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Enter King Richard, and his Train, marching.

K. Rich. Who intercepts me in my expedition? Duch. O, she, that might have intercepted thee, By strangling thee in her accursed womb, From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done. Q. Eliz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden

crown,

Where should be branded, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown,'
And the dire death of my poor sons, and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children?
Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother
Clarence?

And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey? Duch. Where is kind Hastings?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets!-strike alarum, drums! Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord's anointed: Strike, I say.

[Flourish. Alarums.

Either be patient, and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
Duch. Art thou my son?

K. Rich. Ay; I thank God, my father, and yourself.
Duch. Then patiently hear my impatience.

K. Rich. Madam, I have a touch of your condition, 2 That cannot brook the accent of reproof.

1

Duch. O, let me speak.

K. Rich.

Do, then; but I'll not hear.

Duch. I will be mild and gentle in my words.

K. Rich. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.

that ow'd that crown,] i. e. that possessed it.

• — a touch of your condition,] A spice or particle of your temper or disposition.

Duch. Art thou so hasty? I have staid for thee,
God knows, in torment and in agony.

K. Rich. And came I not at last to comfort you 1?
Duch. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,
Thou cam❜st on earth to make the earth my hell.
A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy school-days, frightful, desperate, wild, and furious; Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous; Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody; More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred: What comfortable hour canst thou name,

That ever grac'd me in thy company?

5

K. Rich. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd your grace

To breakfast once, forth of my company.

If I be so disgracious in your sight,
Let me march on, and not offend
Strike up the drum.

Duch.

madam. you,

--

I pr'ythee, hear me speak.

Hear me a word,

K. Rich. You speak too bitterly.

Dhuch.

For I shall never speak to thee again.

K. Rich. So.

Duch. Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance,

Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;

Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,

And never look upon thy face again.

Therefore, take with thee my most heavy curse;
Which, in the day of battle, tire thee more,

3 Tetchy-] Is touchy, peevish, fretful, ill-tempered.

• That ever grac'd me-] To grace seems here to mean the same as to bless, to make happy. So, gracious is kind, and graces are favours.

JOHNSON.

5 ·Humphrey Hour,] I believe nothing more than a quibble was meant. In our poet's twentieth Sonnet we find a similar conceit; a quibble between hues (colours) and Hughes, (formerly spelt Hewes) the person addressed. MALONE.

Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!
My prayers on the adverse party fight;
And there the little souls of Edward's children
Whisper the spirits of thine enemies,

And promise them success and victory.
Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;

Shame serves thy life, and doth thy death attend.

[Exit. Q. Eliz. Though far more cause, yet much less spirit

to curse

Abides in me; I say amen to her.

[Going.

K. Rich. Stay, madam7, I must speak a word with

you.

Q. Eliz. I have no more sons of the royal blood, For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard, They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens; And therefore level not to hit their lives.

K. Rich. You have a daughter call'd - Elizabeth, Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

Q. Eliz. And must she die for this? O, let her live,
And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;
Slander myself, as false to Edward's bed;
Throw over her the veil of infamy:

So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,
I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.

K. Rich. Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.

6 Shame serves thy life,] To serve is to accompany, servants being near the persons of their masters.

7 Stay, madam,] On this dialogue'tis not necessary to bestow much criticism; part of it is ridiculous, and the whole improbable. — JOHNSON.

I cannot agree with Dr. Johnson's opinion. I see nothing ridiculous in any part of this dialogue; and with respect to probability, it was not unnatural that Richard, who by his art and wheedling tongue had prevailed on lady Anne to marry him in her heart's extremest grief, should hope to persuade an ambitious, and, as he thought her, a wicked woman, to consent to his marriage with her daughter, which would make her a queen, and aggrandize her family. M. MASON.

Q. Eliz. To save her life, I'll say - she is not so.
K. Rich. Her life is safest only in her birth.

Q. Eliz. And only in that safety died her brothers. K. Rich. Lo, at their births good stars were opposite. Q. Eliz. No, to their lives bad friends were contrary. K. Rich. All unavoided is the doom of destiny. Q. Eliz. True, when avoided grace makes destiny: My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,

If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.

K. Rich. You speak, as if that I had slain my cou

sins.

Q. Eliz. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.

Whose hands soever lanc'd their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction:

No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt,
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.

But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys,
Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;
And I, in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.

K. Rich. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprize,
And dangerous success of bloody wars,
As I intend more good to you and yours,
Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd !

Q. Eliz. What good is cover'd with the face of heaven,

To be discover'd, that can do me good?

K. Rich. The advancement of your children, gentle

lady.

Q. Eliz. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?

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K. Rich. No, to the dignity and height of fortune, The high imperial type1 of this earth's glory.

Q. Eliz. Flatter my sorrows with report of it; Tell me, what state, what dignity, what honour, Canst thou demise 2 to any child of mine?

K. Rich. Even all I have; ay, and myself and all, Will I withal endow a child of thine;

So in the lethe of thy angry soul

Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs,
Which, thou supposest, I have done to thee.

Q. Eliz. Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.

K. Rich. Then know, that, from my soul, I love thy daughter.

Q. Eliz. My daughter's mother thinks it with her soul.

K. Rich. What do you think?

Q. Eliz. That thou dost love my daughter, from thy

soul:

So, from thy soul's love, didst thou love her brothers; And, from my heart's love, I do thank thee for it.

K. Rich. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning; I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter, And do intend to make her queen of England.

Q. Eliz. Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?

K. Rich. Even he, that makes her queen; Who else should be?

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1 The high imperial type-] Type is exhibition, show, display, or perhaps, emblem.

Canst thou demise-] To demise is to grant, from demittere, to devolve a right from one to another.

+"I, even I; what think, &c.' MALONE.'

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