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Richard III: Act I, Scene 3

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Richard III
Act I, Scene 3

London. The palace.

Copper-alloy boar mount possibly worn by a supporter of Richard III

Thou elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog!

Copper-alloy boar mount possibly worn by a supporter of Richard III

Richard's personal symbol was the boar. This mount, found on the Thames in 2012, would have been mounted on a helmet to show support for Richard.

  1. Enter the Queen Mother Elizabeth, Lord Rivers, Marquess of Dorset, and Lord Grey.

Rivers

1 - 2
  1. Have patience, madam, there’s no doubt his Majesty
  2. Will soon recover his accustom’d health.

Grey

3 - 5
  1. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;
  2. Therefore for God’s sake entertain good comfort,
  3. And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.

Queen Elizabeth

6
  1. If he were dead, what would betide on me?

Grey

7
  1. No other harm but loss of such a lord.

Queen Elizabeth

8
  1. The loss of such a lord includes all harms.

Grey

9 - 10
  1. The heavens have blest you with a goodly son
  2. To be your comforter when he is gone.

Queen Elizabeth

11 - 13
  1. Ah! He is young; and his minority
  2. Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
  3. A man that loves not me, nor none of you.

Rivers

14
  1. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?

Queen Elizabeth

15 - 16
  1. It is determin’d, not concluded yet;
  2. But so it must be, if the King miscarry.
  1. Enter Buckingham and Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby.

Grey

17
  1. Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.

Duke of Buckingham

18
  1. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!

Stanley

19
  1. God make your Majesty joyful, as you have been!

Queen Elizabeth

20 - 24
  1. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby,
  2. To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
  3. Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife
  4. And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur’d
  5. I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stanley

25 - 29
  1. I do beseech you, either not believe
  2. The envious slanders of her false accusers;
  3. Or if she be accus’d on true report,
  4. Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
  5. From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.

Queen Elizabeth

30
  1. Saw you the King today, my Lord of Derby?

Stanley

31 - 32
  1. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
  2. Are come from visiting his Majesty.

Queen Elizabeth

33
  1. What likelihood of his amendment, lords?

Duke of Buckingham

34
  1. Madam, good hope, his Grace speaks cheerfully.

Queen Elizabeth

35
  1. God grant him health! Did you confer with him?

Duke of Buckingham

36 - 39
  1. Ay, madam, he desires to make atonement
  2. Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
  3. And between them and my Lord Chamberlain,
  4. And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

Queen Elizabeth

40 - 41
  1. Would all were well! But that will never be:
  2. I fear our happiness is at the height.
  1. Enter Richard Duke of Gloucester and Lord Hastings.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

42 - 53
  1. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it!
  2. Who is it that complains unto the King
  3. That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
  4. By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
  5. That fill his ears with such dissentious rumors.
  6. Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
  7. Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
  8. Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
  9. I must be held a rancorous enemy.
  10. Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
  11. But thus his simple truth must be abus’d
  12. With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

Grey

54
  1. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

55 - 61
  1. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace:
  2. When have I injur’d thee? When done thee wrong?
  3. Or thee? Or thee? Or any of your faction?
  4. A plague upon you all! His royal Grace
  5. (Whom God preserve better than you would wish!)
  6. Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while
  7. But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.

Queen Elizabeth

62 - 68
  1. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter:
  2. The King, on his own royal disposition
  3. (And not provok’d by any suitor else),
  4. Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
  5. That in your outward action shows itself
  6. Against my children, brothers, and myself,
  7. Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

69 - 72
  1. I cannot tell, the world is grown so bad
  2. That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
  3. Since every Jack became a gentleman,
  4. There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.

Queen Elizabeth

73 - 75
  1. Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester;
  2. You envy my advancement and my friends’.
  3. God grant we never may have need of you!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

76 - 81
  1. Mean time, God grants that I have need of you.
  2. Our brother is imprison’d by your means,
  3. Myself disgrac’d, and the nobility
  4. Held in contempt, while great promotions
  5. Are daily given to ennoble those
  6. That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.

