TPTT The Tragedy of Richard the Third: ACT III
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
SCENE I. London. A street.
SCENE II. Before Lord Hastings' house.
SCENE III. Pomfret Castle.
SCENE IV. The Tower of London.
SCENE V. The Tower-walls.
SCENE VI. The same.
SCENE VII. Baynard's Castle.
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE VII. Baynard's Castle.
Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors
GLOUCESTER
      How now, my lord, what say the citizens?
BUCKINGHAM
      Now, by the holy mother of our Lord,
      The citizens are mum and speak not a word.
GLOUCESTER
      Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children?
BUCKINGHAM
5     I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,
      And his contract by deputy in France;
      The insatiate greediness of his desires,
      And his enforcement of the city wives;
      His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,
10    As being got, your father then in France,
      His resemblance, being not like the duke;
      Withal I did infer your lineaments,
      Being the right idea of your father,
      Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
15    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
      Your dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,
      Your bounty, virtue, fair humility:
      Indeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose
      Untouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse
20    And when mine oratory grew to an end
      I bid them that did love their country's good
      Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal king!'
GLOUCESTER
      Ah! and did they so?
BUCKINGHAM
      No, so God help me, they spake not a word;
25    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,
      Gazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.
      Which when I saw, I reprehended them;
      And ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:
      His answer was, the people were not wont
30    To be spoke to but by the recorder.
      Then he was urged to tell my tale again,
      'Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;'
      But nothing spake in warrant from himself.
      When he had done, some followers of mine own,
35    At the lower end of the hall, hurl'd up their caps,
      And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'
      And thus I took the vantage of those few,
      'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I;
      'This general applause and loving shout
40    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:'
      And even here brake off, and came away.
GLOUCESTER
      What tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?
BUCKINGHAM
      No, by my troth, my lord.
GLOUCESTER
      Will not the mayor then and his brethren come?
BUCKINGHAM
45    The mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;
      Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:
      And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
      And stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;
      For on that ground I'll build a holy descant:
50    And be not easily won to our request:
      Play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.
GLOUCESTER
      I go; and if you plead as well for them
      As I can say nay to thee for myself,
      No doubt well bring it to a happy issue.
BUCKINGHAM
55    Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.

Exit GLOUCESTER

Enter the Lord Mayor and Citizens

      Welcome my lord; I dance attendance here;
      I think the duke will not be spoke withal.

Enter CATESBY

      Here comes his servant: how now, Catesby,
      What says he?
CATESBY
60    My lord: he doth entreat your grace;
      To visit him to-morrow or next day:
      He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
      Divinely bent to meditation;
      And no worldly suit would he be moved,
65    To draw him from his holy exercise.
BUCKINGHAM
      Return, good Catesby, to thy lord again;
      Tell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,
      In deep designs and matters of great moment,
      No less importing than our general good,
70    Are come to have some conference with his grace.
CATESBY
      I'll tell him what you say, my lord.
Exit
BUCKINGHAM
      Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
      He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,
      But on his knees at meditation;
75    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
      But meditating with two deep divines;
      Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
      But praying, to enrich his watchful soul:
      Happy were England, would this gracious prince
80    Take on himself the sovereignty thereof:
      But, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.
Lord Mayor
      Marry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!
BUCKINGHAM
      I fear he will.

Re-enter CATESBY

      How now, Catesby, what says your lord?
CATESBY
85    My lord,
      He wonders to what end you have assembled
      Such troops of citizens to speak with him,
      His grace not being warn'd thereof before:
      My lord, he fears you mean no good to him.
BUCKINGHAM
90    Sorry I am my noble cousin should
      Suspect me, that I mean no good to him:
      By heaven, I come in perfect love to him;
      And so once more return and tell his grace.

