Act 4 Flashcards
S1 By your patience,
I may not…
suffer you to visit them.
The King hath strictly charged the contrary.
S1 The Lord protect him from that…
kingly title!
Hath he set bounds between their love and me?
I am their mother. Who shall bar me from them?
S1 I am their father’s…
mother. I will see them.
S1 Their aunt I am in…
law, in love their mother.
S1 Come, madam, you must straight to
Westminster…
There to be crownèd Richard’s royal queen.
S1 O Dorset, speak not to me…
Get thee gone.
Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels.
S1 Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughterhouse…
Lest thou increase the number of the dead
And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curse,
Nor mother, wife, nor England’s counted queen.
S1 O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my…
accursèd womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice hast thou hatched to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous
S1 O, would to God that the inclusive verge…
Of golden metal that must round my brow
Were red-hot steel to sear me to the brains!
S1 Anointed let me be with deadly venom…
And die ere men can say “God save the Queen.”
S1 When he that is my husband now
Came to me as I followed…
Henry’s corse,
When scarce the blood was well washed from his
hands
S1 Within so small a time my woman’s heart…
Grossly grew captive to his honey words
S1 For never yet one hour in his bed…
Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,
But with his timorous dreams was still awaked
S1 Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick…
And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.
S1 I to my grave, where peace and…
rest lie with me.
Eighty-odd years of sorrow have I seen,
And each hour’s joy wracked with a week of teen.
S1 Pity, you ancient stones, those tender…
babes
Whom envy hath immured within your walls—
S1 Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.
Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow
For tender princes, use my babies well.
So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.
S2 Give me thy hand–Thus high, by thy advice…
And thy assistance is King Richard seated.
S2 But shall we wear these…
glories for a day,
Or shall they last and we rejoice in them?
S2 Ha! Am I king?..
’Tis so—but Edward lives.
S2 O bitter consequence
That Edward…
still should live “true noble prince”!
Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.
S2 Shall I be plain?..
I wish the bastards dead,
And I would have it suddenly performed.
S2 Tut, tut, thou art all ice…
thy kindness freezes.
Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?
S2 Give me some little breath, some…
pause, dear lord,
Before I positively speak in this.
I will resolve you herein presently
S2 Catesby: (aside to the other Attendants)
The King is angry. See, he gnaws his lip.
S2 I will converse with iron-witted fools
And unrespective boys…
None are for me
That look into me with considerate eyes.
High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.—
Boy!
S2 Know’st thou not any whom corrupting gold…
Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?
S2 The deep-revolving witty Buckingham…
No more shall be the neighbor to my counsels.
Hath he so long held out with me, untired,
And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.
S2 Rumor it abroad
That Anne…
my wife is very grievous sick.
I will take order for her keeping close.
S2 Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman…
Whom I will marry straight to Clarence’ daughter. The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.
S2 I must be married to my brother’s daughter…
Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
S2 Murder her brothers, and then marry her—
Uncertain way of gain. But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
S2 Dar’st thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?
Please you. But I had rather kill two enemies
S2 Why then, thou hast it. Two deep enemies,
Foes to my rest…
and my sweet sleep’s disturbers,
Are they that I would have thee deal upon.
Tyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.
S2 I do remember me, Henry the Sixth…
Did prophesy that Richmond should be king,
When Richmond was a little peevish boy.
S3 The tyrannous and bloody act is done…
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of
S3 Albeit they were fleshed villains…
bloody dogs,
Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,
Wept like two children in their deaths’ sad story.
Dighton and Forrest, who I did…
suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
girdling one another…
Within their alabaster innocent arms.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk…
And in their summer beauty kissed each other.
A book of prayers on their…
pillow lay,
Which once, almost changed my
mind
We smotherèd
The most…
replenishèd sweet work of nature
That from the prime creation e’er she framed.
Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse…
They could not speak; and so I left them both
To bear this tidings to the bloody king.
If to have done the thing you gave in charge…
Beget your happiness, be happy then,
For it is done.
Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at…
after-supper,
When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
The son of Clarence have I pent up close,
His daughter meanly…
have I matched in marriage,
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom,
And Anne my wife hath bid this world goodnight.
Now, for I know the Breton Richmond aims
At young Elizabeth…
my brother’s daughter,
And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,
Bad news, my lord. Morton is fled to Richmond,
And Buckingham…
backed with the hardy Welshmen,
Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.
Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.
We must be brief when traitors brave the field
Here in these confines slyly have I…
lurked
To watch the waning of mine enemies.
Ah, my poor princes! Ah, my tender babes…
My unblown 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.
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?
Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth…
Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.
From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept…
A hellhound that doth hunt us all to death—
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood;
Thy Edward he is dead, that killed…
my Edward…
Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;
I called thee then “vain flourish of my fortune.”
I called thee then poor shadow, “painted queen,”
A 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 are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
Who sues and kneels and says “God save the
Queen?”
O, thou well-skilled in curses, stay awhile…
And teach me how to curse mine enemies.
Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days…
Compare dead happiness with living woe;
Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,
And he that slew them fouler than he is.
Let them have scope, though what they will impart…
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.
A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!..
Let not the heavens hear these telltale women
Rail on the Lord’s anointed. Strike, I say!
A grievous burden was thy…
birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy school days frightful…
desp’rate, 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.
Hear me a word…
For I shall never speak to thee again.
Either thou wilt die by God’s just ordinance
Ere from this war thou turn a…
conqueror,
Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish
And nevermore behold thy face again.
For my daughters, Richard…
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens
So she may live unscarred of bleeding…
slaughter,
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.
No doubt the murd’rous knife was dull and blunt…
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
And I, in such a desp’rate bay of death…
Like a poor bark of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
That thou dost love my daughter from thy…
soul.
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,
I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter…
And do intend to make her Queen of England
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—
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.
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
If I did take the kingdom from your sons…
To make amends I’ll give it to your daughter.
A grandam’s name is little less in…
love
Than is the doting title of a mother.
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,
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
Go then, my mother…
to thy daughter go.
acquaint the Princess…
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed…
To whom I will retail my conquest won,
And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar’s Caesar
Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.
Which she shall purchase with still-lasting war.
Say I will love her everlastingly.
But how long shall that title “ever” last?
Sweetly in force unto her fair life’s end.
But how long fairly shall her sweet life last?
As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.
As long as hell and Richard likes of it.
Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.
O no, my reasons are too deep and dead—
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
Harp not on that…
string, madam; that is past.
Thy George, profaned, hath lost his lordly honor;
Thy Garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;
Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.
Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust…
Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them…
Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.
I go. Write to me very shortly…
And you shall understand from me her mind.
Relenting fool and…
shallow, changing woman!
To our shores
Throng 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.
Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of…
Norfolk—
Ratcliffe thyself, or Catesby. Where is he?
What need’st thou run so many miles about…
When thou mayst tell thy tale the nearest way?
Once more, what news?
Richmond is on the seas.
There let him sink, and be the seas on him!
Stirred up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton…
He makes for England, here to claim the crown.
Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?..
Is 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?
Unless for that he comes to be your liege…
You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.
Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.
Cold friends to me. What do they in the north…
When they should serve their sovereign in the west?
Go then and muster men, but leave behind…
Your son George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,
Or else his head’s assurance is but frail
