style="font-size:15px;"> You have a daughter call’d Elizabeth.Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
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.
KING RICHARD
Wrong not her birth; she is of royal blood.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
To save her life I’ll say she is not so.
KING RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.
KING RICHARD
Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
No, to their lives bad friends were contrary.
KING RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
True, when avoided grace makes destiny:
My babes were destined to a fairer death,
If grace had bless’d thee with a fairer life.
KING RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen’d
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand 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.
KING RICHARD
Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise
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!
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What good is cover’d with the face of heaven,
To be discover’d, that can do me good?
KING RICHARD
Advancement of your children, gentle lady.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?
KING RICHARD
Unto the dignity and height of honour,
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Flatter my sorrows with report of it;
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?
KING RICHARD
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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.
KING RICHARD
Then know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.
KING RICHARD
What do you think?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
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.
KING RICHARD
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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?
KING RICHARD
Even he that makes her queen: who else should be?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What, thou?
KING RICHARD
I, even I: what think you of it, madam?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?
KING RICHARD
