KING RICHARD III. William Shakespeare

Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:”

       And even here brake off and came away.

       GLOSTER

       What, tongueless blocks were they! would they not speak?

       Will not the mayor, then, and his brethren, come?

       BUCKINGHAM

       The mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;

       Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit:

       And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,

       And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;

       For on that ground I’ll make a holy descant:

       And be not easily won to our requests;

       Play the maid’s part,—still answer nay, and take it.

       GLOSTER

       I go; and if you plead as well for them

       As I can say nay to thee for myself,

       No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.

       BUCKINGHAM

       Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.

       [Exit GLOSTER.]

       [Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and Citizens.]

       Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;

       I think the duke will not be spoke withal.

       [Enter, from the Castle, CATESBY.]

       Now, Catesby,—what says your lord to my request?

       CATESBY

       He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord,

       To visit him tomorrow or next day:

       He is within, with two right reverend fathers,

       Divinely bent to meditation:

       And in no worldly suit would he be mov’d,

       To draw him from his holy exercise.

       BUCKINGHAM

       Return, good Catesby, to the gracious duke;

       Tell him, myself, the mayor and aldermen,

       In deep designs, in matter of great moment,

       No less importing than our general good,

       Are come to have some conference with his grace.

       CATESBY

       I’ll signify so much unto him straight.

       [Exit.]

       BUCKINGHAM

       Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!

       He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,

       But on his knees at meditation;

       Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,

       But meditating with two deep divines;

       Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,

       But praying, to enrich his watchful soul:

       Happy were England would this virtuous prince

       Take on his grace the sovereignty thereof:

       But, sure, I fear, we shall not win him to it.

       MAYOR

       Marry, God defend his grace should say us nay!

       BUCKINGHAM

       I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.

       [Re-enter CATESBY.]

       Now, Catesby, what says his grace?

       CATESBY

       He wonders to what end you have assembled

       Such troops of citizens to come to him:

       His grace not being warn’d thereof before,

       He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.

       BUCKINGHAM

       Sorry I am my noble cousin should

       Suspect me, that I mean no good to him:

       By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;

       And so once more return and tell his grace.

       [Exit CATESBY.]

       When holy and devout religious men

       Are at their beads, ‘tis much to draw them thence,—

       So sweet is zealous contemplation.

       [Enter GLOSTER in a Galery above, between two BISHOPS. CATESBY returns.]

       MAYOR

       See where his grace stands ‘tween two clergymen!

       BUCKINGHAM

       Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,

       To stay him from the fall of vanity:

       And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,—

       True ornaments to know a holy man.—

       Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,

       Lend favourable ear to our requests;

       And pardon us the interruption

       Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.

       GLOSTER

       My lord, there needs no such apology:

       I rather do beseech you pardon me,

       Who, earnest in the service of my God,

       Deferr’d the visitation of my friends.

       But, leaving this, what is your grace’s pleasure?

       BUCKINGHAM

       Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,

       And all good men of this ungovern’d isle.

       GLOSTER

       I do suspect I have done some offence

       That seems disgracious in the city’s eye;

       And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.

       BUCKINGHAM

       You have, my lord: would it might please your grace,

       On our entreaties, to amend your fault!

       GLOSTER

       Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?

       BUCKINGHAM

       Know then, it is your fault that you resign

       The supreme seat, the throne majestical,

       The scepter’d office of your ancestors,

       Your state of fortune and your due of birth,

       The lineal glory of your royal house,

       To the corruption of a blemish’d stock:

       Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,—

       Which here we waken to our country’s good,—

       The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;

       Her face defac’d with scars of infamy,

       Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,

       And almost shoulder’d in the swallowing gulf

       Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.

       Which to recure, we heartily solicit

       Your gracious self to take on you the charge

       And kingly government of this your land;—

       Not as protector, steward, substitute,

       Or lowly factor for another’s gain;

       But as successively, from blood to blood,

       Your right of birth, your empery, your own.

       For this, consorted with