Daugh. Why do you weep so oft? and beat your

breast;

And cry-O, Clarence, my unhappy son!
Son. Why do you look on us, and shake
And call us-orphans, wretches, cast-aways,
If that our noble father be alive?

your head,

Duch. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both; 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.

Son. Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead. The king my uncle is to blame for this:

God will revenge it; whom I will impórtune
With earnest prayers all to that effect.

Daugh. And so will I.

Duch. Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:

Incapable and shallow innocents,

You cannot guess who caused your father's death.
Son. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloster
Told me, the king, provoked to't by the queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him;
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kissed my cheek;
Bade me rely on him, as on my father,

And he would love me dearly as his child.

Duch. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,

And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice!

He is my son, ay, and therein my shame,

2

Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.

Son. Think you, my uncle did dissemble, grandam? Duch. Ay, boy.

Son. I cannot think it.

Hark! what noise is this?

1 The duchess is here addressing her grand children; but cousin seems to have been used instead of kinsman and kinswoman, and to have supplied the place of both.

2 This word yave no offence to our ancestors; it was used even in the most refined poetry.

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, distractedly; RIVERS, and DORSET, following her.

Q. Eliz. Ah! 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.

Duch. What means this scene of rude impatience?
Q. Eliz. To make an act of tragic violence:-
Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches, when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?-
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.

Duch. Ah, 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:1

But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are cracked in pieces by malignant death;
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
That 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 snatched my husband from my arms,
And plucked two crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I
(Thine being but a moiety of my grief)

To overgo thy plaints, and drown thy cries!

Son. Ah, aunt! you wept not for our father's death; How can we aid you with our kindred tears?

Daugh. Our fatherless distress was left unmoaned;

Your widow-dolor likewise be unwept!

Q. Eliz. Give me no help in lamentation;

I am not barren to bring forth laments:

1 The children by whom he was represented.

All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being governed by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
Ah, for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!

Chil. Ah, for our father, for our dear lord Clarence !

Duch. Alas, for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!

Q. Eliz. What stay had I, but Edward? and he's

gone.

Chil. What stay had we, but Clarence? and he's

gone.

Duch. What stays had I, but they? and they are

gone.

Q. Eliz. Was never widow had so dear a loss.
Chil. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.
Duch. Was never mother had so dear a loss.
Alas! I am the mother of these griefs;
Their woes are parcelled, 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 distressed,
Pour all your tears, I am your sorrow's nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.

Dor. Comfort, dear mother, God is much displeased,
That you take with unthankfulness his doing;
In common, worldly things, 'tis called-ungrateful,

With dull unwillingness 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.

Riv. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son: send straight for him;
Let him be crowned; in him your comfort lives:
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.

Enter GLOSTER, BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS,
RATCLIFF, and others.

Glo. Sister, 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.

Duch. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,

Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

Glo. Amen; and make me die a good old man!— That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing;

I marvel that her grace did leave it out.

[Aside.

Buck. You 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 rancor of your high-swollen hearts,
But lately splinted, knit, and joined together,
Must gently be preserved, cherished, and kept.
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetched1
Hither to London, to be crowned our king.

Riv. Why with some little train, my lord of Buckingham?

Buck. Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude, The new-healed wound of malice should break out; Which would be so much the more dangerous, By how much the estate is green, and yet ungoverned; Where every horse bears his commanding rein,

1 Edward, the young prince, in his father's lifetime, and at his demise, kept his household at Ludlow, as prince of Wales; under the governance of Anthony Woodville, earl of Rivers, his uncle by the mother's side. The intention of his being sent thither was to see justice done in the Marches; and, by the authority of his presence, to restrain the Welshmen, who were wild, dissolute, and ill-disposed, from their accustomed murders and outrages.-Vide Holinshed.

And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.

Glo. I hope the king made peace with all of us; And the compact is firm, and true, in me.

Riv. And so in me; and so, I think, in all;1
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.
Hast. And so say I.

Glo. Then 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?

[Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOSTER. Buck. My lord, whoever journeys to the prince, For God's sake, let not us two stay at home; For, by the way, I'll sort occasion,

3

As index to the story we late talked of,

To part the queen's proud kindred from the prince.
Glo. My other self, my counsel's consistory,
My oracle, my prophet!-My dear cousin,
I, as a child, will go by thy direction.

Towards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.

SCENE III. The same. A Street.

Enter two Citizens, meeting.

[Exeunt.

1 Cit. Good morrow, neighbor. Whither away so fast?

2 Cit. I promise you, I scarcely know myself. Hear you the news abroad?

1 This speech seems rather to belong to Hastings, who was of the duke of Gloster's party. The next speech might be given to Stanley. 2 i. e. your judgments, your opinions.

3 That is, preparatory, by way of prelude.