Richard III (13 page)

For they
account
⁷⁰
his head upon the bridge.

HASTINGS
    I know they do, and I have well deserved it.

Come on, come on, where is your boar-spear, man?

Fear you the boar, and go so
unprovided?
⁷³

DERBY
    My lord, good morrow.—Good morrow, Catesby.

You may jest on, but, by the holy
rood
⁷⁵
,

I do not like these
several
⁷⁶
councils, I.

HASTINGS
    My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,

And never in my days, I do
protest
⁷⁸
,

Was it so precious to me as ’tis now.

Think you, but that I know our state secure,

I would be so
triumphant
⁸¹
as I am?

DERBY
    The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,

Were
jocund
⁸³
and supposed their states were sure,

And they indeed had no cause to
mistrust
⁸⁴
:

But yet you see how soon the day o’ercast.

This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt
⁸⁶
:

Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.

What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is
spent.
⁸⁸

HASTINGS
    Come, come,
have with you.
⁸⁹
Wot you what, my lord?

Today the lords you talk of are beheaded.

LORD DERBY
    They, for their
truth
⁹¹
, might better wear their heads

Than some that have accused them wear their
hats.
⁹²

But come, my lord, let’s away.

HASTINGS
    Go on
before
⁹⁴
: I’ll talk with this good fellow.—

How now,
sirrah?
⁹⁵
How goes the world with thee?

PURSUIVANT
    The better that your lordship please to ask.

HASTINGS
    I tell thee, man, ’tis better with me now

Than when thou met’st me last where now we meet:

Then was I going prisoner to the Tower,

By the
suggestion
¹⁰⁰
of the queen’s allies.

But now, I tell thee — keep it to thyself —

This day those enemies are put to death,

And I in better
state
¹⁰³
than e’er I was.

PURSUIVANT
    God
hold
¹⁰⁴
it to your honour’s good content.

HASTINGS
    
Gramercy
¹⁰⁵
, fellow. There, drink that for me.

Throws him his purse

PURSUIVANT
    I thank your honour.

PRIEST
    Well met, my lord. I am glad to see your honour.

HASTINGS
    I thank thee, good
Sir
¹⁰⁸
John, with all my heart.

I am in your debt for your last exercise
¹⁰⁹
:

Come the next Sabbath, and I will
content
¹¹⁰
you.

PRIEST
    I’ll wait upon your lordship.

BUCKINGHAM
    What, talking with a priest, Lord Chamberlain?

Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:

Your honour hath no
shriving work
¹¹⁴
in hand.

HASTINGS
    Good faith, and when I met this holy man,

The men you talk of came into my mind.

What, go you toward the Tower?

BUCKINGHAM
    I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there.

I shall return before your lordship
thence.
¹¹⁹

HASTINGS
    Nay, like enough, for I
stay
¹²⁰
dinner there.

BUCKINGHAM
    And supper too, although thou know’st it not.—

Come, will you go?

HASTINGS
    I’ll wait upon your lordship.

RIVERS
    Sir Richard Ratcliffe, let me tell thee this:

Today shalt thou behold a subject die

For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.

GREY
    God bless the prince from all the pack of you.

A
knot
⁵
you are of damnèd blood-suckers!

VAUGHAN
    You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.

RATCLIFFE
    
Dispatch.
⁷
The limit of your lives is out.

RIVERS
    O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison!

Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

Within the guilty
closure
¹⁰
of thy walls

Richard the Second here was hacked to death.

And,
for more slander to thy dismal seat
¹²
,

We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.

GREY
    Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,

When she
exclaimed on
Hastings, you and I
¹⁵
,

For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.

RIVERS
    Then cursed she Richard, then cursed she Buckingham,

Then cursed she Hastings. O, remember, God,

To hear her prayer for them, as now for us:

And
for
²⁰
my sister and her princely sons,

Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,

Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.

RATCLIFFE
    Make haste: the hour of death is
expiate.
²³

RIVERS
    Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us here embrace.

Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.

HASTINGS
    Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met

Is to determine
of
²
the coronation.

In God’s name speak: when is the royal day?

BUCKINGHAM
    Is all things ready for the royal time?

DERBY
    It is, and
wants but nomination.
⁵

BISHOP OF ELY
    Tomorrow, then, I judge a
happy
⁶
day.

BUCKINGHAM
    Who knows the Lord Protector’s mind herein?

Who is most
inward
⁸
with the noble duke?

