KING RICHARD III. William Shakespeare

And fall something into a slower method,—

       Is not the causer of the timeless deaths

       Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,

       As blameful as the executioner?

       ANNE

       Thou wast the cause and most accurs’d effect.

       GLOSTER

       Your beauty was the cause of that effect;

       Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep

       To undertake the death of all the world,

       So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

       ANNE

       If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,

       These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

       GLOSTER

       These eyes could not endure that beauty’s wreck;

       You should not blemish it if I stood by:

       As all the world is cheerèd by the sun,

       So I by that; it is my day, my life.

       ANNE

       Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life!

       GLOSTER

       Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.

       ANNE

       I would I were, to be reveng’d on thee.

       GLOSTER

       It is a quarrel most unnatural,

       To be reveng’d on him that loveth thee.

       ANNE

       It is a quarrel just and reasonable,

       To be reveng’d on him that kill’d my husband.

       GLOSTER

       He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,

       Did it to help thee to a better husband.

       ANNE

       His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

       GLOSTER

       He lives that loves thee better than he could.

       ANNE

       Name him.

       GLOSTER

       Plantagenet.

       ANNE

       Why, that was he.

       GLOSTER

       The selfsame name, but one of better nature.

       ANNE

       Where is he?

       GLOSTER

       Here.

       [She spits at him.]

       Why dost thou spit at me?

       ANNE

       Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!

       GLOSTER

       Never came poison from so sweet a place.

       ANNE

       Never hung poison on a fouler toad.

       Out of my sight! thou dost infect mine eyes.

       GLOSTER

       Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

       ANNE

       Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!

       GLOSTER

       I would they were, that I might die at once;

       For now they kill me with a living death.

       Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

       Sham’d their aspects with store of childish drops:

       These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,

       No, when my father York and Edward wept,

       To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made

       When black-fac’d Clifford shook his sword at him;

       Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,

       Told the sad story of my father’s death,

       And twenty times made pause, to sob and weep,

       That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,

       Like trees bedash’d with rain; in that sad time

       My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;

       And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,

       Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

       I never su’d to friend nor enemy;

       My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;

       But, now thy beauty is propos’d my fee,

       My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

       [She looks scornfully at him.]

       Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made

       For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

       If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,

       Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;

       Which if thou please to hide in this true breast

       And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,

       I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,

       And humbly beg the death upon my knee,

       Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,—

       [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword.]

       But ‘twas thy beauty that provokèd me.

       Nay, now dispatch; ‘twas I that stabb’d young Edward,—

       [She again offers at his breast.]

       But ‘twas thy heavenly face that set me on.

       [She lets fall the sword.]

       Take up the sword again, or take up me.

       ANNE

       Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,

       I will not be thy executioner.

       GLOSTER

       Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

       ANNE

       I have already.

       GLOSTER

       That was in thy rage:

       Speak it again, and even with the word,

       This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love;

       Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;

       To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.

       ANNE

       I would I knew thy heart.

       GLOSTER

       ‘Tis figured in my tongue.

       ANNE

       I fear me both are false.

       GLOSTER

       Then never was man true.

       ANNE

       Well, well, put up your sword.

       GLOSTER

       Say, then, my peace is made.

       ANNE

       That shalt thou know hereafter.

       GLOSTER

       But shall I live in hope?

       ANNE

       All men, I hope, live so.