William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (114 page)

Read William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition Online

Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
8.33Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
⌈
Exit
⌉
Enter
⌈
above
⌉
the Ghosts of Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and Sir Thomas Vaughan
 
GHOST OF RIVERS (
to Richard
)
Let me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow,
Rivers that died at Pomfret. Despair and die.
GHOST OF GRAY (
to Richard
)
Think upon Gray, and let thy soul despair.
GHOST OF VAUGHAN
(to Richard)
Think upon Vaughan, and with guilty fear
Let fall thy pointless lance. Despair and die.
ALL THREE (
to Richmond
)
Awake, and think our wrongs in Richard’s bosom
Will conquer him. Awake, and win the day!
⌈
Exeunt Ghosts
⌉
Enter ⌈above⌉ the Ghosts of the two young Princes
 
⌈GHOSTS OF THE PRINCES⌉ (to Richard)
Dream on thy cousins, smothered in the Tower.
Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,
And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death.
Thy nephews’ souls bid thee despair and die.
(
To Richmond
) Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace and wake in joy.
Good angels guard thee from the boar’s annoy.
Live, and beget a happy race of kings!
Edward’s unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.
⌈
Exeunt Ghosts
⌉
Enter
⌈
above
⌉
the Ghost of Lord Hastings
 
GHOST OF HASTINGS (
to Richard
)
Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,
And in a bloody battle end thy days.
Think on Lord Hastings, then despair and die.
(
To Richmond
) Quiet, untroubled soul, awake, awake!
Arm, fight, and conquer for fair England’s sake.
⌈
Exit
⌉
Enter ⌈above⌉ the Ghost of Lady Anne
 
GHOST OF LADY ANNE (
to Richard
)
Richard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,
That never slept a quiet hour with thee,
Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.
Tomorrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.
(
To Richmond
) Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep.
Dream of success and happy victory.
Thy adversary’s wife doth pray for thee. ⌈
Exit
⌉
Enter
⌈
above
⌉
the Ghost of the Duke of Buckingham
 
GHOST OF BUCKINGHAM (
to Richard
)
The first was I that helped thee to the crown;
The last was I that felt thy tyranny.
O in the battle think on Buckingham,
And die in terror of thy guiltiness!
Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death;
Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath.
(
To Richmond
) I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid.
But cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismayed.
God and good angels fight on Richmond’s side,
And Richard falls in height of all his pride. ⌈
Exit
⌉
Richard starteth up out of a dream
 
KING RICHARD
Give me another horse! Bind up my wounds!
Have mercy, Jesu!—Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me?
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I Fear? Myself? There’s none else by.
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.
Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason. Why?
Lest I revenge. Myself upon myself?
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O no, alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain. Yet I lie: I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well.—Fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high‘st degree!
Murder, stern murder, in the dir’st degree!
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, ‘Guilty, guilty!’
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
And if I die no soul will pity me.
Nay, wherefore should they?—Since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself.
Methought the souls of all that I had murdered
Came to my tent, and every one did threat
Tomorrow’s vengeance on the head of Richard.
Enter Ratcliffe
 
RATCLIFFE My lord?
KING RICHARD ‘Swounds, who is there?
RATCLIFFE
My lord, ’tis I. The early village cock
Hath twice done salutation to the morn.
Your friends are up, and buckle on their armour.
KING RICHARD
O Ratcliffe, I have dreamed a fearful dream.
What thinkest thou, will all our friends prove true?
RATCLIFFE
No doubt, my lord.
KING RICHARD
Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear.
RATCLIFFE
Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.
KING RICHARD
By the Apostle Paul, shadows tonight
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers
Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.
’Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me.
Under our tents I’ll play the eavesdropper,
To see if any mean to shrink from me.
Exeunt Richard and
Ratcliffe
Enter the lords to Henry Earl of Richmond, sitting in his tent
 