Exit CATESBY

      When holy and devout religious men
95    Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,
      So sweet is zealous contemplation.
Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two Bishops. CATESBY returns
Lord Mayor
      See, where he stands between two clergymen!
BUCKINGHAM
      Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
      To stay him from the fall of vanity:
100   And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
      True ornaments to know a holy man.
      Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
      Lend favourable ears to our request;
      And pardon us the interruption
105   Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
GLOUCESTER
      My lord, there needs no such apology:
      I rather do beseech you pardon me,
      Who, earnest in the service of my God,
      Neglect the visitation of my friends.
110   But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?
BUCKINGHAM
      Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
      And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.
GLOUCESTER
      I do suspect I have done some offence
      That seems disgracious in the city's eyes,
115   And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
BUCKINGHAM
      You have, my lord: would it might please your grace,
      At our entreaties, to amend that fault!
GLOUCESTER
      Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
BUCKINGHAM
      Then know, it is your fault that you resign
120   The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
      The scepter'd office of your ancestors,
      Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
      The lineal glory of your royal house,
      To the corruption of a blemished stock:
125   Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
      Which here we waken to our country's good,
      This noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
      Her face defaced with scars of infamy,
      Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
130   And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf
      Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.
      Which to recure, we heartily solicit
      Your gracious self to take on you the charge
      And kingly government of this your land,
135   Not as protector, steward, substitute,
      Or lowly factor for another's gain;
      But as successively from blood to blood,
      Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
      For this, consorted with the citizens,
140   Your very worshipful and loving friends,
      And by their vehement instigation,
      In this just suit come I to move your grace.
GLOUCESTER
      I know not whether to depart in silence,
      Or bitterly to speak in your reproof.
145   Best fitteth my degree or your condition
      If not to answer, you might haply think
      Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
      To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
      Which fondly you would here impose on me;
150   If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
      So season'd with your faithful love to me.
      Then, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends.
      Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,
      And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,
155   Definitively thus I answer you.
      Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
      Unmeritable shuns your high request.
      First if all obstacles were cut away,
      And that my path were even to the crown,
160   As my ripe revenue and due by birth
      Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
      So mighty and so many my defects,
      As I had rather hide me from my greatness,
      Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,
165   Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
      And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
      But, God be thank'd, there's no need of me,
      And much I need to help you, if need were;
      The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
170   Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,
      Will well become the seat of majesty,
      And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
      On him I lay what you would lay on me,
      The right and fortune of his happy stars;
175   Which God defend that I should wring from him!
BUCKINGHAM
      My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;
      But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
      All circumstances well considered.
      You say that Edward is your brother's son:
180   So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;
      For first he was contract to Lady Lucy--
      Your mother lives a witness to that vow--
      And afterward by substitute betroth'd
      To Bona, sister to the King of France.
185   These both put by a poor petitioner,
      A care-crazed mother of a many children,
      A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
      Even in the afternoon of her best days,
      Made prize and purchase of his lustful eye,
190   Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts
      To base declension and loathed bigamy
      By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
      This Edward, whom our manners term the prince.
      More bitterly could I expostulate,
195   Save that, for reverence to some alive,
      I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
      Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
      This proffer'd benefit of dignity;
      If non to bless us and the land withal,
200   Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
      From the corruption of abusing times,
      Unto a lineal true-derived course.
Lord Mayor
      Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.
BUCKINGHAM
      Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.
CATESBY
205   O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!
GLOUCESTER
      Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?
      I am unfit for state and majesty;
      I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
      I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
BUCKINGHAM
210   If you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal,
      Loath to depose the child, Your brother's son;
      As well we know your tenderness of heart
      And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
      Which we have noted in you to your kin,
215   And egally indeed to all estates,--
      Yet whether you accept our suit or no,
      Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
      But we will plant some other in the throne,
      To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
220   And in this resolution here we leave you.--
      Come, citizens: 'zounds! I'll entreat no more.
GLOUCESTER
      O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.
Exit BUCKINGHAM with the Citizens
CATESBY
      Call them again, my lord, and accept their suit.
ANOTHER
      Do, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.
GLOUCESTER
225   Would you enforce me to a world of care?
      Well, call them again. I am not made of stone,
      But penetrable to your. kind entreats,
      Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest

      Cousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,
230   Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
      To bear her burthen, whether I will or no,
      I must have patience to endure the load:
      But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
      Attend the sequel of your imposition,
235   Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
      From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
      For God he knows, and you may partly see,
      How far I am from the desire thereof.
Lord Mayor
      God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.
GLOUCESTER
240   In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
BUCKINGHAM
      Then I salute you with this kingly title:
      Long live Richard, England's royal king!
Lord Mayor
Citizens
      Amen.
BUCKINGHAM
      To-morrow will it please you to be crown'd?
GLOUCESTER
245   Even when you please, since you will have it so.
BUCKINGHAM
      To-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:
      And so most joyfully we take our leave.
GLOUCESTER
      Come, let us to our holy task again.
      Farewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends.
Exeunt
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