1    Tell me, good grandam, is our father dead?

2    No, boy.

3    Why do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,
4    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'

5    Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
6    And call us wretches, orphans, castaways
7    If that our noble father be alive?

8    My pretty cousins, you mistake me much;
9    I do lament the sickness of the king.
10   As loath to lose him, not your father's death;
11   It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.

12   Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.
13   The king my uncle is to blame for this:
14   God will revenge it; whom I will importune
15   With daily prayers all to that effect.

16   And so will I.

17   Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:
18   Incapable and shallow innocents,
19   You cannot guess who caused your father's death.

20   Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester
21   Told me, the king, provoked by the queen,
22   Devised impeachments to imprison him :
23   And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
24   And hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;
25   Bade me rely on him as on my father,
26   And he would love me dearly as his child.

27   Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
28   And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
29   He is my son; yea, and therein my shame;
30   Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.

31   Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?

32   Ay, boy.

33   I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?

34   Oh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
35   To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
36   I'll join with black despair against my soul,
37   And to myself become an enemy.

38   What means this scene of rude impatience?

39   To make an act of tragic violence:
40   Edward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.
41   Why grow the branches now the root is wither'd?
42   Why wither not the leaves the sap being gone?
43   If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
44   That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;
45   Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
46   To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.

47   Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
48   As I had title in thy noble husband!
49   I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
50   And lived by looking on his images:
51   But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
52   Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,
53   And I for comfort have but one false glass,
54   Which grieves me when I see my shame in him.
55   Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,
56   And hast the comfort of thy children left thee:
57   But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,
58   And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,
59   Edward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,
60   Thine being but a moiety of my grief,
61   To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!

62   Good aunt, you wept not for our father's death;
63   How can we aid you with our kindred tears?

64   Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;
65   Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!

66   Give me no help in lamentation;
67   I am not barren to bring forth complaints
68   All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
69   That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,
70   May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
71   Oh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!

72   Oh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!

73   Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!

74   What stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.

75   What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.

76   What stays had I but they? and they are gone.

77   Was never widow had so dear a loss!

78   Were never orphans had so dear a loss!

79   Was never mother had so dear a loss!
80   Alas, I am the mother of these moans!
81   Their woes are parcell'd, mine are general.
82   She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
83   I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:
84   These babes for Clarence weep and so do I;
85   I for an Edward weep, so do not they:
86   Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,
87   Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,
88   And I will pamper it with lamentations.

89   Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
90   That you take with unthankfulness, his doing:
91   In common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,
92   With dull unwilligness to repay a debt
93   Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
94   Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
95   For it requires the royal debt it lent you.

96   Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
97   Of the young prince your son: send straight for him
98   Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:
99   Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
100  And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.

101  Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause
102  To wail the dimming of our shining star;
103  But none can cure their harms by wailing them.
104  Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;
105  I did not see your grace: humbly on my knee
106  I crave your blessing.

107  God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,
108  Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

Aside
109   Amen; and make me die a good old man!
110  That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing:
111  I marvel why her grace did leave it out.

112  You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
113  That bear this mutual heavy load of moan,
114  Now cheer each other in each other's love
115  Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
116  We are to reap the harvest of his son.
117  The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
118  But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,
119  Must gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:
120  Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
121  Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd
122  Hither to London, to be crown'd our king.

123  Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?

124  Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
125  The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,
126  Which would be so much the more dangerous
127  By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:
128  Where every horse bears his commanding rein,
129  And may direct his course as please himself,
130  As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
131  In my opinion, ought to be prevented.

132  I hope the king made peace with all of us
133  And the compact is firm and true in me.

134  And so in me; and so, I think, in all:
135  Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
136  To no apparent likelihood of breach,
137  Which haply by much company might be urged:
138  Therefore I say with noble Buckingham,
139  That it is meet so few should fetch the prince.

140  And so say I.

141  Then be it so; and go we to determine
142  Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
143  Madam, and you, my mother, will you go
144  To give your censures in this weighty business?

145  With all our harts.

146  My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
147  For God's sake, let not us two be behind;
148  For, by the way, I'll sort occasion,
149  As index to the story we late talk'd of,
150  To part the queen's proud kindred from the king.

151  My other self, my counsel's consistory,
152  My oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,
153  I, like a child, will go by thy direction.
154  Towards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.