Strike up the drum.

DUCHESS OF YORK

I pray thee, hear me speak.

KING RICHARD

You speak too bitterly.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Hear me a word,

For I shall never speak to thee again.

KING RICHARD SO.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance

Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,

Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,

And never more behold thy face again.

Therefore take with thee my most heavy curse,

Which in the day of battle tire thee more

Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st.

My prayers on the adverse party fight,

And there the little souls of Edward’s children

Whisper the spirits of thine enemies,

And promise them success and victory.

Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;

Shame serves thy life, and doth thy death attend.

Exit

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse

Abides in me; I say ‘Amen’ to all.

KING RICHARD

Stay, madam. I must talk a word with you.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

I have no more sons of the royal blood

For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,

They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,

And therefore level not to hit their lives.

KING RICHARD

You have a daughter called Elizabeth,

Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

And must she die for this? O let her live,

And I’ll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,

Slander myself as false to Edward’s bed,

Throw over her the veil of infamy.

So she may live unscarred of bleeding slaughter,

I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

KING RICHARD

Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

To save her life I’ll say she is not so.

KING RICHARD

Her life is safest only in her birth.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

And only in that safety died her brothers.

KING RICHARD

Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

KING RICHARD

All unavoided is the doom of destiny—

QUEEN ELIZABETH

True, when avoided grace makes destiny.

My babes were destined to a fairer death,

If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

KING RICHARD

Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise

And dangerous success of bloody wars,

As I intend more good to you and yours

Than ever you or yours by me were harmed.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What good is covered with the face of heaven,

To be discovered, that can do me good?

KING RICHARD

Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

KING RICHARD

Unto the dignity and height of fortune,

The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Flatter my sorrow with report of it.

Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,

Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

KING RICHARD

Even all I have—ay, and myself and all,

Will I withal endow a child of thine,

So in the Lethe of thy angry soul

Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs,

Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness

Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.

KING RICHARD

Then know that, from my soul, I love thy daughter.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

My daughter’s mother thinks that with her soul.

KING RICHARD What do you think?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;

So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,

And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

KING RICHARD

Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.

I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,

And do intend to make her queen of England.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?

KING RICHARD

Even he that makes her queen. Who else should be?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What, thou?

KING RICHARD Even so. How think you of it?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

How canst thou woo her?

KING RICHARD

That would I learn of you,

As one being best acquainted with her humour.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

And wilt thou learn of me?

KING RICHARD

Madam, with all my heart.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,

A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave

‘Edward’ and ‘York’; then haply will she weep.

Therefore present to her—as sometimes Margaret

Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood—

A handkerchief which, say to her, did drain

The purple sap from her sweet brother’s body,

And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.

If this inducement move her not to love,

Send her a letter of thy noble deeds.

Tell her thou mad’st away her uncle Clarence,

Her uncle Rivers—ay, and for her sake

Mad’st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.

KING RICHARD

You mock me, madam. This is not the way

To win your daughter.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

There is no other way,

Unless thou couldst put on some other shape,

And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

KING RICHARD

Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Which she shall purchase with still-lasting war.

KING RICHARD

Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

That at her hands which the King’s King forbids.

KING RICHARD

Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

To vail the title, as her mother doth.

KING RICHARD

Say I will love her everlastingly.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?

KING RICHARD

Sweetly in force unto her fair life’s end.