BISHOP OF ELY
    Your grace, we think, should soonest know his
mind.
⁹

BUCKINGHAM
    We know each other’s faces:
for
¹⁰
our hearts,

He knows no more of mine, than I of yours,

Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.—

Lord Hastings, you and he are
near in love.
¹³

HASTINGS
    I thank his grace, I know he loves me well.

But, for his purpose in the coronation,

I have not
sounded
¹⁶
him, nor he delivered

His gracious pleasure any way therein:

But you, my honourable lords, may name the time,

And
in
¹⁹
the duke’s behalf I’ll give my voice,

Which I presume he’ll
take in gentle part.
²⁰

BISHOP OF ELY
    In happy time, here comes the duke himself.

RICHARD
    My noble lords and
cousins
²²
all, good morrow.

I have been long a sleeper: but I trust

My absence doth
neglect
²⁴
no great design

Which by my presence might have been concluded.

BUCKINGHAM
    Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,

William Lord Hastings had pronounced your
part
²⁷
—

I mean your voice — for crowning of the king.

RICHARD
    Than my lord Hastings no man might be
bolder
²⁹
:

His lordship knows me well, and loves me well.—

My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,

I saw good strawberries in your garden there:

I do beseech you send for some of them.

BISHOP OF ELY
    Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.

RICHARD
    Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.

Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,

And finds the testy gentleman so
hot
³⁷
aside

That he will lose his
head
³⁸
ere give consent

His master’s child, as
worshipfully
³⁹
he terms it,

Shall lose the royalty of England’s throne.

BUCKINGHAM
    Withdraw yourself a while. I’ll go with you.

DERBY
    We have not yet
set down
⁴²
this day of triumph.

Tomorrow, in my judgement, is too sudden,

For I myself am not so well
provided
⁴⁴

As else I would be, were the day
prolonged.
⁴⁵

BISHOP OF ELY
    Where is my lord, the Duke of Gloucester?

I have sent for these strawberries.

HASTINGS
    His grace looks cheerfully and
smooth
⁴⁸
this morning:

There’s some
conceit
⁴⁹
or other likes him well,

When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.

I think there’s never a man in Christendom

Can lesser hide his love or hate than he,

For by his face
straight
⁵³
shall you know his heart.

DERBY
    What of his heart perceive you in his face

By any
livelihood
⁵⁵
he showed today?

HASTINGS
    Marry, that with no man here he is offended:

For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

RICHARD
    I pray you all, tell me what they deserve

That do conspire my death with devilish plots

Of damnèd witchcraft, and that have prevailed

Upon my body with their hellish
charms.
⁶¹

HASTINGS
    The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,

Makes me most forward in this princely presence

To
doom
⁶⁴
th’offenders, whosoe’er they be:

I say, my lord, they have deservèd death.

RICHARD
    Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.

Look how I am bewitched: behold, mine arm

Is like a
blasted
⁶⁸
sapling, withered up:

And this
is
⁶⁹
Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,

Consorted
with that harlot, strumpet
Shore
⁷⁰
,

That by their witchcraft thus have markèd me.

HASTINGS
    If they have done this deed, my noble lord—

RICHARD
    If? Thou protector of this damnèd strumpet—

Talk’st thou to me of ‘ifs’? Thou art a traitor.

Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,

I will not dine until I see
the same.
⁷⁶
—

Lovell and Ratcliffe, look that it be done.

The rest that love me, rise and follow me.

HASTINGS
    Woe, woe for England! Not a whit for me,

For I, too
fond
⁸⁰
, might have prevented this.

Stanley did dream the boar did
rouse our helms;
⁸¹

And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.

Three times today my
foot-cloth horse
⁸³
did stumble,

And
started
⁸⁴
, when he looked upon the Tower,

As
⁸⁵
loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.

O, now I need the priest that spake to me:

I now repent I told the pursuivant,

As too
triumphing
⁸⁸
how mine enemies

Today at Pomfret bloodily were butchered,

And I myself secure in grace and favour.

O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse

Is lighted on poor Hastings’ wretched head!

RATCLIFFE
    Come, come, dispatch. The duke would be at dinner.

Make a short
shrift
⁹⁴
: he longs to see your head.

HASTINGS
    O, momentary
grace
⁹⁵
of mortal men,

Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!

Who
builds his hope
in air
of your
good
⁹⁷
looks,

Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,

Ready with every nod to tumble down

Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

LOVELL
    Come, come, dispatch: ’tis
bootless
to
exclaim.
¹⁰¹

HASTINGS
    O bloody Richard! Miserable England!

I prophesy the fearful’st time to thee

That ever wretched age hath looked upon.

Come, lead me to the block: bear him my head.

They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.