Scene
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

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Words and Pronunciation +
Arden 3 | 2009

Words

O God: one of several apostrophes to the Deity by Juliet. (Weis)

honey: sweet, used here adjectivally; honey was the standard sweetener in Shakespeare’s day, and Juliet is humouring Nurse. (Weis)

aweary: tired (Leung); weary, tired (SW)

jaunt: fatiguing journey (cited in OED) (Weis)

have I: have I had (Weis)

would: 3. a. Denoting expression (usually authoritative) of a wish or intention: Determine, decree, ordain, enjoin, give order (that something be done). Obs. (OED)

Jesu: not yet banned at this date and, outside RJ, used exclusively in the history plays, particularly in the Henry IVs (Weis)

stay the circumstance: wait for the detail (see without circumstance, 5.3.181) (Weis)

circumstance: special argument, detailed explanation (SW); circumlocution, verbiage, unnecessary detail (SW): pageantry, ceremony, spectacle (SW)

simple: foolish; Nurse picks up Juliet’s formal dichotomy of good and bad while ignoring the substance of her question. (Weis); foolish, silly, stupid (SW)

flower of courtesy: effectively a non sequitur after flower of courtesy since gentleness could be thought to be part of courtesy; ‘as gentle as a lamb’ is proverbial (Dent, L34). (Weis)

go thy ways: ‘Lucky you!’ ways: well done (SW), carry on, go ahead (SW); get along, be off (SW)

wench:  a term of endearment for a young woman (OED sb. c) (Weis)

serve God: ‘Be good.’ (Weis)

dined: had your midday meal (Weis)

as: as if (Weis, re: line 49)

beshrew your heart: a mild and humorous imprecation on Juliet’s romantic heart for sending Nurse on this ‘back-breaking’ trip (cf. MA 5.1.55) (Weis)

beshrew: blame, censure, take to task, wish mischief on (SW); curse, devil take, evil befall (SW)

jauncing: prancing about (cited under OED jaunce v.)(Weis); jaunce: jaunt, trudge about, run around (SW); jaunt, fatiguing journey (SW)

honest: honourable (Weis); honourable, respectable, upright (SW); genuine, real, true (SW); innocent, well-intentioned, innocuous (SW)

warrant: assure, promise, guarantee, confirm (SW)

oddly: unequally, unevenly; or unusually, in a peculiar way (SW)

O God’s Lady: ‘by the Virgin Mary’ (Weis)

hot: eager, with a teasing intimation of unbecoming sexual passion (Weis); active, vigourous (SW); hot-tempered, angry, passionate (SW); fast, hasty (SW); lecherous, lustful, hot-blooded (SW); amorous, sexually eager, ardent, appetent (Partridge)

marry come up: a proverbial expression of indignant or amused surprise (Dent, M699.2) (Weis); expression of (real or playful) impatience (SW)

marry: [exclamation] by Mary (SW)

I trow: here meaning ‘surely’ (OED v. 4b glosses ‘I suppose’) (Weis); trow: (I) wonder, (I) ask you (SW); think, expect, believe (SW); believe, give credence to, accept as true (SW); hope, trust, suppose (SW); think, be sure (SW); know, guess, imagine (SW)

poultice: soothing dressing (Shakespeare’s only usage of the word) (Weis);1. A moist, usually heated mass of a substance with a soft, pasty consistency, applied to the skin, usually by means of a bandage or dressing, in order to promote healing, reduce swelling, relieve pain, etc.; a fomentation, a cataplasm. Also figurative. (OED)

coil: ado, fuss; cf. ‘I am not worth this coil that’s made for me’ (KJ 2.1.165).(Weis); turmoil, disturbance, fuss (SW); 1. Noisy disturbance, ‘row’; ‘tumult, turmoil, bustle, stir, hurry, confusion’ (Johnson).2. Confused noise of inanimate things; clutter, rattle, confused din. 3. Fuss, ado; a ‘business’.  4.a. to keep a coil: to keep up a disturbance; make a fuss, bustle, much ado.

