RICHARD GLOUCESTER

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.

LADY ANNE

If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,

These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

These eyes could not endure sweet beauty’s wreck.

You should not blemish it if I stood by.

As all the world is cheered by the sun,

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

LADY ANNE

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

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Curse not thyself, fair creature: thou art both.

LADY ANNE

I would I were, to be revenged on thee.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

It is a quarrel most unnatural,

To be revenged on him that loveth you.

LADY ANNE

It is a quarrel just and reasonable,

To be revenged on him that killed my husband.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,

Did it to help thee to a better husband.

LADY ANNE

His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

He lives that loves thee better than he could.

LADY ANNE

Name him.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Plantagenet.

LADY ANNE

Why, that was he.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

The selfsame name, but one of better nature.

LADY ANNE

Where is he?

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Here.

She spits at him

Why dost thou spit at me?

LADY ANNE

Would it were mortal poison for thy sake.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Never came poison from so sweet a place.

LADY ANNE

Never hung poison on a fouler toad.

Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

LADY ANNE

Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

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,

Shamed their aspects with store of childish drops.

I never sued to friend nor enemy;

My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;

But now thy beauty is proposed 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,

⌈He kneels and offers her his sword⌉

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.

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

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

But ‘twas thy beauty that provoked me.

Nay, now dispatch: ’twas I that stabbed young

Edward;

But ’was thy heavenly face that set me on.

She drops the sword

Take up the sword again, or take up me.

LADY ANNE

Arise, dissembler.

⌈He rises⌉

Though I wish thy death,

I will not be thy executioner.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

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

LADY ANNE

I have already.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER 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.

LADY ANNE I would I knew thy heart.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER ’Tis figured in my tongue.

LADY ANNE I fear me both are false.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Then never man was true.

LADY ANNE Well, well, put up your sword.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Say then my peace is made. 185

LADY ANNE That shalt thou know hereafter.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER But shall I live in hope?

LADY ANNE All men, I hope, live so.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Vouchsafe to wear this ring.

LADY ANNE To take is not to give.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger;

Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.

Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.

And if thy poor devoted servant may

But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,

Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.

LADY ANNE What is it?

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

That it may please you leave these sad designs

To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,

And presently repair to Crosby House,

Where—after I have solemnly interred

At Chertsey monast’ry this noble king,

And wet his grave with my repentant tears—

I will with all expedient duty see you.

For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you

Grant me this boon.

LADY ANNE

With all my heart—and much it joys me, too,

To see you are become so penitent.

Tressell and Berkeley, go along with me.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Bid me farewell.

LADY ANNE ’Tis more than you deserve.

But since you teach me how to flatter you,

Imagine I have said farewell already.

Exeunt two with Anne

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Sirs, take up the corpse.

GENTLEMAN Towards Chertsey, noble lord?

RICHARD GLOUCESTER.

No, to Blackfriars; there attend my coming.

Exeunt with corpse all but Gloucester

Was ever woman in this humour wooed?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long.

What, I that killed her husband and his father,

To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,

With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of my hatred by,

Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,

And I no friends to back my suit withal

But the plain devil and dissembling looks—