ARKCODEX
Act II, Scene 2
1The palace.
2Enter the Duchess of York, with the two children of Clarence.
3BoyTell me, good grandam, is our father dead?
4DuchessNo, boy.
5BoyWhy do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,
And cry “O Clarence, my unhappy son!”
6GirlWhy do you look on us, and shake your head,
And call us wretches, orphans, castaways,
If that our noble father be alive?
7DuchessMy pretty cousins, you mistake me much;
I do lament the sickness of the king,
As loath to lose him, not your father’s death;
It were lost sorrow to wail one that’s lost.
8BoyThen, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.
The king my uncle is to blame for this:
God will revenge it; whom I will importune
With daily prayers all to that effect.
9GirlAnd so will I.
10DuchessPeace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.
11BoyGrandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester
Told me, the king, provoked by the queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him:
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And hugg’d me in his arm, and kindly kiss’d my cheek;
Bade me rely on him as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as his child.
12DuchessOh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
He is my son; yea, and therein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
13BoyThink you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?
14DuchessAy, boy.
15BoyI cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?
16Enter Queen Elizabeth, with her hair about her ears; Rivers, and Dorset after her.
17Queen ElizabethOh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I’ll join with black despair against my soul,
And to myself become an enemy.
18DuchessWhat means this scene of rude impatience?
19Queen ElizabethTo make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches now the root is wither’d?
Why wither not the leaves the sap being gone?
If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king’s;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.
20DuchessAh, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
As I had title in thy noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband’s death,
And lived by looking on his images:
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack’d in pieces by malignant death,
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
Which grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left thee:
But death hath snatch’d my husband from mine arms,
And pluck’d two crutches from my feeble limbs,
Edward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my grief,
To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!
21BoyGood aunt, you wept not for our father’s death;
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
22GirlOur fatherless distress was left unmoan’d;
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!
23Queen ElizabethGive me no help in lamentation;
I am not barren to bring forth complaints:
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern’d by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
Oh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!
24ChildrenOh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!
25DuchessAlas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
26Queen ElizabethWhat stay had I but Edward? and he’s gone.
27ChildrenWhat stay had we but Clarence? and he’s gone.
28DuchessWhat stays had I but they? and they are gone.
29Queen ElizabethWas never widow had so dear a loss!
30ChildrenWere never orphans had so dear a loss!
31DuchessWas never mother had so dear a loss!
Alas, I am the mother of these moans!
Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:
These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I;
I for an Edward weep, so do not they:
Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress’d,
Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow’s nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.
32DorsetComfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness his doing:
In common worldly things, ’tis call’d ungrateful,
With dull unwilligness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
33RiversMadam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son: send straight for him;
Let him be crown’d; in him your comfort lives:
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.
34Enter Gloucester, Buckingham, Derby, Hastings, and Ratcliff.
35GloucesterMadam, have comfort: all of us have cause
To wail the dimming of our shining star;
But none can cure their harms by wailing them.
Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;
I did not see your grace: humbly on my knee
I crave your blessing.
36DuchessGod bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!
37GloucesterAside. Amen; and make me die a good old man!
That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing:
I marvel why her grace did leave it out.
38BuckinghamYou cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
That bear this mutual heavy load of moan,
Now cheer each other in each other’s love:
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
But lately splinter’d, knit, and join’d together,
Must gently be preserved, cherish’d, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch’d
Hither to London, to be crown’d our king.
39RiversWhy with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?
40BuckinghamMarry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
The new-heal’d wound of malice should break out;
Which would be so much the more dangerous,
By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern’d:
Where every horse bears his commanding rein,
And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
41GloucesterI hope the king made peace with all of us;
And the compact is firm and true in me.
42RiversAnd so in me; and so, I think, in all:
Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
To no apparent likelihood of breach,
Which haply by much company might be urged:
Therefore I say with noble Buckingham,
That it is meet so few should fetch the prince.
43HastingsAnd so say I.
44GloucesterThen be it so; and go we to determine
Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
Madam, and you, my mother, will you go
To give your censures in this weighty business?
45Queen Elizabeth
Duchess With all our hearts. Exeunt all but Buckingham and Gloucester.
46BuckinghamMy lord, whoever journeys to the prince.
For God’s sake, let not us two be behind;
For, by the way, I’ll sort occasion,
As index to the story we late talk’d of,
To part the queen’s proud kindred from the king.
47GloucesterMy other self, my counsel’s consistory,
My oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,
I, like a child, will go by thy direction.
Towards Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind. Exeunt.