shrift:  confession (Leung, SW); absolution (SW); confessional, place for hearing confession (SW)

hie: hasten, go quickly (also at 72, 77, 78) (Weis); hasten, hurry, speed (SW)

cell: small, humble dwelling (SW)

stays: waits (Leung); stay: stay in hiding, remain hidden (SW); staying, remaining, continued presence (SW); remain, continue, endure (SW); wait (for), await (SW)

wanton blood: Juliet is starting to blush (Weis)

blood: spirit, vigour, mettle (SW); anger, temper, passion (SW); colouring, healthy complexion, blushing (SW); hot blood, the blood as affected by sexual passion (Partridge, 67)

wanton: feminine; or: childlike (SW); lascivious, lewd, obscene (SW); carefree, lighthearted, frolicsome, playful (SW)

climb: to climb a woman’s legs (as though they were the limb of a tree) and then enjoy her (Partridge, 80)

bird’s nest: i.e. Juliet’s bedroom; the idiom ‘to climb a bird’s nest’ may have been proverbial (Dent, N124.1). (Weis) pudend and pubic hair (Partridge, 66)

at any: hasten, go quickly (also at 72, 77, 78) (Weis)

drudge and toil in your delight: ‘I am a mean labourer and hack, and I labour for your pleasure.’ (Weis)

drudge: slave, serf, lackey (SW)

bear the burden: assume responsibility for what will ensue; but also suggesting that Juliet will experience the weight of Romeo’s body during love-making (cf. AC 1.5.22).(Weis); bear: to bear children; to bear, support, a superincumbent man (Partridge, 63)

soon at night: tonight (proverbial; Dent, S639.1) (Weis); quickly, in a short time (SW)

hie to high fortune: Wish me luck. (No Fear Shakespeare Translation)

Pronunciation +

lookest: possibly “look’st” (Leung, also: Arden CWRE, 1998)

shamest: (line 23) Q2–3; sham’st Q4, F; not in Q1 (Weis)

Jesu: (line 29) jeez-yoo or jee-zoo; jayz-yoo or jay-zoo

you: (line 29) The more formal pronoun is used consistently by Nurse when addressing Juliet, while the 13-year-old uses the familiar thou, thee, thy to her servant, in conformity with the etiquette of the day in which social class overrides age. (Weis)

marry: (line 62) mah-ree (UK); meh-ree (US) (OED)

trow: (line 62) tr-ah-oo (UK); tr-oh (US) (OED)

hie: (line 68) hah-ee

wanton: (line 70) want-en or want-in

+prose: (lines 38-45) The nurse switches to prose for this speech.

Translation
No Fear Shakespeare

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Assonance
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Alliteration
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Consonance
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Thoughts
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

RICHARD

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ELIZABETH

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Rhythm
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Pacing
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Beats
Arden 3 | 2009

Beat 1: DISCOVERIES: Richard discovers Elizabeth too is leaving | Elizabeth discovers Richard wants to speak to her.

---

ACTIONS: Richard makes Elizabeth understand he wants to speak with her | Elizabeth stops leaving and stays.
OBSTACLES:

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

Beat 2: Richard discovers Elizabeth has stayed. Elizabeth discovers Richard wants to speak about her daughter.

---

ACTIONS: Richard to get Elizabeth to understand he wants to speak to her about her daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth considers Richard’s words.
OBSTACLES: Elizabeth would likely rather boil herself in oil than spend time with Richard. Richard knows this: he has killed her sons as well as her brother (Rivers) and her brother in law (his own brother, Clarance).

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

Beat 3: DISCOVERIES: Elizabeth discovers Richard wants to discuss her daughter, likely to marry her | Richard discovers Elizabeth appears willing to deny her daughter’s royalty to keep her from marrying Richard

---

ACTIONS: Elizabeth to make Richard know she will disown her child to keep her from being eligible to marry Richard | Richard to make Elizabeth understand that her daughter’s royalty is what offers her protection.

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

Beat 4: DISCOVERIES: Richard discovers Elizabeth is suggesting he killed her sons. | Elizabeth discovers he refuses to take responsibility for their deaths.

