King Richard III.

So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burn'd.
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,

And I my poor son's death, ere thou relat'st it.
Now would'st thou say-your son did thus, and thus,
And thus your queen! so fought the valiant Oxford;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But, in the end, (to stop my ear indeed,)
Thou hast a sigh, to blow away this praise,
Ending with-queen and son, and all are dead.

Tressel. Your queen yet lives, and many of your friends; But for my lord, your son

K. Hen. Why, he is dead!-yet speak, I charge thee! Tell thou thy master his suspicion lies,

And I will take it as a kind disgrace,

And thank thee well, for doing me such wrong.

Tressel. 'Would it were wrong to say; but, sir, your fears are true.

K. Hen. Yet for all this, say not my son is dead.
Tressel. Sir, I am sorry I must force you to
Believe, what 'would to Heaven I had not seen!
But in this last battle, near Tewksbury,

Your son, whose active spirit lent a fire
Ev'n to the dullest peasant in our camp,

Still made his way, where danger stood to oppose him.
A braver youth, of more courageous heat,

Ne'er spurr'd his courser at the trumpet's sound.

But who can rule the uncertain. chance of war?

lu fine, King Edward won the bloody field,

Where both your queen and son were made his prisoners.
K. Hen. Yet hold! for, oh! this prologue lets me in
To a most fatal tragedy to come.

Died he a prisoner, say'st thou? how? by grief?
Or by the bloody hands of those that caught him?
Tressel. After the fight, Edward, in triumph, ask'd
To see the captive prince-the prince was brought,
Whom Edward roughly chid for bearing arms;
Asking what reparation he could make
For having stirred his subjects to rebellion?
Your son, impatient of such taunts, replied,
Bow like a subject, proud, ambitious York!
While I, now speaking with my father's mouth,
Propose the self-same rebel words to thee,

Which, traitor, thou would'st have me answer to :
From these, more words arose; till, in the end,
King Edward, swell'd with what th' unhappy prince,
At such a time, too freely spoke, his gauntlet
In his young face with indignation struck;
At which crook'd Richard, Clarence, aud the rest,
Buried their fatal daggers in his heart.

In bloody state I saw him on the earth,

From whence, with life, he never more sprung up.
K. Hen. Oh! hadst thou stabb'd, at every word's de-
liverance,

Sharp poniards in my flesh, while this was told,
Thy wounds had given less anguish than thy words.
Oh, Heavens! methinks I see my tender lamb
Gasping beneath the ravenous wolves' fell gripe!
But say, did all-did they all strike him, say'st thou?
Tressel. All, sir; but the first wound Duke Richard
gave.

K. Hen. There let him stop! be that his last of ills!
Oh, barbarous act! unhospitable men!
Against the rigid laws of arms, to kill him!
Was't not enough, his hope of birthright gone,
But must your hate be levell'd at his life?
Nor could his father's wrongs content you?
Nor could a father's grief dissuade the deed?
You have no children butchers, if you had,
The thought of them would sure have stirr'd remorse.
Tressel. Take comfort, sir, and hope a better day.
K. Hen. Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or wallow, naked, in December's snow,
By bare remembrance of the summer's heat.
Away! by Heaven, I shall abhor his sight,
Whoever bids me be of comfort more ..
If thou wilt sooth my sorrow, then I'll thank thee;'
Ay! now thou'rt kind indeed! these tears oblige me.
Tressel. Ales, my lord, I fear more evil towards you!
K. Hen. Why, let it come; I scarce shall feel it now;
My present woes have beat me to the ground;
And my hard fate can make me fall no lower.
What can it be?give it its ugliest shape
Oh, my poor boy!

Tressel. A word does that; it comes in Gloster's form. K. Hen. Frightful indeed !angive me the worst that threatens.

