Margaret
Richard.
Richard
Ha?
Margaret
I call thee not.
Richard
I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.
Margaret
Why so I did, but looked for no reply.
Oh, let me make the period to my curse.
Richard
ʼTis done by me, and ends in ʼMargaret’.
Elizabeth
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
Margaret
Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,
Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
Fool, fool, thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunch-backed toad.
Hastings
False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
Margaret
Foul shame upon you. You have all moved mine.
Rivers
Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
Margaret
To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects;
Oh, serve me well and teach yourselves that duty.
Dorset
Dispute not with her. She is lunatic.
Margaret
Peace, master marquess, you are malapert.
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
Oh, that your young nobility could judge
What ’twere to lose it and be miserable.
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
Richard
Good counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, marquess.
Dorset
It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.
Richard
Ay, and much more. But I was born so high.
Our aerie buildeth in the cedar’s top,
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.
Margaret
And turns the sun to shade, alas, alas.
Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aerie buildeth in our aerie’s nest.
O God that seest it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so.
Buckingham
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Margaret
Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,
And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.
Buckingham
Have done, have done.
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.
Margaret
I will not think but they ascend the sky
And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.