---

ACTIONS: Richard keeps Elizabeth from touching on his involvement in their deaths | Elizabeth makes Richard take responsibility for her sons deaths.
OBSTACLES: Richard refuses to take responsibility | He did kill them, but acknowledging it will hurt his chances.

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

Beat 5: DISCOVERIES: Richard discovers Elizabeth will not be deterred from holding him responsible for what he did do | Elizabeth discovers Richard wants to do her good that will more than compensate for any bad he has done to her.

---

ACTIONS: Richard gets Elizabeth to entertain that he can more than repair any harm he has done to her. | Elizabeth makes Richard understand she does not believe he can do her good.

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

Beat 5: DISCOVERIES: Elizabeth discovers Richard means some royal honour toward Elizabeth | Elizabeth gets Richard to be specific about what he means.

---

ACTIONS: Elizabeth gets RIchard to tell her specifically what honour he offers her daughter. | Richard gets Elizabeth to understand that it’s to marry Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

Beat 6: DISCOVERIES: Elizabeth discovers that Richard likely means to marry her daughter.

---

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

Beat 7

---

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so.

Beat 8: DISCOVERIES: Elizabeth discovers Richard is serious about marrying her daughter | Richard discovers he needs to know what she thinks of the offer.

---

ACTIONS: Richard gets Elizabeth to tell him what she thinks of the idea. | Elizabeth gets Richard to tell him just how he thinks he can successfully woo her.

RICHARD

———————How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

Beat 9: DISCOVERIES: Richard discovers that Elizabeth wants to know how he thinks he can woo her. | Elizabeth discovers he thinks she can tell him how to woo her.

---

ACTIONS: Richard to get Elizabeth to tell him how to woo her daughter | Elizabeth gets Richard to understand that wooing her is impossible given what he’s done to her family.

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

Beat 10: DISCOVERIES: 

---

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

Beat 11: DISCOVERIES: Richard discovers that Elizabeth is back on the blood question | Elizabeth discovers that Richard is offering her her former status and safety back

---

ACTIONS: RIchard gets Elizabeth to understand she will regain her status and her family’s safety. | Elizabeth gets Richard to believe she is listening.

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.

Beat 12:

---

RICHARD
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

Beat 13

---

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

Beat 14

---

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

Beat 15

---

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

Beat 16

---

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

Beat 17

---

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

RICHARD
Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell.               430

 

Beat 18

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Top

Beats +

shamest: (line 23) Q2–3; sham’st Q4, F; not in Q1 (Weis)

Jesu: (line 29) jeez-yoo or jee-zoo; jayz-yoo or jay-zoo

you: (line 29) The more formal pronoun is used consistently by Nurse when addressing Juliet, while the 13-year-old uses the familiar thou, thee, thy to her servant, in conformity with the etiquette of the day in which social class overrides age. (Weis)

marry: (line 62) mah-ree (UK); meh-ree (US) (OED)

trow: (line 62) tr-ah-oo (UK); tr-oh (US) (OED)

hie: (line 68) hah-ee

wanton: (line 70) want-en or want-in

Full Scene
Arden 3 | 2009

[ 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.
5A dire induction am I witness to,
And will to France, hoping the consequence
Will prove as bitter, black and tragical.
Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here? [Stands aside.]
Enter Duchess Qof YorkQ and Queen [ Elizabeth ].
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, my poor princes! Ah, my tender babes,
10My unblowed 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]
15Hover about her; say that right for right
Hath dimmed your infant morn to aged night.
DUCHESS

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]

20Plantagenet 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]

25When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.
DUCHESS

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, [ She sits.]
30Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.
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 ? [ She sits.]
QUEEN MARGARET

[Comes forward.]
35If 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,
Q Tell over your woes again by viewing mine.Q
40I had an Edward, till a Richard killed him;
I had a husband , till a Richard killed him.
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him.
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him.
DUCHESS

