Richard III (5 page)

Taken from
Paul’s
³⁰
to be interrèd there.

They lift the coffin

And
still as
³¹
you are weary of this weight,

Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry’s corpse.

RICHARD
    Stay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.

ANNE
    What black magician conjures up this fiend,

To stop
devoted
³⁵
charitable deeds?

RICHARD
    Villains, set down the corpse, or, by Saint Paul,

I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys.

GENTLEMAN
    My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.

RICHARD
    Unmannered dog, stand’st thou when I command.

Advance
⁴⁰
thy halberd higher than my breast,

Or, by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot,

And
spurn upon
⁴²
thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

They set down the coffin

ANNE
    What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?

Alas. I blame you not, for you are mortal,

And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.—

Avaunt
⁴⁶
, thou dreadful minister of hell!

Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,

His soul thou canst not have: therefore be gone.

RICHARD
    Sweet saint, for charity, be not so
curst.
⁴⁹

ANNE
    Foul devil, for God’s sake,
hence
⁵⁰
, and trouble us not,

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,

Filled it with cursing cries and deep
exclaims.
⁵²

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,

Behold this
pattern
⁵⁴
of thy butcheries.—

Uncovers the body

O, gentlemen, see, see dead Henry’s wounds

Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh.—

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,

For’ tis
thy presence that
exhales
⁵⁸
this blood

From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells.

Thy deeds, inhuman and unnatural,

Provokes this deluge most unnatural.—

O God, which this blood mad’st, revenge his death!

O earth, which this blood drink’st, revenge his death!

Either heav’n with lightning strike the murd’rer dead,

Or earth gape open wide and eat him quick,

As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood

Which his hell-governed arm hath butcherèd!

RICHARD
    Lady, you know no rules of charity,

Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.

ANNE
    Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man:

No beast
so
⁷¹
fierce but knows some touch of pity.

RICHARD
    But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

ANNE
    O,
wonderful
, when
devils tell the truth!
⁷³

RICHARD
    More wonderful, when angels are so angry.

Vouchsafe
⁷⁵
, divine perfection of a woman,

Of these supposèd crimes to give me
leave
⁷⁶
,

By
circumstance
⁷⁷
but to acquit myself.

ANNE
    Vouchsafe,
defused
⁷⁸
infection of man,

Of these known evils, but to give me leave,

By circumstance to curse thy cursèd self.

RICHARD
    Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have

Some patient
leisure
⁸²
to excuse myself.

ANNE
    Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make

No excuse
current
⁸⁴
, but to hang thyself,

RICHARD
    By such
despair
⁸⁵
, I should accuse myself.

ANNE
    And by despairing shalt thou stand excused

For doing
worthy vengeance on thyself
⁸⁷
,

That didst
unworthy
⁸⁸
slaughter upon others.

RICHARD
    Say that I slew them not.

ANNE
    Then say they were not slain.

But dead they are, and devilish
slave
⁹¹
, by thee.

RICHARD
    I did not kill your husband.

ANNE
    Why, then he is alive.

RICHARD
    Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward’s hands.

ANNE
    
In thy foul throat thou liest
⁹⁵
: Queen Margaret saw

Thy murd’rous
falchion
⁹⁶
smoking in his blood,

The which thou
once
⁹⁷
didst bend against her breast,

But that thy brothers beat aside the point.

RICHARD
    I was provokèd by her sland’rous tongue,

That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.

ANNE
    Thou wast provokèd by thy bloody mind,

That never dream’st on
aught
¹⁰²
but butcheries.

Didst thou not kill this king?

RICHARD
    I grant ye.

ANNE
    Dost grant me,
hedgehog?
¹⁰⁵
Then, God grant me too

Thou mayst be damnèd for that wicked deed.

O, he was gentle, mild and virtuous!

RICHARD
    The better for the king of heaven that hath him.

ANNE
    He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come,

RICHARD
    Let him thank me, that
holp
¹¹⁰
to send him thither,

For he was fitter for that place than earth.

ANNE
    And thou unfit for any place but hell.

RICHARD
    Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.

ANNE
    Some dungeon.

RICHARD
    Your
bedchamber.
¹¹⁵

ANNE
    Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest.

