37
And thus I prophesy: that many a thousand
38
Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,
39
And many an old man’s sigh, and many a widow’s
40
And many an orphan’s water-standing eye,
41
Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,
42
Orphans for their parents’ timeless death,
43
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
44
The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign;
45
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
46
Dogs howled, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
47
The raven rooked her on the chimney’s top;
48
And chatt’ring pies in dismal discords sung;
49
Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain,
50
And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope:
51
To wit, an indigested and deformèd lump,
52
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
53
Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born
54
To signify thou cam’st to bite the world.
55
And if the rest be true which I have heard,
56
Thou cam’st—
57
RICHARD
I’ll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech;
58
Stabs him.
For this amongst the rest was I ordained.
59
KING HENRY
Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.
60
O God, forgive my sins, and pardon thee.
61
Dies.
RICHARD
What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
62
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
63
See how my sword weeps for the poor king’s death.
64
O, may such purple tears be always shed
65
From those that wish the downfall of our house.
66
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
67
Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither—
68
Stabs him again.
I that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
69
Indeed, ’tis true that Henry told me of,
70
For I have often heard my mother say
71
I came into the world with my legs forward.
72
Had I not reason, think you, to make haste
73
And seek their ruin that usurped our right?
74
The midwife wondered, and the women cried
75
“O Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!”
76
And so I was, which plainly signified
77
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
78
Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
79
Let hell make crook’d my mind to answer it.
80
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
81
And this word “love,” which graybeards call divine,
82
Be resident in men like one another
83
And not in me. I am myself alone.
84
Clarence, beware; thou keep’st me from the light,
85
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
86
For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
87
That Edward shall be fearful of his life;
88
And then to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death.
89
King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.
90
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,
91
Counting myself but bad till I be best.
92
I’ll throw thy body in another room,
93
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
94
He exits,
Flourish. Enter King Queen
Clarence, Richard Hastings, Nurse,
and Attendants.
KING EDWARD
Once more we sit in England’s royal throne,
1
Repurchased with the blood of enemies.
2
What valiant foemen, like to autumn’s corn,
3
Have we mowed down in tops of all their pride!
4
Three dukes of Somerset, threefold
5
For hardy and undoubted champions;
6
Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;
7
And two Northumberlands; two braver men
8
Ne’er spurred their coursers at the trumpet’s sound.
9
With them the two brave bears, Warwick and
10
Montague,
11
That in their chains fettered the kingly lion
12
And made the forest tremble when they roared.
13
Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat
14
And made our footstool of security.—
15
Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.—
16
Young Ned, for thee, thine uncles and myself
17
Have in our armors watched the winter’s night,
18
Went all afoot in summer’s scalding heat,
19
That thou mightst repossess the crown in peace,
20
And of our labors thou shalt reap the gain.
21
RICHARD,
