Richard III by William Shakespeare (good novels to read txt) 📕
Description
After the bloody battle at Tewksbury and the second dethroning of Henry VI, England and its citizens are finally able to enjoy peace under the reign of Edward IV. The remaining Lancastrian leaders are either killed or scattered to the four winds. Within the kingdom, not everyone is happy with their new king—and when Edward falls ill, his power-hungry brother Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, sees his chance and prepares to kill anyone who stands between him and the throne.
Richard puts into play numerous schemes to eradicate the line of succession and control the court. The first victim is King Edward’s other brother, Clarence. Rumors lead to Clarence’s imprisonment in the Tower of London, and Richard sends two murderers to stab him to death. This causes Edward’s health to worsen, and the title of Protector falls to the remaining brother. Next on Richard’s hit list is Lord Hastings, the loudest voice to object to Richard’s accession, and who is promptly arrested and executed for treason. As Richard orchestrates murder after murder, the deaths start coming back to haunt him.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
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Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet dived into the world’s deceit:
Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show; which, God he knows,
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
Your grace attended to their sugar’d words,
But look’d not on the poison of their hearts:
God keep you from them, and from such false friends!
I thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.
I thought my mother, and my brother York,
Would long ere this have met us on the way:
Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not
To tell us whether they will come or no!
On what occasion, God he knows, not I,
The queen your mother, and your brother York,
Have taken sanctuary: the tender prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.
Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace
Persuade the queen to send the Duke of York
Unto his princely brother presently?
If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,
And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory
Can from his mother win the Duke of York,
Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
We should infringe the holy privilege
Of blessed sanctuary! not for all this land
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.
You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,
Too ceremonious and traditional:
Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,
You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
The benefit thereof is always granted
To those whose dealings have deserved the place,
And those who have the wit to claim the place:
This prince hath neither claim’d it nor deserved it;
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:
Then, taking him from thence that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.
Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;
But sanctuary children ne’er till now.
My lord, you shall o’er-rule my mind for once.
Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?
Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may. Exeunt Cardinal and Hastings.
Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?
Where it seems best unto your royal self.
If I may counsel you, some day or two
Your highness shall repose you at the Tower:
Then where you please, and shall be thought most fit
For your best health and recreation.
I do not like the Tower, of any place.
Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?
He did, my gracious lord, begin that place;
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.
Is it upon record, or else reported
Successively from age to age, he built it?
But say, my lord, it were not register’d,
Methinks the truth should live from age to age,
As ’twere retail’d to all posterity,
Even to the general all-ending day.
I say, without characters, fame lives long.
Aside. Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,
I moralize two meanings in one word.
That Julius Caesar was a famous man;
With what his valour did enrich his wit,
His wit set down to make his valour live:
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
I’ll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham—
An if I live until I be a man,
I’ll win our ancient right in France again,
Or die a soldier, as I lived a king.
Ay, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:
Too late he died that might have kept that title,
Which by his death hath lost much majesty.
I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,
You said that idle weeds are fast in growth:
The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
He may command me as my sovereign;
But you have power in me as in a kinsman.
Of my kind uncle, that I know will give;
And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.
O, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts;
In weightier things you’ll say a beggar nay.
My Lord of York will still be cross in talk:
Uncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.
You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:
Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;
Because that I am little, like an ape,
He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.
With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!
To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,
He
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