Queen Elizabeth

82 - 88
  1. By Him that rais’d me to this careful height
  2. From that contented hap which I enjoy’d,
  3. I never did incense his Majesty
  4. Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
  5. An earnest advocate to plead for him.
  6. My lord, you do me shameful injury
  7. Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

89 - 90
  1. You may deny that you were not the mean
  2. Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.

Rivers

91
  1. She may, my lord, for—

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

92 - 97
  1. She may, Lord Rivers! Why, who knows not so?
  2. She may do more, sir, than denying that:
  3. She may help you to many fair preferments,
  4. And then deny her aiding hand therein
  5. And lay those honors on your high desert.
  6. What may she not, she may, ay, marry, may she.

Live each of you the subjects to his hate, and he to yours, and all of you to God’s!

Charles Taylor, printmaker; C. Taylor; Henry Singleton; 1793

Rivers

98
  1. What, marry, may she?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

99 - 101
  1. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
  2. A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too:
  3. Iwis your grandam had a worser match.

Queen Elizabeth

102 - 109
  1. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne
  2. Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
  3. By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
  4. Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur’d.
  5. I had rather be a country servant maid
  6. Than a great queen with this condition,
  7. To be so baited, scorn’d, and stormed at.
  8. Enter old Queen Margaret behind.
  9. Small joy have I in being England’s queen.

Queen Margaret

110 - 111
  1. Aside.
  2. And less’ned be that small, God I beseech him!
  3. Thy honor, state, and seat is due to me.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

112 - 116
  1. What? Threat you me with telling of the King?
  2. Tell him, and spare not. Look what I have said,
  3. I will avouch’t in presence of the King.
  4. I dare adventure to be sent to th’ Tow’r.
  5. ’Tis time to speak, my pains are quite forgot.

Queen Margaret

117 - 119
  1. Aside.
  2. Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
  3. Thou kill’dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
  4. And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

120 - 124
  1. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
  2. I was a pack-horse in his great affairs:
  3. A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
  4. A liberal rewarder of his friends;
  5. To royalize his blood I spent mine own.

Queen Margaret

125
  1. Aside.
  2. Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

126 - 132
  1. In all which time you and your husband Grey
  2. Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
  3. And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
  4. In Margaret’s battle at Saint Albans slain?
  5. Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
  6. What you have been ere this, and what you are;
  7. Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Queen Margaret

133
  1. Aside.
  2. A murd’rous villain, and so still thou art.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

134 - 135
  1. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,
  2. Ay, and forswore himself—which Jesu pardon!—

Queen Margaret

136
  1. Aside.
  2. Which God revenge!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

137 - 141
  1. To fight on Edward’s party for the crown,
  2. And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
  3. I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,
  4. Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine:
  5. I am too childish-foolish for this world.

Queen Margaret

142 - 143
  1. Aside.
  2. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,
  3. Thou cacodemon, there thy kingdom is.

Rivers

144 - 147
  1. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days,
  2. Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
  3. We follow’d then our lord, our sovereign king.
  4. So should we you, if you should be our king.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

148 - 149
  1. If I should be? I had rather be a pedlar:
  2. Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!

Queen Elizabeth

150 - 153
  1. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
  2. You should enjoy, were you this country’s king—
  3. As little joy you may suppose in me
  4. That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

Queen Margaret

154 - 162
  1. Aside.
  2. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof,
  3. For I am she, and altogether joyless.
  4. I can no longer hold me patient.
  5. Comes forward.
  6. Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
  7. In sharing that which you have pill’d from me!
  8. Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
  9. If not, that I am queen, you bow like subjects,
  10. Yet that, by you depos’d, you quake like rebels?
  11. Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

163
  1. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my sight?

Queen Margaret

164 - 165
  1. But repetition of what thou hast marr’d,
  2. That will I make before I let thee go.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

166
  1. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?

