King Richard III | Page 9

spare not: look what I have said I will avouch in presence of the king: I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower. 'Tis time to speak,--my pains are quite forgot.
QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them too well: Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower, And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
GLOSTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king, I was a pack-horse in his great affairs; A weeder-out of his proud adversaries, A liberal rewarder of his friends; To royalize his blood I spilt mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.
GLOSTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey Were factious for the house of Lancaster;-- And, Rivers, so were you: was not your husband In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain? Let me put in your minds, if you forget, What you have been ere this, and what you are; Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
QUEEN MARGARET. A murderous villain, and so still thou art.
GLOSTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick; Ay, and forswore himself,--which Jesu pardon!--
QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!
GLOSTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown; And for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up. I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's, Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine: I am too childish-foolish for this world.
QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this world, Thou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.
RIVERS. My Lord of Gloster, in those busy days Which here you urge to prove us enemies, We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king: So should we you, if you should be our king.
GLOSTER. If I should be!--I had rather be a pedler: Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose You should enjoy, were you this country's king,-- As little joy you may suppose in me, That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the queen thereof; For I am she, and altogether joyless. I can no longer hold me patient.--
[Advancing.]
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out In sharing that which you have pill'd from me! Which of you trembles not that looks on me? If not that, I am queen, you bow like subjects, Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels? Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!
GLOSTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight?
QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd, That will I make before I let thee go.
GLOSTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in banishment Than death can yield me here by my abode. A husband and a son thou ow'st to me,-- And thou a kingdom,--all of you allegiance: This sorrow that I have, by right is yours; And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
GLOSTER. 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 Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland;-- His curses, then from bitterness of soul Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee; And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God, to right the innocent.
HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe, And the most merciless that e'er was heard of.
RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.
BUCKINGHAM. 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! Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales, For Edward our 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 mayest thou live to wail thy children's death; And see another, as I see thee now, Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine! Long die thy happy days before thy death; And, after many lengthen'd hours of grief, Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!-- Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,-- And so