William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (104 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

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GIRL And so will I.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you well.
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.

BOY

Grannam, we can. For my good uncle Gloucester
Told me the King, provoked to it by the Queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him,
And when my uncle told me so he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kissed my cheek,
Bade me rely on him as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as his child.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice!
He is my son, ay, and therein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.

BOY

Think you my uncle did dissemble, grannam?

DUCHESS OF YORK Ay, boy.

BOY

I cannot think it. Hark, what noise is this?

Enter Queen Elizabeth with her hair about her ears

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep?
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I’ll join with black despair against my soul,
And to myself become an enemy.

DUCHESS OF YORK

What means this scene of rude impatience?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

To mark an act of tragic violence.
Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
That our swift-winged souls may catch the King‘s,
Or like obedient subjects follow him
To his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
As I had title in thy noble husband.
I have bewept a worthy husband’s death,
And lived with looking on his images.
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are cracked in pieces by malignant death,
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left.
But death hath snatched my husband from mine arms
And plucked two crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence and Edward. O what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my moan,
To overgo thy woes, and drown thy cries?

BOY (
to Elizabeth
)

Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father’s death.
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?

DAUGHTER (
to Elizabeth
)

Our fatherless distress was left unmoaned;
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Give me no help in lamentation.
I am not barren to bring forth complaints.
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being governed by the wat’ry moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.
Ah, for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!

CHILDREN

Ah, for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!

DUCHESS OF YORK

Alas, for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What stay had I but Edward, and he’s gone?

CHILDREN

What stay had we but Clarence, and he’s gone?

DUCHESS OF YORK

What stays had I but they, and they are gone?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Was never widow had so dear a loss!

CHILDREN

Were never orphans had so dear a loss!

DUCHESS OF YORK

Was never mother had so dear a loss!
Alas, I am the mother of these griefs.
Their woes are parcelled; mine is general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.
These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I;
I for an Edward weep, so do not they.
Alas, you three on me, threefold distressed,
Pour all your tears. I am your sorrow’s nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentation.

Enter Richard Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of
Buckingham, Lord Stanley Earl of Derby, Lord
Hastings, and Sir Richard Ratcliffe

RICHARD GLOUCESTER (to Elizabeth)

Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause
To wail the dimming of our shining star,
But none can help our harms by wailing them.—
Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy.
I did not see your grace. Humbly on my knee
I crave your blessing.

DUCHESS OF YORK

God bless thee, and put meekness in thy breast,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Amen.
(Aside)
‘And make me die a good old man.’
That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing;
I marvel that her grace did leave it out.

BUCKINGHAM

You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers
That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,
Now cheer each other in each other’s love.
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancour of your high-swoll’n hearts
But lately splinted, knit, and joined together,
Must gently be preserved, cherished, and kept.
Meseemeth good that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young Prince be fet
Hither to London to be crowned our king.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Then be it so, and go we to determine
Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.—
Madam, and you my sister, will you go
To give your censures in this weighty business?

QUEEN ELIZABETH and DUCHESS OF YORK With all our hearts.

Exeunt all but Richard and Buckingham

BUCKINGHAM

My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
For God’s sake let not us two stay at home,
For by the way I’ll sort occasion,
As index to the story we late talked of,
To part the Queen’s proud kindred from the Prince.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

My other self, my counsel’s consistory,
My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin!
I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
Towards Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind.

Exeunt

2.3
Enter one Citizen at one door and another at the
other

FIRST CITIZEN

Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so fast?

SECOND CITIZEN

I promise you, I scarcely know myself.
Hear you the news abroad?

FIRST CITIZEN

Yes, that the King is dead.

SECOND CITIZEN

Ill news, by‘r Lady; seldom comes the better.
I fear, I fear, ’twill prove a giddy world.

Enter another Citizen

THIRD CITIZEN

Neighbours, God speed.

FIRST CITIZEN

Give you good morrow, sir.

THIRD CITIZEN

Doth the news hold of good King Edward’s death?

SECOND CITIZEN

Ay, sir, it is too true. God help the while.

THIRD CITIZEN

Then, masters, look to see a troublous world.

FIRST CITIZEN

No, no, by God’s good grace his son shall reign.

THIRD CITIZEN

Woe to that land that’s governed by a child.

SECOND CITIZEN

In him there is a hope of government,
Which in his nonage council under him,
And in his full and ripened years himself,
No doubt shall then, and till then, govern well.

FIRST CITIZEN

So stood the state when Henry the Sixth
Was crowned in Paris but at nine months old.

THIRD CITIZEN

Stood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot.
For then this land was famously enriched
With politic, grave counsel; then the King
Had virtuous uncles to protect his grace.

FIRST CITIZEN

Why, so hath this, both by his father and mother.

THIRD CITIZEN

Better it were they all came by his father,
Or by his father there were none at all.
For emulation who shall now be near’st
Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.
O full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester,
And the Queen’s sons and brothers haught and proud.
And were they to be ruled, and not to rule,
This sickly land might solace as before.

FIRST CITIZEN

Come, come, we fear the worst. All will be well.

THIRD CITIZEN

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks;
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
All may be well, but if God sort it so
’Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.

SECOND CITIZEN

Truly the hearts of men are full of fear.
You cannot reason almost with a man
That looks not heavily and full of dread.

THIRD CITIZEN

Before the days of change still is it so.
By a divine instinct men’s minds mistrust
Ensuing danger, as by proof we see
The water swell before a boist’rous storm.
But leave it all to God. Whither away?

SECOND CITIZEN

Marry, we were sent for to the justices.

THIRD CITIZEN

And so was I. I’ll bear you company. Exeunt

2.4
Enter ⌈Lord Cardinal⌉, young Duke of York, Queen Elizabeth, and the old Duchess of York

⌈CARDINAL⌉

Last night, I hear, they lay them at Northampton.
At Stony Stratford they do rest tonight.
Tomorrow, or next day, they will be here.

DUCHESS OF YORK

I long with all my heart to see the Prince.
I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

But I hear, no. They say my son of York
Has almost overta’en him in his growth.

YORK

Ay, mother, but I would not have it so.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Why, my young cousin, it is good to grow.

YORK

Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,
My uncle Rivers talked how I did grow
More than my brother. ‘Ay’, quoth my nuncle
Gloucester,
‘Small herbs have grace; gross weeds do grow apace’.
And since, methinks I would not grow so fast,
Because sweet flow’rs are slow, and weeds make
haste.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
In him that did object the same to thee.
He was the wretched’st thing when he was young,
So long a-growing, and so leisurely,
That if his rule were true he should be gracious.

⌈CARDINAL⌉

Why, so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.

DUCHESS OF YORK

I hope he is, but yet let mothers doubt.

YORK

Now, by my troth, if I had been remembered,
I could have given my uncle’s grace a flout
To touch his growth, nearer than he touched mine.

DUCHESS OF YORK

How, my young York? I pray thee, let me hear it.

YORK

Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.
’Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
Grannam, this would have been a biting jest.

DUCHESS OF YORK

I pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?

YORK Grannam, his nurse.

DUCHESS OF YORK

His nurse? Why, she was dead ere thou wast born.

YORK

If ’twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

A parlous boy! Go to, you are too shrewd.

⌈CARDINAL⌉

Good madam, be not angry with the child.

QUEEN ELIZABETH