Queen Margaret

167 - 172
  1. I was; but I do find more pain in banishment
  2. Than death can yield me here by my abode.
  3. A husband and a son thou ow’st to me—
  4. And thou a kingdom—all of you allegiance.
  5. This sorrow that I have, by right is yours,
  6. And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

173 - 180
  1. The curse my noble father laid on thee
  2. When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
  3. And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,
  4. And then, to dry them, gav’st the Duke a clout
  5. Steep’d in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland—
  6. His curses then, from bitterness of soul
  7. Denounc’d against thee, are all fall’n upon thee;
  8. And God, not we, hath plagu’d thy bloody deed.

Queen Elizabeth

181
  1. So just is God, to right the innocent.

Hastings

182 - 183
  1. O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
  2. And the most merciless, that e’er was heard of!

Rivers

184
  1. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.

Marquess of Dorset

185
  1. No man but prophesied revenge for it.

Duke of Buckingham

186
  1. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.

Queen Margaret

187 - 213
  1. What? Were you snarling all before I came,
  2. Ready to catch each other by the throat,
  3. And turn you all your hatred now on me?
  4. Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven
  5. That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
  6. Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,
  7. Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
  8. Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
  9. Why then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
  10. Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
  11. As ours by murder, to make him a king!
  12. Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
  13. For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
  14. Die in his youth by like untimely violence!
  15. Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
  16. Outlive thy glory like my wretched self!
  17. Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death,
  18. And see another, as I see thee now,
  19. Deck’d in thy rights as thou art stall’d in mine!
  20. Long die thy happy days before thy death,
  21. And after many length’ned hours of grief,
  22. Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen!
  23. Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
  24. And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
  25. Was stabb’d with bloody daggers: God, I pray him
  26. That none of you may live his natural age,
  27. But by some unlook’d accident cut off!
Shield designs for Brandon, Rivers, Dorset, and Hastings

Shield designs for Brandon, Rivers, Dorset, and Hastings

Charles Hamilton Smith, Emma Hamilton Smith, 19th century

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

214
  1. Have done thy charm, thou hateful with’red hag.

Queen Margaret

215 - 232
  1. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
  2. If heaven have any grievous plague in store
  3. Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
  4. O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
  5. And then hurl down their indignation
  6. On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace!
  7. The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
  8. Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv’st,
  9. And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
  10. No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
  11. Unless it be while some tormenting dream
  12. Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
  13. Thou elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog!
  14. Thou that wast seal’d in thy nativity
  15. The slave of nature and the son of hell!
  16. Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb!
  17. Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins!
  18. Thou rag of honor! Thou detested—

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

233
  1. Margaret.

Queen Margaret

234
  1.           Richard!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

235
  1.          Ha!

Queen Margaret

236
  1.     I call thee not.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

237 - 238
  1. I cry thee mercy then; for I did think
  2. That thou hadst call’d me all these bitter names.

Queen Margaret

239 - 240
  1. Why, so I did, but look’d for no reply.
  2. O, let me make the period to my curse!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

241
  1. ’Tis done by me, and ends in “Margaret.”

Queen Elizabeth

242
  1. Thus have you breath’d your curse against yourself.

Queen Margaret

243 - 248
  1. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!
  2. Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider
  3. Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
  4. Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
  5. The day will come that thou shalt wish for me
  6. To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back’d toad.

Hastings

249 - 250
  1. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
  2. Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

Queen Margaret

251
  1. Foul shame upon you, you have all mov’d mine.

Rivers

252
  1. Were you well serv’d, you would be taught your duty.

Queen Margaret

253 - 255
  1. To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
  2. Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:
  3. O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!

Marquess of Dorset

256
  1. Dispute not with her, she is lunatic.

Queen Margaret

257 - 262
  1. Peace, Master Marquess, you are malapert,
  2. Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current.
  3. O that your young nobility could judge
  4. What ’twere to lose it and be miserable!
  5. They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
  6. And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

263
  1. Good counsel, marry! Learn it, learn it, Marquess.

