Duchess of York

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-wingèd souls may catch the King’s,
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Boy, to Queen Elizabeth
Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father’s death.
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
Daughter, to Queen Elizabeth
Our fatherless distress was left unmoaned.
Your widow-dolor likewise be unwept!

Alas, I am the mother of these griefs.

Queen Elizabeth
Give me no help in lamentation.
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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 Gloucester
Told me the King, provoked to it by the Queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him;
And when my uncle told me so,
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Queen Elizabeth
Ay me! I see the ruin of my house.
The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind.
Insulting tyranny begins to jut
Upon the innocent and aweless throne.
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre.
I see, as in a map, the end of all.

Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre.
I see, as in a map,
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Duchess, to Dorset
Go thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee.
To Anne.
Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee.
To Queen Elizabeth.
Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee.
I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me.
Eighty-odd years of sorrow have I seen,
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Queen Margaret
So now prosperity begins to mellow
And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
Here in these confines slyly have I lurked
To watch the waning of mine enemies.
A dire induction am I witness to,
And will to France, hoping the consequence
Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret.
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Queen Elizabeth
O, thou well-skilled in curses, stay awhile,
And teach me how to curse mine enemies.
Queen Margaret
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.
Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse.
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Duchess
O, let me speak!
Richard
Do then, but I’ll not hear.
Duchess
I will be mild and gentle in my words.
Richard
And brief, good mother, for I am in haste.
Duchess
Art thou so hasty? I have stayed for thee,
God knows, in torment and in agony.
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Duchess
Alack, poor Richard! Where rode he the whilst?
York
As in a theater the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,

But heaven hath a hand in these events,
To whose high will we bound our calm contents.

Thinking his prattle to be tedious,
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Henry IV
Rise up, good aunt.
Duchess of York
Not yet, I thee beseech.
Forever will I walk upon my knees
And never see day that the happy sees,
Till thou give joy, until thou bid me joy
By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
Aumerle, kneeling
Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.
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