**QUEEN MARGARET** So, now prosperity...

QUEEN MARGARET

So, now prosperity begins to mellow

And drop into the rotten mouth of death.

Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd,

To watch the waning of mine adversaries.

A dire induction am I witness to,

And will to France, hoping the consequence

Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.

Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!

My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air

And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,

Hover about me with your airy wings

And hear your mother's lamentation!

QUEEN MARGARET

Hover about her; say, that right for right

Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.

DUCHESS OF YORK

So many miseries have crazed my voice,

That my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,

Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?

QUEEN MARGARET

Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet.

Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,

And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?

When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?

QUEEN MARGARET

When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Blind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,

Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,

Brief abstract and record of tedious days,

Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,

Sitting down

Unlawfully made drunk with innocents' blood!

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave

As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!

Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.

O, who hath any cause to mourn but I?

Sitting down by her

QUEEN MARGARET

If ancient sorrow be most reverend,

Give mine the benefit of seniory,

And let my woes frown on the upper hand.

If sorrow can admit society,

Sitting down with them

Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:

I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;

I had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:

Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;

Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;

DUCHESS OF YORK

I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;

I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.

QUEEN MARGARET

Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him.

From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept

A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:

That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,

To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,

That foul defacer of God's handiwork,

That excellent grand tyrant of the earth,

That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,

Thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.

O upright, just, and true-disposing God,

How do I thank thee, that this carnal cur

Preys on the issue of his mother's body,

And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!

DUCHESS OF YORK

O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!

God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

QUEEN MARGARET

Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,

And now I cloy me with beholding it.

Thy Edward he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward:

Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;

Young York he is but boot, because both they

Match not the high perfection of my loss:

Thy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward;

And the beholders of this tragic play,

The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,

Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.

Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,

Only reserved their factor, to buy souls

And send them thither: but at hand, at hand,

Ensues his piteous and unpitied end:

Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.

To have him suddenly convey'd away.

Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,

That I may live to say, The dog is dead!

QUEEN ELIZABETH

O, thou didst prophesy the time would come

That I should wish for thee to help me curse

That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!

Shakespeare, William. Richard III. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/richardiii/richardiii.4.4.html.

Read Shakespeare's full-text of Richard III: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/richardiii/full.html

Wikipedia entry about Shakespeare's play: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RichardIII(play)#Dateandtext

An historical look at the historical King Richard III from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/kingrichardiii