KING RICHARD III. William Shakespeare

Rail on the Lord’s anointed: strike, I say!

       [Flourish. Alarums.]

       Either be patient and entreat me fair,

       Or with the clamorous report of war

       Thus will I drown your exclamations.

       DUCHESS

       Art thou my son?

       KING RICHARD

       Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.

       DUCHESS

       Then patiently hear my impatience.

       KING RICHARD

       Madam, I have a touch of your condition

       That cannot brook the accent of reproof.

       DUCHESS

       O, let me speak!

       KING RICHARD

       Do, then; but I’ll not hear.

       DUCHESS

       I will be mild and gentle in my words.

       KING RICHARD

       And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.

       DUCHESS

       Art thou so hasty? I have stay’d for thee,

       God knows, in torment and in agony.

       KING RICHARD

       And came I not at last to comfort you?

       DUCHESS

       No, by the holy rood, thou know’st it well

       Thou cam’st on earth to make the earth my hell.

       A grievous burden was thy birth to me;

       Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

       Thy schooldays frightful, desperate, wild, and furious;

       Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;

       Thy age confirm’d, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,

       More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:

       What comfortable hour canst thou name

       That ever grac’d me with thy company?

       KING RICHARD

       Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call’d your grace

       To breakfast once forth of my company.

       If I be so disgracious in your eye,

       Let me march on and not offend you, madam.—

       Strike up the drum.

       DUCHESS

       I pr’ythee hear me speak.

       KING RICHARD

       You speak too bitterly.

       DUCHESS

       Hear me a word;

       For I shall never speak to thee again.

       KING RICHARD

       So.

       DUCHESS

       Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance

       Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;

       Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish

       And never more behold thy face again.

       Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse;

       Which in the day of battle tire thee more

       Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st!

       My prayers on the adverse party fight;

       And there the little souls of Edward’s children

       Whisper the spirits of thine enemies,

       And promise them success and victory.

       Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end:

       Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.

       [Exit.]

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse

       Abides in me; I say amen to her.

       [Going.]

       KING RICHARD

       Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       I have no more sons of the royal blood

       For thee to slaughter: for my daughters, Richard,—

       They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;

       And therefore level not to hit their lives.

       KING RICHARD

       You have a daughter call’d Elizabeth.

       Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       And must she die for this? O, let her live,

       And I’ll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty:

       Slander myself as false to Edward’s bed;

       Throw over her the veil of infamy:

       So she may live unscarr’d of bleeding slaughter,

       I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

       KING RICHARD

       Wrong not her birth; she is of royal blood.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       To save her life I’ll say she is not so.

       KING RICHARD

       Her life is safest only in her birth.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       And only in that safety died her brothers.

       KING RICHARD

       Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       No, to their lives bad friends were contrary.

       KING RICHARD

       All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       True, when avoided grace makes destiny:

       My babes were destined to a fairer death,

       If grace had bless’d thee with a fairer life.

       KING RICHARD

       You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

       QUEEN ELIZABETH

       Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen’d

       Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.

       Whose hand soever lanc’d their tender hearts,

       Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction:

       No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt

       Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,

       To revel in the entrails of my lambs.

       But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,

       My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys

       Till that my nails were anchor’d in thine eyes;

       And I, in such a desperate bay of death,

       Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,

       Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.

       KING RICHARD

       Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise

       And dangerous success of bloody wars,

       As I intend more good to you and yours

       Than ever you or yours by me were harm’d!