Tressel. After the murder of your son, stern Richard,
As if unsated with the wounds he had given,

With unwash'd hands went from his friends in haste;
And, being ask'd by Clarence of the cause,
He, low'ring, cried, Brother, I must to the Tower;
I've business there; excuse me to the king:
Before you reach the town, expect some news:
This said, he vanish'd and, I hear, is arrived.
K. Hen. Why, then the period of my woes is set;
For ills, but thought by him, are half perform'd.
Enter LIEUTENANT, with an Order.
Lieut. Forgive me, sir, what I'm compell'd t' obey:
An order for your close confinement.

K. Hen. Whence comes it, good lieutenant?
Lieut. Sir, from the Duke of Gloster.

K. Hen. Good night to all then! I obey it.

And now, good friend, suppose me on my death-bed,
And take of me thy last, short-living, leave.
Nay, keep thy tears, till thou hast seen me dead:
And when, in tedious winter nights, with good
Old folks, thou sitt'st up late,

To hear them tell the dismal tales

Of times long past, ev'n now with woe remember'd,
Before thou bidd'st good night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

And send thy hearers weeping to their beds.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The Tower. Enter GLOSTER.
Glost. Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by the sun of York;
And all the clouds, that low'r'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried:

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarms are changed to merry meetings;
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures:
Grim-visag'd War has smooth'd his wrinkled front,
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute:

But I, that am not made for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an am'rous looking-glass:
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of man's fair proportion,
Cheated of features by dissembling Nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them:
Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away my hours,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun,
Aud descant on my own deformity:
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,
But to command, to check, and o'erbear such
As are of happier person than myself,
Why, then, to me this restless world's but hell,
Till this mis-shapen trunk's aspiring head
Be circled in a glorious diadem

But then 'tis fix'd on such a height; ob, I
Must stretch the utmost reaching of my soul!
I'll climb betimes, without remorse or dread,
And my first step shall be on Henry's head.

[Exit.

SCENE III-A Chamber in the Tower.-KING HENRY sleeping on a Couch.-Enter Lieutenant.

Lieut. Asleep so soon! but Sorrow minds no seasons; The morning, noon, and night, with her's the same; She's fond of any hour that yields repose.

K. Hen. Who's there? Lieutenant! is it you? Come hither!

Lieut. You shake, my lord, and look affrighted! K. Hen. Oh! I have had the fearfull'st dream! such sights,

That, as I live,

I would not pass another hour so dreadful,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
Reach me a book-I'll try if reading can

Divert these melancholy thoughts.

Enter GLOSTER,

Glost. Good day, my lord; what, at your book so hard? I disturb you.

K. Hen. You do indeed.

Glost. Friend, leave us to ourselves; we must confer. K. Hen. What bloody scene has Roscius now to act? [Exit Lieutenant. Glost. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind: The thief does fear each bush an officer.

K. Hen. Where thieves, without controlment, rob and

kill,

The traveller does fear each bush a thief:

The poor bird, that has been already limed,

With trembling wings misdoubts of every bush;
And I, the hapless male of one sweet bird,

Have now the fatal object in my eye,

By whom my young one bled, was caught, and kill'd.
Glost. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,
That taught his son the office of a fowl!

And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd:
Thou should'st have taught thy boy his prayers alone,
And then he had not broke his neck with climbing.

K. Hen. Ah! kill me with thy weapon, not thy words; My breast can better brook thy dagger's point,

Than can my ears that piercing story;

But wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life?
Glost. Think'st thou I am an executioner?

K. Hen. If murdering innocents be executing,

Then thou'rt the worst of executioners.

Glost. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.

K. Hen. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou didst presume,

Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine;

But thou wert born to massacre mankind.

How many old men's sighs, and widow's moans ;

So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burn'd.'
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my poor son's death, ere thou relat'st it.
Now would'st thou say-your son did thus, and thus,
And thus your queen! so fought the valiant Oxford;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But, in the end, (to stop my ear indeed,)
Thou hast a sigh, to blow away this praise,
Ending with-queen and son, and all are dead.