⌈LORDS⌉ Good morrow, Richmond.
HENRY EARL OF RICHMOND
Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,
That you have ta’en a tardy sluggard here.
⌈A LORD⌉How have you slept, my lord?
HENRY EARL OF RICHMOND
The sweetest sleep and fairest boding dreams
That ever entered in a drowsy head
Have I since your departure had, my lords.
Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murdered
Came to my tent and cried on victory.
I promise you, my soul is very jocund
In the remembrance of so fair a dream.
How far into the morning is it, lords?
A LORD Upon the stroke of four.
HENRY EARL OF RICHMOND
Why then, ’tis time to arm, and give direction.
His oration to his soldiers
Much that I could say, loving countrymen,
The leisure and enforcement of the time
Forbids to dwell on. Yet remember this:
God and our good cause fight upon our side.
The prayers of holy saints and wrongèd souls,
Like high-reared bulwarks, stand before our forces.
Richard except, those whom we fight against
Had rather have us win than him they follow.
For what is he they follow? Truly, friends,
A bloody tyrant and a homicide;
One raised in blood, and one in blood established;
One that made means to come by what he hath,
And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;
A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England’s chair, where he is falsely set;
One that hath ever been God’s enemy.
Then if you fight against God’s enemy,
God will, in justice, ward you as his soldiers.
If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain.
If you do fight against your country’s foes,
Your country’s foison pays your pains the hire.
If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors.
If you do free your children from the sword,
Your children’s children quites it in your age.
Then, in the name of God and all these rights,
Advance your standards! Draw your willing swords!
For me, the ransom of this bold attempt
Shall be my cold corpse on the earth’s cold face;
But if I thrive, to gain of my attempt,
The least of you shall share his part thereof.
Sound, drums and trumpets, bold and cheerfully!
God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!
Exeunt to the sound of drums and trumpets
⌉
 
5.6
Enter King Richard, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, Sir William Catesby, and others
 
KING RICHARD
What said Northumberland, as touching Richmond?
RATCLIFFE
That he was never trained up in arms.
KING RICHARD
He said the truth. And what said Surrey then?
RATCLIFFE
He smiled and said, ‘The better for our purpose.’
KING RICHARD
He was in the right, and so indeed it is.
Clock strikes
 
Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.
Who saw the sun today?
A book is brought
⌉
 
RATCLIFFE
Not I, my lord.
KING RICHARD
Then he disdains to shine, for by the book
He should have braved the east an hour ago.
A black day will it be to somebody.
Ratcliffe.
RATCLIFFE
My lord?
KING RICHARD The sun will not be seen today.
The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.
I would these dewy tears were from the ground.
Not shine today—why, what is that to me
More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven
That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.
Enter the Duke of Norfolk
 
NORFOLK
Arm, arm, my lord! The foe vaunts in the field.
KING RICHARD
Come, bustle, bustle! Caparison my horse.
⌈
Richard arms
⌉
 
Exit one
Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.
I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,
And thus my battle shall be orderèd.
My forward shall be drawn out all in length,
Consisting equally of horse add foot,
Our archers placèd strongly in the midst.
John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,
Shall have the leading of this multitude.
They thus directed, we ourself will follow
In the main battle, whose puissance on both sides
Shall be well wingèd with our chiefest horse.
This, and Saint George to boot! What think’st thou, Norfolk?
NORFOLK
A good direction, warlike sovereign.
He showeth him a paper
This paper found I on my tent this morning.
(
He reads
)
‘Jackie of Norfolk be not too bold,
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.’
 
KING RICHARD
A thing devisèd by the enemy.—
Go, gentlemen, each man unto his charge.
Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls.
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
Our strong arms be our conscience; swords, our law.
March on, join bravely! Let us to’t, pell mell—
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.
His oration to his army
What shall I say, more than I have inferred?
Remember whom you are to cope withal:
A sort of vagabonds, rascals and runaways,
A scum of Bretons and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o‘ercloyèd country vomits forth
To desperate ventures and assured destruction.
You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;
You having lands and blessed with beauteous wives,
They would distrain the one, distain the other.
And who doth lead them, but a paltry fellow?
Long kept in Bretagne at our mother’s cost;
A milksop; one that never in his life
Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow.
Let’s whip these stragglers o’er the seas again,
Lash hence these overweening rags of France,
These famished beggars, weary of their lives,
Who—but for dreaming on this fond exploit—
For want of means, poor rats, had hanged themselves.
If we be conquered, let men conquer us,
And not these bastard Bretons, whom our fathers
Have in their own land beaten, bobbed, and thumped,
And in record left them the heirs of shame.
Shall these enjoy our lands? Lie with our wives?
Ravish our daughters?

Other books

Bonesetter 2 -Winter- by Laurence E. Dahners
Cut and Come Again by H.E. Bates
Charlie's Last Stand by Flynn, Isabelle
Gemini Rising by Eleanor Wood
Prime Catch by Fridl, Ilona
Black Knight in Red Square by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Prelude to a Rumor, Part One by Melissa Schroeder
Tangled Vines by Bratt, Kay