Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven ?-
Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!—
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,'
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward, thy son, that now is prince of Wales,
For Edward, my son, that 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 while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog! 2

1 Alluding to his luxurious life.

2 "Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog." It was an old prejudice, which is not yet quite extinct, that those who are defective or deformed, are marked by nature as prone to mischief. She calls him hog, in allusion to

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 honor! thou detested-
Glo. Margaret!

Q. Mar.

Glo.

Q. Mar.

Richard!

Ha!

I call thee not.

Glo. I cry thee mercy then; for I did think 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 day will come, that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse this 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.

his cognizance, which was a boar. "The expression (says Warburton) is fine; remembering her youngest son, she alludes to the ravage which hogs make with the finest flowers in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her sons." The rhyme for which Collingborne was executed, as given by Heywood in his Metrical History of King Edward IV., will illustrate this:

"The cat, the rat, and Lovell our dog,

Doe rule all England under a hog.

The crooke backt boore the way hath found

To root our roses from our ground,

Both flower and bud will he confound,

Till king of beasts the swine be crowned:

And then the dog, the cat, and rat

Shall in his trough feed and be fat."

The persons aimed at in this rhyme, were the king, Catesby, Ratcliff, and Lovell.

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.
Dors. Dispute not with her, she is lunatic.

Q. Mar. Peace, master marquis, you are malapert.
Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current;1
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, marquis.

Dors. It touches you, my lord, as much as me. Glo. Ay, and much more. But I was born so high, Our aiery 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, outshining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aiery buildeth in our aiery'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 my shame still live my sorrow's rage!
Buck. Have done, have done.

Q. Mar. O, princely Buckingham, I kiss thy hand, In sign of league and amity with thee.

1 He was created marquis of Dorset in 1476. The scene is laid in 1477-8.

2 Aiery for brood. This word properly signified a brood of eagles, or hawks; though in later times often used for the nest of those birds of prey. Its etymology is from eyren, eggs; and we accordingly sometimes find it spelled eyry.

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, beware of yonder dog;

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and, when he bites, His venom tooth will rankle to the death.

Have not to do with him, beware of him;

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him ;
And all their ministers attend on him.

Glo. What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buck. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Q. Mar. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle

counsel ?

And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
O, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow;
And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.-
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God's ?1 [Exit.
Hast. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
Riv. And so doth mine; I muse, why she's at

liberty.

1

Glo. I cannot blame her, by God's holy mother; She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof, that I have done to her.

Q. Eliz. I never did her any, to my knowledge.
Glo. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do somebody good,

That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid.

1 It is evident, from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor retained all their Lancastrian prejudices, even in the reign of queen Elizabeth. He seems to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which queen Margaret had ranted against them; and he could not give that weight to her curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them.— Walpole.

He is franked' up to fatting for his pains ;-
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!

Riv. A virtuous and a Christianlike conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scath to us.
Glo. So do I ever, being well advised ;-
For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

Enter CATESBY.

[Aside.

Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you,And for your grace,-and you, my noble lords.

Q. Eliz. Catesby, I come.-Lords, will you go with me?

Riv. Madam, we will attend upon your grace.

[Exeunt all but GLOSTER. Glo. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs that I set abroach,

I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence,-whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls;

Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham;
And tell them-'tis the queen and her allies,
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it; and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey.
But then I sigh, and with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them-that God bids us do good for evil;
And thus I clothe my naked villany

With old odd ends, stolen forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Enter Two Murderers.

But soft, here come my executioners.

How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates?
Are you now going to despatch this thing?

1 Murd. We are, my lord; and come to have the

warrant,

That we may be admitted where he is.

1 A frank is a pen or coop in which hogs and other animals were confined while fatting. To franch, or frank, was to cram, to fatten.