I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;
45I had a Rutland too; thou holp’st 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,
50To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood;
That excellent grand tyrant of the earth,
That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls;
That foul defacer of God’s handiwork
Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.
55O upright, just, and true-disposing God,
How do I thank thee that this carnal cur
Preys on the issue of his mother’s body
And makes her pew-fellow with others’ moan.
DUCHESS

O Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes!
60God 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 quit my Edward.
65Young 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 play,
Th’ adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
70Untimely 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.
75Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,
To have him suddenly conveyed from hence.
Cancel his bond of life, dear God I pray,
That I may live and say, ‘The dog is dead.’
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O, thou didst prophesy the time would come
80That I should wish for thee to help me curse
That bottled spider, that foul bunch-backed toad.
QUEEN MARGARET

I called thee then vain flourish of my fortune;
I called thee then, poor shadow, painted queen,
The presentation of but what I was,
85The flattering index of a direful pageant,
One heaved a-high , to be hurled down below,
A mother only mocked with two fair babes,
A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag
To be the aim of every dangerous shot,
90A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?
Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
Who sues, and kneels, and says, ‘God save the Queen’?
95Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?
Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?
Decline all this, and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
100For one being sued to , one that humbly sues;
For queen, a very caitiff crowned with care;
For she that scorned at me, now scorned of me;
For she being feared of all, now fearing one;
For she commanding all, obeyed of none.
105Thus hath the course of justice whirled about
And left thee but a very prey to time,
Having no more but thought of what thou wast
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not
110Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?
Now thy proud neck bears half my burdened yoke,
From which, even here I slip my wearied head
And leave the burden of it all on thee.
Farewell, York’s wife, and queen of sad mischance.
115These English woes shall make me smile in France.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O thou, well skilled in curses, stay awhile
And teach me how to curse mine enemies.
QUEEN MARGARET

Forbear to sleep the night, and fast the day;
Compare dead happiness with living woe;
120Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,
And he that slew them fouler than he is.
Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse.
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

My words are dull. O, quicken them with thine.
QUEEN MARGARET

125Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine.( Exit. )
DUCHESS

Why should calamity be full of words?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Windy attorneys to their clients’ woes,
Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
Poor breathing orators of miseries,
130Let them have scope, though what they will impart
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.
DUCHESS

If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,
And in the breath of bitter words let’s smother
My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smothered. [Trumpet sounds.]
135The trumpet sounds. Be copious in exclaims.
Enter King Richard and his Train [ including Catesby ], Qmarching with drums and trumpetsQ
KING RICHARD

Who intercepts me in my expedition?
DUCHESS

O, she that might have intercepted thee,
By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

140Hid’st thou that forehead with a golden crown
Where should be branded , if that right were right,
The slaughter of the prince that owed that crown
And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children?
DUCHESS

145Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence,
And little Ned Plantagenet his son?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?
DUCHESS

Where is kind Hastings?
KING RICHARD

A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!
150Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord’s anointed. Strike, I say! (( Flourish. Alarums. ))
Either be patient and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
DUCHESS

155Art thou my son?
KING RICHARD

Ay, I thank God, my father and yourself.
DUCHESS

Then patiently hear my impatience.
KING RICHARD

Madam, I have a touch of your condition,
That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
DUCHESS

160O, let me speak.
KING RICHARD
160Do then, but I’ll not hear.
DUCHESS

I will be mild and gentle in my words.
KING RICHARD

And brief, good mother, for I am in haste.
DUCHESS

Art thou so hasty? I have stayed for thee,
God knows, in torment and in agony.
KING RICHARD

165And came I not at last to comfort you?
DUCHESS

No, by the Holy Rood, thou knowst it well:
Thou cam’st on earth to make the earth my hell.
A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy.
170Thy school days frightful, desperate , wild and furious;
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold and venturous;
Thy age confirmed proud, subtle, sly and bloody,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred.
What comfortable hour canst thou name
175That ever graced me with thy company?
KING RICHARD

Faith, none but Humfrey Hower, that called your grace
To breakfast once, forth of my company.
If I be so disgracious in your eye,
Let me march on and not offend you, madam.
180Strike up the drum.
DUCHESS
180I prithee, hear me speak.
KING RICHARD

