K. Rich. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd your grace To breakfast once, forth of my company. Let me march on, and not offend you, madam.- Duch. I pr'ythee, hear me speak. Hear me a word, For I shall never speak to thee again. K. Rich. So. Duch. Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance, Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror; Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish, Therefore, take with thee my most heavy curse; And promise them success and victory. Shame serves thy life, and doth thy death attend. [Exit. Q. Eliz. Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse Abides in me; I say amen to her. [Going. K. Rich. Stay, madam,' I must speak a word with you. 5. Humphrey Hour,] I believe nothing more than a quibble was meant. In our poet's twentieth Sonnet we find a similar conceit; a quibble between hues (colours) and Hughes, (formerly spelt Hewes) the person addressed. MALONE. 6 Shame serves thy life,] To serve is to accompany, servants being near the persons of their masters. Stay, madam,] On this dialogue 'tis not necessary to bestow Q. Eliz. 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. K. Rich. You have a daughter call'd-Elizabeth, Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious. Q. Eliz. And must she die for this? O, let her live, So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter, K. Rich. Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood. Q. Eliz. To save her life, I'll say-she is not so. Q. Eliz. No, to their lives bad friends were contrary. K. Rich. All unavoided is the doom of destiny. Q. Eliz. True, when avoided grace makes destiny: My babes were destin'd to a fairer death, If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life. K. Rich. You speak, as if that I had slain my cousins. much criticism, part of it is ridiculous, and the whole improbable. JOHNSON. I cannot agree with Dr. Johnson's opinion. I see nothing ridiculous in any part of this dialogue; and with respect to probability, it was not unnatural that Richard, who by his art and wheedling tongue had prevailed on Lady Anne to marry him in her heart's extremest grief, should hope to persuade an ambitious, and, as he thought her, a wicked woman, to consent to his marriage with her daughter, which would make her a queen, and aggrandize her family. M. MASON. • All unavoided, &c.] i. e. unavoidable. Q. Eliz. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life. No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt, But that still use' of grief makes wild grief tame, K. Rich. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprize, Q. Eliz. What good is cover'd with the face of heaven, To be discover'd, that can do me good? K.Rich. The advancement of your children, gentle lady. Q. Eliz. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads? K. Rich. No, to the dignity and height of fortune, The high imperial type' of this earth's glory. Q. Eliz. Flatter my sorrows with report of it; Tell me, what state, what dignity, what honour, Canst thou demise to any child of mine? 2 K. Rich, Even all I have; ay, and myself and all, Will I withal endow a child of thine; -still use - i. e. constant use. The high imperial type-] Type is exhibition, show, display, or perhaps emblem. Canst thou demise-] To demise is to grant, from demittere, to devolve a right from one to another. So in the Lethe of thy angry soul Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs, Which, thou supposest, I have done to thee, Q. Eliz. Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness Last longer telling than thy kindness' date. K. Rich. Then know, that, from my soul, I love thy daughter. Q. Eliz. My daughter's mother thinks it with her soul. K. Rich. What do you think? Q. Eliz. That thou dost love my daughter, from thy soul: So, from thy soul's love, didst thou love her brothers; K. Rich. Even he, that makes her queen; Who else should be? That I would learn of you, Madam, with all my heart. As one being best acquainted with her humour. Q. Eliz. And wilt thou learn of me? K. Rich. Q. Eliz. Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers, A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave, The purple sap from her sweet brother's body, Tell her, thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence, Q. Eliz. There is no other way; Unless thou could'st put on some other shape, And not be Richard that hath done all this. K. Rich. Say, that I did all this for love of her? Q. Eliz. Nay, then indeed, she cannot choose but have thee, Having bought love with such a bloody spoil, Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes, 3 -bid like sorrow.] Bid is in the past tense from bide. |