QUEEN

If he were dead, what would betide on me? The lose of such a Lord, includes all harms. Ah! he is young; and his minority Is put unto the trust of Richard Glouster, A man that loves not me, nor none of you. It is determined, not concluded yet: But so it must be, if the King miscarry. The Countess Richmond, good my L. of Derby. To your good prayer, will scarcely say, Amen. Yet Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife, And loves not me, be you good Lord assured, I hate not you for her proud arrogance. Saw you the King to day my Lord of Derby. God grant him health, did you confer with him? Would all were well, but that will never be, I fear our happiness is at the height. Brother of Glouster, you mistake the matter: The King on his own Royal disposition, (And not provoked by any Suitor else) Aiming (belike) at your interior hatred, That in your outward Actium shows it self Against my Children, Brother's, and my Self, Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground. Come, come, we know your meaning Brother Gloucester You envy my advancement, and my friends: God grant we never may have need of you. By him that raised me to this careful height, From that contented hap which I enjoyed, I never did incense his Majesty Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been And earnest advocate to plead for him. My Lord you do me shameful injury, Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects. My Lord of Glouster, I have too long born Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs: By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty Of those gross taunts that oft I have endured. I had rather be a Country servant maid Then a great Queen, with this condition, To be so baited, scorned, and stormed at, Small joy have I in being England's Queen. As little joy (my Lord) as you suppose You should enjoy, were you this Countries King, As little joy you may suppose in me, That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof. So joust is God, to right the innocent. Thus have you breathed your Curse against your self. Catesby I come, Lords will you go with me. There Hastings, I will never more remember Our former hatred, so thrive I, and mine. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter: I would to God all strifes were well compounded. My Sovereign Lord, I do beseech your Highness To take our Brother Clarence to your Grace. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this? Ah! who shall hinder me to wail and weep? To chide my Fortune, and torment my Self. I'll join with black despair against my Soul, And to my self, become and enemy. To make and 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 Kings, Or Like obedient Subjects follow him, To his new Kingdom of never-changing night. 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 watery Moon, May send forth plenteous tears to drown the World. Ah, for my Husband, for my deer Lord Edward. What stay had I but Edward, and he's gone? Was never widow had so deer a lose. But I hear no, they say my son of York Ha almost ouertane him in his growth. A perilous Boy: go too, you are too shrewed. Pitchers have ears. How does the Prince? Aye me! I see the ruin of my House: The Tiger now hath seized the gentle Hind, Insulting Tyranny begins to Iutt Upon the innocent and aweless Throne: Welcome Destruction, Blood, and Massacre, I see (as in a Map) the end of all. Come, come my Boy, we will to Sanctuary Madam, farewell. You have no cause. As much to you, good Sister: whither away? Kind Sister thanks, we'll enter all together: And in good time, here the Lieutenant comes. Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave, How does the Prince, and my young Son of York ? The King? who's that? 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? Ah, cut my Lace asunder, That my penned heart may have some scope to Beatrice, Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news. Oh Dorset, speak not to me, get thee gone, Death and Destruction dogs thee at thy heals, Thy Mother's Name is ominous to Children. If thou wilt outstrip Death, go cross the Seas, And live with Richmond, from the reach of Hell. Go hie thee, hie thee from this slaughterhouse, Lest thou increase the number of the dead, And make me die the thrall of Margarets Curse, Nor Mother, Wife, nor England's counted Queen. Go, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory, To feed my humour, wish thy self no harm. Poor heart adieu, I pity thy complaining. Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower. Pity, you ancient Stones, those tender Babes, Whom Envy hath immured within your Walls, 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. Ah my poor Princes! ah my tender Babes: My vnblowed 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 ayery wings, And hear your mother's Lamentation. Wilt thou, Oh 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? Ah that thou wouldst assoon afford a Grave, As thou canst yield a melancholy sear: Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here, Ah who hath any cause to mourn but we? Oh thou didst prophesy, the time would come, That I should wish for thee to help me curse That bottel'd Spider, that foul bunch-backed Toad. Oh thou well skilled in Curses, stay awhile, And teach me how to curse mine enemies. My words are dull, Oh quicken them with thine. Windy Attorneys to their Clients Woes, Ayery succeeders of intestine joys, Poor breathing Orators of Misery's, Let them have scope, though what they will impart, Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart. Hidest thou that Forehead with a Golden Crown Where't 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 Brother's. Tell me thou Villaine-flaue, where are my Children? Where is the gentle Rivers, Ʋ aughan, Grey? Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse Abides in me, I say Amen to her. I 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. And must she die for this? Oh let her live, And I'll corrupt her Manners, stain her Beauty, Slander my Self, as false to Edwards bed: Throw over her the veil of Infamy, So she may live unscarred of bleeding slaughter, I will confess she was not Edwards daughter. To save her life, I'll say she is not so. And only in that safety, died her Brother's. No, to their lives, ill friends were contrary. True: when avoided grace makes Destiny. My Babes were destined to a fairer death, If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life. Cousin's indeed, and by their Uncle couzend, Of Comfort, Kingdom, Kindred, Freedom, Life, Whose hand soever launched 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. But 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 rose, Rush all to pieces on thy Rocky bosom. What good is covered with the face of heaven, To be discovered, that can do me good. Up to some Scaffold, there to loose their heads. Flatter my sorrow with report of it: Tell me, what State, what Dignity, what Honour, Canst thou demise to any child of mine. Be brief, least that the process of thy kindness Last longer telling then thy kindness date. My daughters Mother thinks it with her soul. That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul So from thy Souls love didst thou love her Brother's, And from my hearts love, I do thank thee for it. Well then, who dost y u mean shall her King. What, thou? How canst thou woo her? And wilt thou learn of me? Send to her by the man that slew her Brother's, 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 hand-kercheefe, which say to her did dreyne 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: Tell her, thou madest away her Uncle Clarence, Her Uncle Rivers, I (and for her sake) Madest quick conveyance with her good Aunt Anne. There is no other way, Unless thou couldst put on some other shape, And not be Richard, that hath done all this. Nay then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee Having bought love, with such a bloody spoil. 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 Brother's, and her Uncles? Under what Title shall I woo for thee, That God, the Law, my Honour, and her Love, Can make seem pleasing to her tender years? That at her hands, which the kings King forbids. To veil the Title, as her Mother does. But how long shall that title ever last? But how long fairly shall her sweet life last? But she your Subject, loathes such Sovereignty. And honest tale speeds best, being plainly told. Plain and not honest, is too harsh a style. Oh no, my Reasons are too deep and dead, Too deep and dead (poor Infants) in their graves, Harp on it still shall I, till heartstrings break. Profaned, dishonoured, and the third usurped. By nothing, for this is no Oath: Thy George profaned, hath lost his Lordly Honour; Thy 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. Thy Self, is selfe-misvs'd. It's full of thy foul wrongs. Thy life hath it dishonoured. Heavens wrong is most of all: If thou didst fear to break and Oath with him, The unity the King my husband made, Thou hadst not broken, nor my Brother's died. If thou hadst feared to break and oath by him, the Imperial mettle, circling now thy head, Had graced the tender temples of my Child, And both the Princes had be breathing here, Which now two tender Bedfellows for dust, Thy broken Faith hath made the prey for Worms. What canst thou swear by now. That thou hast wronged in the time ore-past: For I my self have many tears to wash Hereafter time, for time passed, wronged by thee. The Children live, whose Father's thou hast slaughtered, Ungoverned youth, to wail it with 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 Misused ere used, by times illused repast. Shall I be tempted of the Devil thus? Shall I forget my self, to be my self. Yet thou didst kill my Children. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will? I go, write to me very shortly, And you shall understand from me her mind. What likelihood of his amendment Lords. Which she shall purchase with still lasting war. As long as Hell and Richard likes of it.