Marquess of Dorset

264
  1. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

265 - 267
  1. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,
  2. Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top
  3. And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

Queen Margaret

268 - 274
  1. And turns the sun to shade—alas, alas!
  2. Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
  3. Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
  4. Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
  5. Your aery buildeth in our aery’s nest:
  6. O God that seest it, do not suffer it!
  7. As it is won with blood, lost be it so!

Duke of Buckingham

275
  1. Peace, peace, for shame! If not, for charity.

Queen Margaret

276 - 280
  1. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
  2. Turning to the others.
  3. Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
  4. And shamefully my hopes, by you, are butcher’d.
  5. My charity is outrage, life my shame,
  6. And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage!

Duke of Buckingham

281
  1. Have done, have done.

Queen Margaret

282 - 286
  1. O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand
  2. In sign of league and amity with thee.
  3. Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
  4. Thy garments are not spotted with our blood;
  5. Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI

Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI

Talbot Master, circa 1445

Duke of Buckingham

287 - 288
  1. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
  2. The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

Queen Margaret

289 - 296
  1. I will not think but they ascend the sky,
  2. And there awake God’s gentle-sleeping peace.
  3. O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
  4. Look when he fawns he bites; and when he bites,
  5. His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
  6. Have not to do with him, beware of him;
  7. Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
  8. And all their ministers attend on him.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

297
  1. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?

Duke of Buckingham

298
  1. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.

Queen Margaret

299 - 305
  1. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?
  2. And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
  3. O but remember this another day,
  4. When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
  5. And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!
  6. Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
  7. And he to yours, and all of you to God’s!
  1. Exit.

Duke of Buckingham

306
  1. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.

Rivers

307
  1. And so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

308 - 310
  1. I cannot blame her; by God’s holy Mother,
  2. She hath had too much wrong, and I repent
  3. My part thereof that I have done to her.

Queen Elizabeth

311
  1. I never did her any to my knowledge.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

312 - 317
  1. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
  2. I was too hot to do somebody good
  3. That is too cold in thinking of it now.
  4. Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
  5. He is frank’d up to fatting for his pains—
  6. God pardon them that are the cause thereof!

Rivers

318 - 319
  1. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion—
  2. To pray for them that have done scathe to us.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

320 - 322
  1. So do I ever—
  2. Speaks to himself.
  3.               being well advis’d;
  4. For had I curs’d now, I had curs’d myself.
  1. Enter Catesby.

Catesby

323 - 324
  1. Madam, his Majesty doth call for you,
  2. And for your Grace, and yours, my gracious lord.

Queen Elizabeth

325
  1. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?

Rivers

326
  1. We wait upon your Grace.
  1. Exeunt all but Gloucester.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

327 - 344
  1. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
  2. The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
  3. I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
  4. Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
  5. I do beweep to many simple gulls—
  6. Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham—
  7. And tell them ’tis the Queen and her allies
  8. That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
  9. Now they believe it, and withal whet me
  10. To be reveng’d on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.
  11. But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
  12. Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
  13. And thus I clothe my naked villainy
  14. With odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ,
  15. And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
  16. Enter two Murderers.
  17. But soft, here come my executioners.
  18. How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates,
  19. Are you now going to dispatch this thing?

First Murderer

345 - 346
  1. We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant,
  2. That we may be admitted where he is.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

347 - 352
  1. Well thought upon, I have it here about me.
  2. Gives the warrant.
  3. When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
  4. But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
  5. Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
  6. For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
  7. May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.

First Murderer

353 - 355
  1. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
  2. Talkers are no good doers. Be assur’d;
  3. We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

356 - 358
  1. Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes fall tears.
  2. I like you, lads, about your business straight.
  3. Go, go, dispatch.

First Murderer

359
  1. We will, my noble lord.
  1. Exeunt.
George Frederick Cooke as Richard

George Frederick Cooke as Richard

19th century

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