Richard III by William Shakespeare (good novels to read txt) 📕

loves me well. Hastings I thank your grace. Gloucester My lord of Ely! Ely My lord? Gloucester

When I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
I do beseech you send for some of them.

Ely Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart. Exit. Gloucester

Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you. Drawing him aside.
Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,
And finds the testy gentleman so hot,
As he will lose his head ere give consent
His master’s son, as worshipful as he terms it,
Shall lose the royalty of England’s throne.

Buckingham Withdraw you hence, my lord, I’ll follow you. Exit Gloucester, Buckingham following. Derby

We have not yet set down this day of triumph.
To-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;
For I myself am not so well provided
As else I would be, were the day prolong’d.

Re-enter Bishop of Ely. Ely Where is my lord protector? I have sent for these strawberries. Hastings

His grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;
There’s some conceit or other likes him well,
When he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.
I think there’s never a man in Christendom
That can less hide his love or hate than he;
For by his face straight shall you know his heart.

Derby

What of his heart perceive you in his face
By any likelihood he show’d to-day?

Hastings

Marry, that with no man here he is offended;
For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

Derby I pray God he be not, I say. Re-enter Gloucester and Buckingham. Gloucester

I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
That do conspire my death with devilish plots
Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail’d
Upon my body with their hellish charms?

Hastings

The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,
Makes me most forward in this noble presence
To doom the offenders, whatsoever they be:
I say, my lord, they have deserved death.

Gloucester

Then be your eyes the witness of this ill:
See how I am bewitch’d; behold mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither’d up:
And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.

Hastings If they have done this thing, my gracious lord⁠— Gloucester

If! thou protector of this damned strumpet,
Tellest thou me of “ifs”? Thou art a traitor:
Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,
I will not dine until I see the same.
Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:
The rest, that love me, rise and follow me. Exeunt all but Hastings, Ratcliff, and Lovel.

Hastings

Woe, woe for England! not a whit for me;
For I, too fond, might have prevented this.
Stanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;
But I disdain’d it, and did scorn to fly:
Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,
And startled, when he look’d upon the Tower,
As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.
O, now I want the priest that spake to me:
I now repent I told the pursuivant,
As ’twere triumphing at mine enemies,
How they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher’d,
And I myself secure in grace and favour.
O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse
Is lighted on poor Hastings’ wretched head!

Ratcliff

Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:
Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.

Hastings

O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hopes in air of your good looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

Lovel Come, come, dispatch; ’tis bootless to exclaim. Hastings

O bloody Richard! miserable England!
I prophesy the fearfull’st time to thee
That ever wretched age hath look’d upon.
Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head:
They smile at me that shortly shall be dead. Exeunt.

Scene V

The Tower-walls.

Enter Gloucester and Buckingham, in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured. Gloucester

Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,
Murder thy breath in the middle of a word,
And then begin again, and stop again,
As if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?

Buckingham

Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;
Speak and look back, and pry on every side,
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion: ghastly looks
Are at my service, like enforced smiles;
And both are ready in their offices,
At any time, to grace my stratagems.
But what, is Catesby gone?

Gloucester He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along. Enter the Mayor and Catesby. Buckingham Lord mayor⁠— Gloucester Look to the drawbridge there! Buckingham Hark! a drum. Gloucester Catesby, o’erlook the walls. Buckingham Lord mayor, the reason we have sent⁠— Gloucester Look back, defend thee, here are enemies. Buckingham God and our innocency defend and guard us! Gloucester Be patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel. Enter Lovel and Ratcliff, with Hastings’ head. Lovel

Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.

Gloucester

So dear I loved the man, that I must weep.
I took him for the plainest harmless creature
That breathed upon this earth a Christian;
Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts:
So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue,
That, his apparent open guilt omitted,
I mean, his conversation with Shore’s wife,
He lived from all attainder of suspect.

Buckingham

Well, well, he was the covert’st shelter’d traitor
That ever lived.
Would you imagine, or almost believe,
Were’t not that, by great preservation,
We live to tell it you, the subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council-house
To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?

Mayor What, had he so? Gloucester

What, think you we are Turks or infidels?
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly to the villain’s death,
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England and our persons’ safety,
Enforced us to this execution?

Mayor

Now, fair befall you! he deserved his death;
And you my good lords, both have well proceeded,
To warn false traitors from the like attempts.
I never look’d for better at his hands,
After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.

Gloucester

Yet had