You speak too bitterly.
DUCHESS
Hear me a word,
For I shall never speak to thee again.
KING RICHARD

So.
DUCHESS

Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance
185Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,
Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish
And nevermore behold thy face again.
Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,
Which in the day of battle tire thee more
190Than 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.
195Bloody 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 her.
KING RICHARD

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

200I 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,
205Virtuous 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.
210So 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

215And only in that safety died her brothers.
KING RICHARD

Lo, at their birth 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.
220My babes were destined to a fairer death,
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.
KING RICHARD

You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
225Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly , gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
230But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
235Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
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 and yours by me were harmed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

240What 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,
245The 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 –
250Will 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
255Last 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 it with her soul.
KING RICHARD

What do you think?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
260So 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

265Well 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

270And wilt thou learn of me?
KING RICHARD
270Madam, 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 sometime Margaret
275Did 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,
280Send 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 QisQ not the way
285To win your daughter.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
285There is no other way,
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.
KING RICHARD

Say that I did all this for love of her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
290Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.
KING RICHARD

Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
295To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
300Than is the doting title of a mother.
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
305Your children were vexation to your youth,
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
310Therefore accept such kindness as I can.
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
315The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
320What! We have many goodly days to see.
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
325Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
330With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
335To whom I will retail my conquest won,
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
340Under what title shall I woo for thee,
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?
KING RICHARD

Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.
KING RICHARD

345Tell 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

350But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?
KING RICHARD

Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?
KING RICHARD

As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

As long as hell and Richard likes of it.
KING RICHARD

355Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.
KING RICHARD

Be eloquent in my behalf to her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
KING RICHARD

Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

360Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.
KING RICHARD

Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
KING RICHARD

Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

365Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.
KING RICHARD

Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.
KING RICHARD

I swear –
QUEEN ELIZABETH
By nothing, for this is no oath:
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
370Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.
KING RICHARD

Then by myself –
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Thyself is self-misused.
KING RICHARD

375Now by the world –
QUEEN ELIZABETH
375’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.
KING RICHARD

My father’s death –
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Thy life hath it dishonoured.
KING RICHARD

Why then, by God .
QUEEN ELIZABETH
God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
380Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
385Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?
KING RICHARD
The time to come.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
390Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
395Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .
KING RICHARD

As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
400Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
405I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
410It cannot be avoided but by this;
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
415Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?
KING RICHARD

Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

420Shall I forget myself to be myself?
KING RICHARD

Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Yet thou didst kill my children.
KING RICHARD

But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
425Selves of themselves, to your recomforture .
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?
KING RICHARD

And be a happy mother by the deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.
KING RICHARD

430Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell.( Exit Queen [ Elizabeth ]. )
Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman.
Enter Ratcliffe.

How now, what news?
RATCLIFFE

Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast
Rideth a puissant navy. To our shores
435Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,
Unarmed and unresolved to beat them back.
’Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral,
And there they hull, expecting but the aid
Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.
KING RICHARD

440Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:
Ratcliffe, thyself – or Catesby. Where is he?
CATESBY

Here, my good lord.
KING RICHARD
Catesby, fly to the Duke.
CATESBY

I will, my lord, with all convenient haste.
KING RICHARD

Ratcliffe, come hither. Post to Salisbury.
445When thou com’st thither –
445[to Catesby ]Dull unmindful villain,
Why stay’st thou here, and go’st not to the Duke?
CATESBY

First, mighty liege, tell me your highness’ pleasure,
What from your grace I shall deliver to him.
KING RICHARD

O true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight
450The greatest strength and power that he can make
And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.
CATESBY

I go.(Exit.)
RATCLIFFE

What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?
KING RICHARD

Why, what wouldst thou do there before I go?
RATCLIFFE

455Your highness told me I should post before.
KING RICHARD

My mind is changed.
Enter Lord Stanley.
Stanley, what news with you?
STANLEY

None good, my liege, to please you with the hearing,
Nor none so bad but well may be reported.
KING RICHARD

