Act IIScene II
Another Room in the palace
Enter the old Duchess of York with the two Children of Clarence.
Boy
Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?
Duchess
No, boy.
Girl
Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,And cry “O Clarence, my unhappy son”?
Boy
Why do you look on us, and shake your head,And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,If that our noble father were alive?
Duchess
My pretty cousins, you mistake me both.I do lament the sickness of the King,As loath to lose him, not your father’s death.It were lost sorrow to wail one that’s lost.
Boy
Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.The King mine uncle is to blame for it.God will revenge it, whom I will importuneWith earnest prayers all to that effect.
Girl
And so will I.
Duchess
Peace, children, peace. The King doth love you well.Incapable and shallow innocents,You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.
Boy
Grandam, we can, for my good uncle GloucesterTold 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
Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,And with a virtuous visard 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, grandam?
Duchess
Ay, boy.
Boy
I cannot think it. Hark, what noise is this?
Enter Queen Elizabeth with her hair about her ears, Rivers and Dorset after her.
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 soulAnd to myself become an enemy.
Duchess
What means this scene of rude impatience?
Queen Elizabeth
To make 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’sOr, like obedient subjects, follow himTo his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night.
Duchess
Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrowAs I had title in thy noble husband.I have bewept a worthy husband’s death,And lived by looking on his images;But now two mirrors of his princely semblanceAre 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 armsAnd 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
Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father’s death.How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
Girl
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 watery 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
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
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
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.
Dorset
Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeasedThat you take with unthankfulness His doing.In common worldly things ’tis called ungratefulWith dull unwillingness to repay a debtWhich with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
Rivers
Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;Let him be crowned; in him your comfort lives.Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave,And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.
Enter Richard, Buckingham, Stanley Earl of Derby, Hastings and Ratcliffe.
Richard
Sister, have comfort. All of us have causeTo 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 kneeI crave your blessing.
Kneels.
Duchess
God bless thee, and put meekness in thy breast,Love, charity, obedience, and true duty.
Richard
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 peersThat 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 hates,But lately splintered, knit, and joined together,Must gently be preserved, cherished, and kept.Me seemeth good that with some little train,Forthwith from Ludlow the young Prince be fetHither to London, to be crowned our King.
Rivers
Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?
Buckingham
Marry, my lord, lest by a multitudeThe new-healed wound of malice should break out,Which would be so much the more dangerousBy how much the estate is green and yet ungoverned.Where every horse bears his commanding reinAnd may direct his course as please himself,As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
Richard
I hope the King made peace with all of us;And the compact is firm and true in me.
Rivers
And so in me, and so, I think, in all.Yet since it is but green, it should be putTo no apparent likelihood of breach,Which haply by much company might be urged.Therefore I say with noble BuckinghamThat it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.
Hastings
And so say I.
Richard
Then be it so, and go we to determineWho they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.Madam, and you, my sister, will you goTo give your censures in this business?
Exeunt all but Buckingham and Richard.
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
My other self, my counsel’s consistory,My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,I, as a child, will go by thy direction.Toward Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind.
Exeunt.