Enter the DUCHESS OF YORK, with the two children of CLARENCE Boy Tell me, good grandam, is our father dead? DUCHESS OF YORK No, boy. Boy Why do you wring your hands, and beat your breast, And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!' Girl Why do you look on us, and shake your head, And call us wretches, orphans, castaways If that our noble father be alive? DUCHESS OF YORK My pretty cousins, you mistake me much;
I do lament the sickness of the king.
As loath to lose him, not your father's death;
It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost. Boy Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.
The king my uncle is to blame for this:
God will revenge it; whom I will importune With daily prayers all to that effect. Girl And so will I. DUCHESS OF YORK Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:
Incapable and shallow innocents, You cannot guess who caused your father's death. Boy Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester Told me, the king, provoked by the queen, Devised impeachments to imprison him :
And when my uncle told me so, he wept, And hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;
Bade me rely on him as on my father, And he would love me dearly as his child. DUCHESS OF YORK Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes, And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
He is my son; yea, and therein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit. Boy Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam? DUCHESS OF YORK Ay, boy. Boy I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her ears; RIVERS, and DORSET after her QUEEN ELIZABETH Oh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep, To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I'll join with black despair against my soul, And to myself become an enemy. DUCHESS OF YORK What means this scene of rude impatience? QUEEN ELIZABETH To make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches now the root is wither'd?
Why wither not the leaves the sap being gone?
If you will live, lament; if die, be brief, That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him To his new kingdom of perpetual rest. DUCHESS OF YORK Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow As I had title in thy noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband's death, And lived by looking on his images:
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death, And I for comfort have but one false glass, Which grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother, And hast the comfort of thy children left thee:
But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms, And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs, Edward and Clarence. O, what cause have I, Thine being but a moiety of my grief, To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries! Boy Good aunt, you wept not for our father's death;
How can we aid you with our kindred tears? Girl Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept! QUEEN ELIZABETH Give me no help in lamentation;
I am not barren to bring forth complaints All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, That I, being govern'd by the watery moon, May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!