KING RICHARD III. William Shakespeare

and loving friends,

       And, by their vehement instigation,

       In this just cause come I to move your grace.

       GLOSTER

       I cannot tell if to depart in silence

       Or bitterly to speak in your reproof

       Best fitteth my degree or your condition:

       If not to answer, you might haply think

       Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded

       To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,

       Which fondly you would here impose on me;

       If to reprove you for this suit of yours,

       So season’d with your faithful love to me,

       Then, on the other side, I check’d my friends.

       Therefore,—to speak, and to avoid the first,

       And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,—

       Definitively thus I answer you.

       Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert

       Unmeritable shuns your high request.

       First, if all obstacles were cut away,

       And that my path were even to the crown,

       As the ripe revenue and due of birth,

       Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,

       So mighty and so many my defects,

       That I would rather hide me from my greatness,—

       Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,—

       Than in my greatness covet to be hid,

       And in the vapour of my glory smother’d.

       But, God be thank’d, there is no need of me,—

       And much I need to help you, were there need;—

       The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,

       Which, mellow’d by the stealing hours of time,

       Will well become the seat of majesty,

       And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.

       On him I lay that you would lay on me,—

       The right and fortune of his happy stars;

       Which God defend that I should wring from him!

       BUCKINGHAM

       My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;

       But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,

       All circumstances well considered.

       You say that Edward is your brother’s son:

       So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife;

       For first was he contráct to Lady Lucy,—

       Your mother lives a witness to his vow,—

       And afterward by substitute betroth’d

       To Bona, sister to the King of France.

       These both put off, a poor petitioner,

       A care-craz’d mother to a many sons,

       A beauty-waning and distressèd widow,

       Even in the afternoon of her best days,

       Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,

       Seduc’d the pitch and height of his degree

       To base declension and loath’d bigamy:

       By her, in his unlawful bed, he got

       This Edward, whom our manners call the prince.

       More bitterly could I expostulate,

       Save that, for reverence to some alive,

       I give a sparing limit to my tongue.

       Then, good my lord, take to your royal self

       This proffer’d benefit of dignity;

       If not to bless us and the land withal,

       Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry

       From the corruption of abusing time

       Unto a lineal true-derivèd course.

       MAYOR

       Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.

       BUCKINGHAM

       Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.

       CATESBY

       O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!

       GLOSTER

       Alas, why would you heap those cares on me?

       I am unfit for state and majesty:—

       I do beseech you, take it not amiss:

       I cannot nor I will not yield to you.

       BUCKINGHAM

       If you refuse it,—as, in love and zeal,

       Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son—

       As well we know your tenderness of heart

       And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,

       Which we have noted in you to your kindred,

       And equally, indeed, to all estates,—

       Yet know, whe’er you accept our suit or no,

       Your brother’s son shall never reign our king;

       But we will plant some other in the throne,

       To the disgrace and downfall of your house:

       And in this resolution here we leave you.—

       Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

       [Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, the MAYOR and citizens retiring.]

       CATESBY

       Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit:

       If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

       GLOSTER

       Will you enforce me to a world of cares?

       Call them again.

       [CATESBY goes to the MAYOR, &c., and then exit.]

       I am not made of stone,

       But penetrable to your kind entreaties,

       Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

       [Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and CATESBY, MAYOR, &c., coming forward.]

       Cousin of Buckingham,—and sage grave men,

       Since you will buckle fortune on my back,

       To bear her burden, whe’er I will or no,

       I must have patience to endure the load:

       But if black scandal or foul-fac’d reproach

       Attend the sequel of your imposition,

       Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me

       From all the impure blots and stains thereof;

       For God doth know, and you may partly see,

       How far I am from the desire of this.

       MAYOR

       God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.

       GLOSTER

       In saying so, you shall but say the truth.

       BUCKINGHAM

       Then I salute you with this royal title,—

       Long live King Richard, England’s worthy king!

       ALL

       Amen.

       BUCKINGHAM

       Tomorrow may it please you to be crown’d?