Hoyday, a riddle! Neither good nor bad.
460What need’st thou run so many miles about
When thou mayst tell thy tale the nearest way?
Once more, what news?
STANLEY
Richmond is on the seas.
KING RICHARD

There let him sink, and be the seas on him,
White-livered runagate. What doth he there?
STANLEY

465I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.
KING RICHARD

Well, as you guess?
STANLEY

Stirred up by Dorset, Buckingham and Morton,
He makes for England, here to claim the crown.
KING RICHARD

Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?
470Is the King dead? The empire unpossessed?
What heir of York is there alive but we?
And who is England’s king but great York’s heir?
Then tell me, what makes he upon the seas?
STANLEY

Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.
KING RICHARD

475Unless for that he comes to be your liege,
You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.
Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.
STANLEY

No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.
KING RICHARD

Where is thy power, then, to beat him back?
480Where be thy tenants and thy followers?
Are they not now upon the western shore,
Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?
STANLEY

No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.
KING RICHARD

Cold friends to me. What do they in the north
485When they should serve their sovereign in the west?
STANLEY

They have not been commanded, mighty King.
Pleaseth your majesty to give me leave,
I’ll muster up my friends and meet your grace
Where and what time your majesty shall please.
KING RICHARD

490Ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond,
But I’ll not trust thee.
STANLEY
Most mighty sovereign,
You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful;
I never was, nor never will be, false.
KING RICHARD

Go then, and muster men, but leave behind
495Your son George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,
Or else his head’s assurance is but frail.
STANLEY

So deal with him as I prove true to you.(Exit Stanley.)
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGERS

My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,
As I by friends am well advertised
500Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,
Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,
With many more confederates are in arms.
Enter another Messenger.
2 MESSENGER

In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in arms,
And every hour more competitors
505Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.
Enter another Messenger.
3 MESSENGER

My lord, the army of great Buckingham –
KING RICHARD

Out on you , owls! Nothing but songs of death.
He striketh him.

There, take thou that, till thou bring better news.
3 MESSENGER

The news I have to tell your majesty
510Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters
Buckingham’s army is dispersed and scattered,
And he himself wandered away alone,
No man knows whither.
KING RICHARD
I cry thee mercy.
There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.
515Hath any well-advised friend proclaimed
Reward to him that brings the traitor in?
3 MESSENGER

Such proclamation hath been made, my lord.
Enter another Messenger.
4 MESSENGER

Sir Thomas Lovell and Lord Marquess Dorset,
’Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms;
520But this good comfort bring I to your highness:
The Breton navy is dispersed by tempest.
Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat
Unto the shore to ask those on the banks
If they were his assistants, yea or no?
525Who answered him they came from Buckingham,
Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,
Hoised sail and made his course again for Brittany.
KING RICHARD

March on, march on, since we are up in arms,
If not to fight with foreign enemies,
530Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.
Enter Catesby.
CATESBY

My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken.
That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond
Is with a mighty power landed at Milford
Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.
KING RICHARD

535Away towards Salisbury ! While we reason here
A royal battle might be won and lost.
Someone take order Buckingham be brought
To Salisbury . The rest march on with me.(Flourish. Exeunt.)

Rhetoric
Arden 3 | 2009

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

ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood                               200
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,
And therefore level not to hit their lives.

RICHARD
You have a daughter called Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.                                 205

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,             210
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARD
Wrong not her birth. She is a royal princess.

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

RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.

ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.                        215

RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.

ELIZABETH
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.

RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.

ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destined to a fairer death,                       220
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

ELIZABETH
Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanched their tender hearts,             225
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,                230
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,
And I in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.                               235

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 and yours by me were harmed.

ELIZABETH
What good is covered with the face of heaven,                  240
To be discovered, that can do me good?

RICHARD
Th’advancement of your children, gentle lady.

ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads.

RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of fortune,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.                         245

ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrow with report of it:
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

RICHARD
Even all I have – ay, and myself and all –
Will I withal endow a child of thine;                                        250
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.                     255

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

ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.

RICHARD
What do you think?

