Your eyrie buildeth in our eyrie’s nest.—

O God that seest it, do not suffer it;

As it was won with blood, lost be it so.

⌈RICHARD GLOUCESTER⌉

Peace, peace! For shame, if not for charity.

QUEEN MARGARET

Urge neither charity nor shame to me.

Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.

My charity is outrage; life, my shame;

And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.

BUCKINGHAM Have done, have done.

QUEEN MARGARET

O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand

In sign of league and amity with thee.

Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!

Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,

Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

BUCKINGHAM

Nor no one here, for curses never pass

The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

QUEEN MARGARET

I will not think but they ascend the sky

And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.

O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog.

She points at Richard

Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,

His venom tooth will rankle to the death.

Have naught to do with him; beware of him;

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,

And all their ministers attend on him.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?

BUCKINGHAM

Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

QUEEN MARGARET

What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel,

And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?

O but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,

And say, ‘Poor Margaret was a prophetess’.—

Live each of you the subjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God’s. Exit

⌈LORD HASTINGS⌉

My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

RIVERS

And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

I cannot blame her, by God’s holy mother.

She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof that I have done to her.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

I never did her any, to my knowledge.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.

I was too hot to do somebody good,

That is too cold in thinking of it now.

Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid:

He is franked up to fatting for his pains.

God pardon them that are the cause thereof.

RIVERS

A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,

To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

So do I ever—(speaks to himself) being well advised:

For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

Enter Sir William Catesby

CATESBY

Madam, his majesty doth call for you,

And for your grace, and you my gracious lords.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Catesby, I come.—Lords, will you go with me?

RIVERS We wait upon your grace. Exeunt all but Richard

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs that I set abroach

I lay unto the grievous charge of others.

Clarence, whom I indeed have cast in darkness,

I do beweep to many simple gulls—

Namely to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham—

And tell them, “Tis the Queen and her allies

That stir the King against the Duke my brother’.

Now they believe it, and withal whet me

To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Gray;

But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture

Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends, stol’n forth of Holy Writ,

And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

Enter two Murderers

But soft, here come my executioners.—

How now, my hardy, stout, resolvèd mates!

Are you now going to dispatch this thing?

A MURDERER

We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant,

That we may be admitted where he is.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Well thought upon; I have it here about me.

He gives them the warrant

When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.

But sirs, be sudden in the execution,

Withal obdurate; do not hear him plead,

For Clarence is well spoken, and perhaps

May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.

A MURDERER

Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate.

Talkers are no good doers. Be assured,

We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Your eyes drop millstones when fools’ eyes fall tears.

I like you, lads. About your business straight.

Go, go, dispatch.

⌈MURDERERS⌉ We will, my noble lord.

Exeunt Richard at one door, the Murderers at another

1.4 Enter George Duke of Clarence and ⌈Sir Robert Brackenbury⌉

⌈BRACKENBURY⌉

Why looks your grace so heavily today?

CLARENCE

O I have passed a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,

That as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night

Though ‘twere to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal terror was the time.

⌈BRACKENBURY⌉

What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.

CLARENCE

Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,

And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,

And in my company my brother Gloucester,

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; there we looked toward England,