RICHARD
    So will it, madam, till I lie with you.

ANNE
    
I hope so.
¹¹⁸

RICHARD
    I know so, But, gentle Lady Anne,

To leave this
keen
encounter of our wits
¹²⁰
,

And fall something into a slower method:

Is not the causer of the
timeless
¹²²
deaths

Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,

As blameful as the executioner?

ANNE
    Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect.

RICHARD
    Your beauty was the cause of that
effect.
¹²⁵

Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep

To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

ANNE
    If I thought that, I tell thee,
homicide
¹³⁰
,

These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

RICHARD
    These eyes could never endure that beauty’s wreck.

You should not blemish it, if I stood by:

As all the world is cheerèd by the sun,

So I by that: it is my day, my life.

ANNE
    Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life.

RICHARD
    Curse not thyself, fair creature:
thou art both.
¹³⁷

ANNE
    I
would
¹³⁸
I were, to be revenged on thee.

RICHARD
    It is a quarrel most unnatural

To be revenged on him that loveth thee.

ANNE
    It is a quarrel just and reasonable

To be revenged on him that killed my husband.

RICHARD
    He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,

Did it to help thee to a better husband.

ANNE
    His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

RICHARD
    
He lives
¹⁴⁶
that loves thee better than he could.

ANNE
    Name him.

RICHARD
    
Plantagenet.
¹⁴⁸

ANNE
    Why, that was he.

RICHARD
    The selfsame name, but one of better nature.

ANNE
    Where is he?

RICHARD
    Here.

                Why dost thou spit at me?

ANNE
    Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake.

RICHARD
    Never came poison from so sweet a place.

ANNE
    Never hung poison on a fouler toad.

Out of my sight, thou dost infect mine eyes.

RICHARD
    Thine eyes, sweet lady, have
infected mine.
¹⁵⁷

ANNE
    Would they were
basilisks
¹⁵⁸
, to strike thee dead.

RICHARD
    I would they were, that I might
die
¹⁵⁹
at once,

For now they kill me with a living death.

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

Shamed their
aspects
¹⁶²
with store of childish drops:

These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear —

No, when
¹⁶⁴
my father York and Edward wept,

To hear the piteous moan that
Rutland
¹⁶⁵
made

When
black-faced
¹⁶⁶
Clifford shook his sword at him,

Nor when thy warlike
father
¹⁶⁷
, like a child,

Told the sad story of my father’s death,

And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,

That
¹⁷⁰
all the standers-by had wet their cheeks

Like trees
bedashed
¹⁷¹
with rain: in that sad time,

My manly eyes did scorn an
humble
¹⁷²
tear.

And what these sorrows could not thence
exhale
¹⁷³
,

Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

I never
sued
¹⁷⁵
to friend nor enemy:

My tongue could never learn sweet
smoothing
¹⁷⁶
word.

But now thy beauty is proposed my
fee
¹⁷⁷
,

My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made

For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,

Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,

Which if thou please to hide in this true breast.

↓Kneels↓

And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,

I lay it naked to the deadly stroke

And humbly beg the death upon my knee.

Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry —

But ’twas thy beauty that provokèd me.

Nay, now dispatch: ’twas I that stabbed young Edward —

But ’twas thy heavenly face that
set me on.
¹⁹⁰

Take up the sword again, or
take up me.
¹⁹¹

ANNE
    Arise,
dissembler.
¹⁹²
Though I wish thy death,

I will not be thy executioner.

RICHARD
    Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

Takes his sword back

ANNE
    I have already.

RICHARD
    That was in thy rage:

Speak it again, and even with the word,

This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,

Shall for thy love kill a far
truer love.
¹⁹⁹

To both their deaths shalt thou be accessory.

ANNE
    I would I knew thy heart.

RICHARD
    ’Tis
figured in
²⁰²
my tongue.

ANNE
    I fear me both are false.

RICHARD
    Then never man was true.

ANNE
    Well, well, put up your sword.

RICHARD
    Say, then, my peace is made.

ANNE
    That shalt thou know hereafter.

RICHARD
    But shall I live in hope?

ANNE
    All men, I hope, live so.