ELIZABETH
That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul;
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,          260
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

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.

ELIZABETH
Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?               265

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

ELIZABETH
What, thou?

RICHARD
————-Even so. How think you of it?

ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?

RICHARD
————————–That would I learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.

ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?

RICHARD
—————————–Madam, with all my heart.    270

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 sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood –                   275
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:                                   280
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.

RICHARD
You mock me, madam. This is not the way
To win your daughter.

ELIZABETH:
———————–There is no other way,     285
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
And not be Richard, that hath done all this.

RICHARD
Say that I did all this for love of her.

ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.                      290

RICHARD
Look what is done cannot be now amended.
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.                       295
If I have killed the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother.                                        300
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your metal, of your very blood,
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,                             305
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would;
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.                               310
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity.
The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife                  315
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother.
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repaired with double riches of content.
What! We have many goodly days to see.                               320
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,
Advantaging their love with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother; to thy daughter go.                                325
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale;
Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;                         330
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,                                    335
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar.

ELIZABETH
What were I best to say? Her father’s brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,                                        340
That God, the law, my honour and her love
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARD
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.

ELIZABETH
Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.

RICHARD
Tell her the King, that may command, entreats.                     345

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

RICHARD
Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.

ELIZABETH
To vail the title, as her mother doth.

RICHARD
Say I will love her everlastingly.

ELIZABETH
But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?                                 350

RICHARD
Sweetly in force, unto her fair life’s end.

ELIZABETH
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?

RICHARD
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

ELIZABETH
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARD
Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.                              355

ELIZABETH
But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.

RICHARD
Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

ELIZABETH
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

RICHARD
Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.

ELIZABETH
Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.                            360

RICHARD
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

ELIZABETH
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead,
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

RICHARD
Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

ELIZABETH
Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.                     365

RICHARD
Now by my George, my Garter and my crown –

ELIZABETH
Profaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARD
I swear –

ELIZABETH
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honour;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;           370
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARD
Then by myself –

ELIZABETH
——————-Thyself is self-misused.

RICHARD
Now by the world –

ELIZABETH
———————’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.    375

RICHARD
My father’s death –

ELIZABETH
———————Thy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARD
Why then, by God.

ELIZABETH
——————–God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
The unity the King my husband made
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.                   380
If thou hadst feared to break an oath by Him,
Th’imperial metal circling now thy head
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, too tender bed-fellows for dust,                      385
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARD
———————————The time to come.

ELIZABETH
That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wronged by thee.                   390
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,
Ungoverned youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast                    395
Misused ere used, by times ill-used o’erpast .

RICHARD
As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours.                           400
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if with dear heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous, princely daughter.                    405
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her follows to myself and thee,
Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay.
It cannot be avoided but by this;                                            410
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, dear mother – I must call you so –
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.                               415
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish found in great designs.

ELIZABETH
Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?

RICHARD
Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.

ELIZABETH
Shall I forget myself to be myself?                                    420

RICHARD
Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.

ELIZABETH
Yet thou didst kill my children.

RICHARD
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them,
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.                    425

ELIZABETH
Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD
And be a happy mother by the deed.

ELIZABETH
I go, write to me very shortly,
And you shall understand from me her mind.

K. RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so farewell. 430

Pronunciation +

lookest: possibly “look’st” (Leung, also: Arden CWRE, 1998)

shamest: (line 23) Q2–3; sham’st Q4, F; not in Q1 (Weis)

Jesu: (line 29) jeez-yoo or jee-zoo; jayz-yoo or jay-zoo

you: (line 29) The more formal pronoun is used consistently by Nurse when addressing Juliet, while the 13-year-old uses the familiar thou, thee, thy to her servant, in conformity with the etiquette of the day in which social class overrides age. (Weis)

marry: (line 62) mah-ree (UK); meh-ree (US) (OED)

trow: (line 62) tr-ah-oo (UK); tr-oh (US) (OED)

hie: (line 68) hah-ee

wanton: (line 70) want-en or want-in

+prose: (lines 38-45) The nurse switches to prose for this speech.