The curse my noble father laid on thee—

When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,

And with thy scorns drew‘st rivers from his eyes,

And then, to dry them, gav’st the duke a clout

Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland—

His curses then, from bitterness of soul

Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,

And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.

QUEEN ELIZABETH (to Margaret)

So just is God to right the innocent.

LORD HASTINGS (to Margaret)

O ‘twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,

And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.

RIVERS (to Margaret)

Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.

DORSET (to Margaret)

No man but prophesied revenge for it.

BUCKINGHAM (to Margaret)

Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.

QUEEN MARGARET

What? Were you snarling all before I came,

Ready to catch each other by the throat,

And turn you all your hatred now on me?

Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven

That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,

Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,

Should all but answer for that peevish brat?

Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?

Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!

Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,

As ours by murder to make him a king.

(To Elizabeth) Edward thy son, that now is Prince of

Wales,

For Edward my son, that was Prince of Wales,

Die in his youth by like untimely violence.

Thyself, a queen, for me that was a queen,

Outlive thy glory like my wretched self.

Long mayst thou live—to wail thy children’s death,

And see another, as I see thee now,

Decked in thy rights, as thou art ’stalled in mine.

Long die thy happy days before thy death,

And after many lengthened hours of grief

Die, neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen.—

Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,

And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son

Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God I pray him,

That none of you may live his natural age,

But by some unlooked accident cut off.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Have done thy charm, thou hateful, withered hag.

QUEEN MARGARET

And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.

If heaven have any grievous plague in store

Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,

O let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,

And then hurl down their indignation

On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace.

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.

Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,

And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends.

No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,

Unless it be while some tormenting dream

Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.

Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,

Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity

The slave of nature and the son of hell,

Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,

Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins,

Thou rag of honour, thou detested—

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Margaret.

QUEEN MARGARET

Richard.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER Ha?

QUEEN MARGARET I call thee not.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

I cry thee mercy then, for I did think

That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.

QUEEN MARGARET

Why so I did, but looked for no reply.

O let me make the period to my curse.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

‘Tis done by me, and ends in ‘Margaret’.

QUEEN ELIZABETH (to Margaret)

Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.

QUEEN MARGARET

Poor painted Queen, vain flourish of my fortune,

Why strew‘st thou sugar on that bottled spider

Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.

The day will come that thou shalt wish for me

To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.

LORD HASTINGS

False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,

Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

QUEEN MARGARET

Foul shame upon you, you have all moved mine.

RIVERS

Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.

QUEEN MARGARET

To serve me well you all should do me duty.

Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:

O serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty.

DORSET

Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.

QUEEN MARGARET

Peace, master Marquis, you are malapert.

Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.

O that your young nobility could judge

What ‘twere to lose it and be miserable.

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,

And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Good counsel, marry!—Learn it, learn it, Marquis.

DORSET

It touches you, my lord, as much as me.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Ay, and much more; but I was born so high.

Our eyrie buildeth in the cedar’s top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

QUEEN MARGARET

And turns the sun to shade. Alas, alas!

Witness my son, now in the shade of death,

Whose bright outshining beams thy cloudy wrath

Hath in eternal darkness folded up.