O God that seest it, do not suffer it;As it is won with blood, lost be it so!
BUCKINGHAM
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
QUEEN MARGARET
Urge neither charity nor shame to me:
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher’d.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,—
And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage!
BUCKINGHAM
Have done, have done.
QUEEN MARGARET
O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand,
In sign of league and amity with thee:
Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
BUCKINGHAM
Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
QUEEN MARGARET
I will not think but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God’s gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, take heed 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.
GLOSTER
What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM
Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
QUEEN MARGARET
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!
[Exit.]
BUCKINGHAM
My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.
RIVERS
And so doth mine: I muse why she’s at liberty.
GLOSTER
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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
I never did her any, to my knowledge.
GLOSTER
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;
He is frank’d up to fatting for his pains;
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
RIVERS
A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us!
GLOSTER
So do I ever being well advis’d;
[Aside]
For had I curs’d now, I had curs’d myself.
[Enter CATESBY.]
CATESBY
Madam, his majesty doth can for you,—
And for your grace,—and you, my noble lords.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Catesby, I come.—Lords, will you go with me?
RIVERS
We wait upon your grace.
[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.]
GLOSTER
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 cast 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 reveng’d on Rivers, Vaughn, 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 odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.—
But, soft, here come my executioners.
[Enter two MURDERERS.]
How now, my hardy stout resolvèd mates!
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
FIRST MURDERER
We
