To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer—

Enter Sir Richard Ratcliffe, ⌈running⌉

RATCLIFFE My lord.

KING RICHARD

Good news or bad, that thou com’st in so bluntly?

RATCLIFFE

Bad news, my lord. Ely is fled to Richmond,

And Buckingham, backed with the hardy Welshmen,

Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.

KING RICHARD

Ely with Richmond troubles me more near

Than Buckingham. and his rash-levied strength.

Come, I have learned that fearful commenting

Is leaden servitor to dull delay.

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.

Then fiery expedition be my wing:

Jove’s Mercury, an herald for a king.

Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.

We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.

Exeunt

4.4 Enter old Queen Margaret

QUEEN MARGARET

So now prosperity begins to mellow

And drop into the rotten mouth of death.

Here in these confines slyly have I lurked

To watch the waning of mine enemies.

A dire induction am I witness to,

And will to France, hoping the consequence

Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.

⌈Enter the old Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth⌉

Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, my poor princes! Ah, my tender babes!

My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,

And be not fixed in doom perpetual,

Hover about me with your airy wings

And hear your mother’s lamentation.

QUEEN MARGARET (aside)

Hover about her, say that right for right

Hath dimmed your infant morn to aged night.

DUCHESS OF YORK

So many miseries have crazed my voice

That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.

Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?

QUEEN MARGARET (aside)

Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet;

Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs

And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?

When didst thou sleep, when such a deed was done?

QUEEN MARGARET (aside)

When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,

Woe’s scene, world’s shame, grave’s due by life

usurped,

Brief abstract and record of tedious days,

Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth,

Unlawfully made drunk with innocents’ blood.

They sit

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah that thou wouldst as soon afford a grave

As thou canst yield a melancholy seat.

Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.

Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?

QUEEN MARGARET (coming forward)

If ancient sorrow be most reverend,

Give mine the benefit of seniory,

And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.

If sorrow can admit society,

Tell o’er your woes again by viewing mine.

I had an Edward, till a Richard killed him;

I had a husband, till a Richard killed him.

(To Elizabeth) Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him;

Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him.

DUCHESS OF YORK rising

I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;

I had a Rutland too, thou holpst to kill him.

QUEEN MARGARET

Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard killed him.

From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept

A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:

That dog that had his teeth before his eyes,

To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood;

That foul defacer of God’s handiwork,

That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls;

That excellent grand tyrant of the earth

Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.

O upright, just, and true-disposing God,

How do I thank thee that this charnel cur

Preys on the issue of his mother’s body,

And makes her pewfellow with others’ moan.

DUCHESS OF YORK

O Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes.

God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

QUEEN MARGARET

Bear with me. I am hungry for revenge,

And now I cloy me with beholding it.

Thy Edward, he is dead, that killed my Edward;

Thy other Edward dead, to quite my Edward;

Young York, he is but boot, because both they

Matched not the high perfection of my loss;

Thy Clarence, he is dead, that stabbed my Edward,

And the beholders of this frantic plays—

Th’adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Gray—

Untimely smothered in their dusky graves.

Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer,

Only reserved their factor to buy souls

And send them thither; but at hand, at hand

Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.

Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,

To have him suddenly conveyed from hence.

Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I plead,

That I may live and say, ‘The dog is dead’.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O thou didst prophesy the time would come

That I should wish for thee to help me curse

That bottled spider, that foul bunch-backed toad.