Riv. My Lord of Gloster, in those busy days Which here you urge to prove us enemies, We followed then our lord, our lawful king: So should we you, if you should be our king. Glo. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar : Far be it from my heart, the thought of it!

Q. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose You should enjoy, were you this country's king, As little joy may you suppose in me,

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.—

Q. Mar. [Aside.] As little joy enjoys the queen thereof;

For I am she, and altogether joyless.

I can no longer hold me patient.

[Advancing. Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out In sharing that which you have pilled from me! Which of you trembles not that looks on me? If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects, Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels ? O gentle villain, do not turn away!

Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight?

Q. Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marred; That will I make before I let thee go.

Glo. Wert thou not banishéd on pain of death }
Q. Mar. I was ;

But I do find more pain in banishment
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a son thou ow'st to me ;—
And thou a kingdom;—all of you allegiance:
The sorrow that I have, by right is yours,
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

Glo. The curse my noble father laid on thee, When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper

And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,
And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout
Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland,—
His curses, then from bitterness of soul
Denounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
Q. Eliz. So just is God, to right the innocent.
Hast. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!
Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was re-
ported.

Dor. No man but prophesied revenge for it. Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.

Q. Mar. What! were you snarling all before I

came,

Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?

Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick

curses!

If not by war, by surfeit die your king,

As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,
For Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales
Die in his youth by like untimely violence!
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss
And see another, as I see thee now,

;

Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine!
Long die thy happy days before thy death;
And, after many lengthened hours of grief
Die, neither mother, wife, nor England's queen !—
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,-

And so wast thou, Lord Hastings,-when my son
Was stabbed with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by some unlooked accident cut off!

Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful withered hag!

Q. Mar. And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.

If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation

On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul !
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour! thou detested-

Glo. Margaret.

Q. Mar.

Glo.

Q. Mar.

Richard!

Ha!

I call thee not.

Glo. I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought That thou hadst called me all these bitter names. Q. Mar. Why, so I did; but looked for no reply. O, let me make the period to my curse!

Glo. 'Tis done by me, and ends in Margaret.' Q. Eliz. Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.

Q. Mar. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!

Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come when thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-backed
toad.

Hast. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse, Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

Q. Mar. Foul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.

Riv. Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.

Q. Mar. To serve me well, you all should do me

duty,

Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects : O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty! Dor. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.

Q. Mar. Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:

Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current. O, that your young nobility could judge

What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!

They that stand high have many blasts to shake

them;

And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Glo. Good counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.

Dor. It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me. Glo. Yea, and much more: but I was born so high, Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

Q. Mar. And turns the sun to shade ; alas! alas! Witness my son, now in the shade of death; Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

Buck. Peace, peace! for shame, if not for charity. Q. Mar. Urge neither charity nor shame to me : Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully by you my hopes are butchered.
My charity is outrage, life my shame;

And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage !
Buck. Have done, have done.

Q. Mar. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy hand,

In sign of league and amity with thee:
Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

Buck. Nor no one here; for curses never pass The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

Q. Mar. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he hites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;