Richard III

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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Third Citizen
Doth the news hold of good King Edward’s death?
Second Citizen
Ay, sir, it is too true, God help the while.
Third Citizen
Then, masters, look to see a troublous world.
First Citizen
No, no, by God’s good grace, his son shall reign.
Third Citizen
Woe to that land that’s governed by a child.
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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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Richard, to Prince Edward
Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts’ sovereign.
The weary way hath made you melancholy.
Prince
No, uncle, but our crosses on the way
Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.
I want more uncles here to welcome me.

Your Grace attended to their sugared words
But looked not on the poison of their hearts.
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Hastings
On what occasion God He knows, not I,
The Queen your mother and your brother York
Have taken sanctuary. The tender prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.
Buckingham
Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers!—Lord Cardinal,
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Prince Edward
Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?
Richard
Where it seems best unto your royal self.
If I may counsel you, some day or two
Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower;
Then where you please and shall be thought most fit
For your best health and recreation.
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York
I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.
Richard
My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart.
Prince
A beggar, brother?
York
Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,
And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.

To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,
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Buckingham, to Richard
Think you, my lord, this little prating York
Was not incensèd by his subtle mother
To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?
Richard
No doubt, no doubt. O, ’tis a parlous boy,
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.
He is all the mother’s, from the top to toe.

If thou dost find him tractable to us,
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