Overview
- Female: 1
- Male: 1
Context
Richard III is king, but not comfortable or secure in his throne. He has killed those that he sees as obstacles to his power--including his wife, Anne Neville. With her death, Richard is free to marry again, and has his sights set on Elizabeth of York, the daughter of his late brother Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. In order to win young Elizabeth, he must coerce her mother to woo on his behalf and approve the marriage--an approval she is understandably hesitant to give. This scene can be
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KING RICHARD III
Stay, madam; I must speak a word with you.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
I have no more sons of the royal blood
For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;
And therefore level not to hit their lives.
KING RICHARD III
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 III
Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
To save her life, I'll say she is not so.
KING RICHARD III
Her life is only safest in her birth.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
And only in that safety died her brothers.
KING RICHARD III
Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
No, to their lives bad friends were contrary.
KING RICHARD III
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 III
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 lanced 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 III
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 were by me wrong'd!
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What good is cover'd with the face of heaven,
To be discover'd, that can do me good?
KING RICHARD III
The advancement of your children, gentle lady.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?
KING RICHARD III
No, to 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 III
Even all I have; yea, 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 be process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.
KING RICHARD III
Then know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
My daughter's mother thinks it with her soul.
KING RICHARD III
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 III
Be not so hasty to confound my meaning:
I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,
And mean to make her queen of England.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Say then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?
KING RICHARD III
Even he that makes her queen who should be else?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What, thou?
KING RICHARD III
I, even I: what think you of it, madam?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
How canst thou woo her?
KING RICHARD III
That would I learn of you,
As one that are best acquainted with her humour.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
And wilt thou learn of me?
KING RICHARD III
Madam, with all my heart.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,
A pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave
Edward and York; then haply she will weep:
Therefore present to her--as sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--
A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain
The purple sap from her sweet brother's body
And bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.
If this inducement force her not to love,
Send her a story of thy noble acts;
Tell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,
Her uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,
Madest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.
KING RICHARD III
Come, come, you mock me; this is not the way
To win our daughter.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
There is no other way
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape,
And not be Richard that hath done all this.
KING RICHARD III
Say that I did all this for love of her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.
Shakespeare, William. Richard III. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/richardiii/richardiii.4.4.html.
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