Riv. She may, my lord; for

Glo. She may, lord Rivers ?-Why, who knows not so ?
She may do more, Sir, than denying that:

She may help you to many fair preferments;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,

And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not? She may,-ay, marry may she,-
Riv. What, marry, may she?

Glo. What, marry, may she? marry with a king,
A bachelor, a handsome stripling too:

I wis, your grandam had a worser match.

Q. Eliz. My lord of Gloster, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,
Of these gross taunts I often have endured.
I had rather be a country servant-maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition-
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at:
Small joy have I in being England's queen.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind.

Q. Mar. [aside]. And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee !

Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.

Glo. What? Threat you me with telling of the king? Tell him, and 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 painst are quite forgot.

Q. Mar. [aside. Out, devil! I remember them too well:

Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,

And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Glo. 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 my own.

Q. Mar. [aside]. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine. Glo. 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 now, and what you are;

Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Q. Mar. [aside]. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.
Glo. Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,

Ay, and forswore himself,-Which Jesu pardon!-
Q. Mar. [aside]. Which God revenge!

Glo. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown;

And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up;

*Think.

† Labours.

+ Make royal.

§ Army.

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.

Q. Mar. [aside]. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,

Thou cacodæmon!* there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days,
Which here you urge, to prove us enemies,
We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king;
So should we you, if you should be our king.
Glo. If I should be ?--I had rather be a pedlar;
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!

Q. Eliz. 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.

Q. Mar. [aside]. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof; For I am she, and altogether joyless.

I can no longer hold me patient.

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 being queen, you bow like subjects;
Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels ?—
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

[Advancing.

Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight?
Q. Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd;

That will I make before I let thee go.

Glo. Wert thou not banish'd on pain of death?

Q. Mar. 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.

Glo. 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
Denounced against thee are all fall'n upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagued § thy bloody deed.
Q. Eliz. So just is God to right the innocent.
Hast. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e'er was heard of.

Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
Dor. No man but prophesied revenge for it.
Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
Q. Mar. 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,
Could 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, 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 loss;
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 wast thou, lord Hastings,-when my son
Was stabb'd with bloody daggers; God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by some unlook'd accident cut off!

Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag.
Q. Mar. 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-mark'd abortive, rooting* hog!
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature, and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour! thou detested-
Glo. Margaret.

Q. Mar. Richard!

Glo. Ha?

Q. Mar. I call thee not.

Glo. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think, That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.

* Grovelling; with snout turned towards the ground.

Q. Mar. Why, so I did: but look'd for no reply. O, let me make the period to my curse.

Glo. 'Tis done by me; and ends in-Margaret.

Q. Eliz. Thus have you breath'd your curse against yourself. Q. Mar. 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 pois'nous bunch-back'd toad.
Hast. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse;
Lest, to thy harm, thou move our patience.

Q. Mar. Foul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.
Riv. Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
Q. Mar. 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.
Dor. Dispute not with her, she is lunatic.

Q. Mar. 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.

Glo. Good counsel, marry ;-learn it, learn it, marquis.
Dor. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
Glo. Ay, and much more: but I was born so high,
Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

Q. Mar. And turns the sun to shade;-alas, alas!
Witness my son, now in the shade of death;
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest:
O God, that see'st it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

Buck. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Q. Mar. Urge neither charity nor shame to me;
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,-

And in my shame still live my sorrow's rage!
Buck. Have done, have done.

Q. Mar. O princely Buckingham, I 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.

Buck. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

* Deformed.

+ He had just been created marquis of Dorset. + Eagle's nest.

Q. Mar. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog;

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and, when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;

Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him;
And all their ministers attend on him.

Glo. What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buck. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

Q. Mar. 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.

Hast. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

*

Riv. And so doth mine; I muse, why she's at liberty.
Glo. 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.

QEliz. I never did her any, to my knowledge.
Glo. 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 frank'd up to fatting for his pains;-
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
Riv. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that hath done scathe to us.
Glo. So do I ever, being well advised;-
For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
Enter CATESBY.

Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you,-
And for your grace, and you, my noble lords.

[Exit.

[Aside.

Q. Eliz. Catesby, I come:-
:-Lords, will you go with me?
Riv. Madam, we will attend upon your grace.

[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.

Glo. 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 laid in darkness,—
I do beweep to many simple gulls;

Namely, to Stanley, 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, Vaughan, Grey :
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them-that God bids us do good for evil.
† Put in a stye.

* Wonder.