st thou