Boy. ^note
Tell me, good grandam ^note, is our father dead?

Duch.
No, boy.

Boy. ^note
Why do you wring your hands, and ^note beat your breast,
And cry ‘O Clarence, my unhappy son’?

Girl. ^note
Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
And call us wretches, orphans ^note, castaways,
If that our noble father be ^note alive?

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

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

Girl.
And so will I ^note.

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

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

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

Boy.
Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam ^note?

Duch.
Ay, boy.

Boy.
I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this? Enter Queen Elizabeth ^note, with her hair about her ears; Rivers and Dorset after her.

Q. Eliz.
Oh ^note, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune and torment myself?
I'll join with black despair against my soul ^note,
And to myself become an enemy ^note.

Duch.
What means this scene of rude impatience?

Q. Eliz.
To make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, your ^note son, our king, is dead.

Why grow the branches now the root is wither'd? ^note
Why wither not the leaves the sap being gone ^note?
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 ^note.

Duch.
Ah ^note, so much interest have I ^note in thy sorrow
As I had title in ^note thy ^note noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
And lived by ^note looking on his images ^note:
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 ^note 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 ^note:
But death hath snatch'd my husband ^note from mine arms,
And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs ^note,
Edward and Clarence ^note. O, what cause have I,
Thine ^note being but a moiety ^note of my grief ^note,
To overgo thy plaints ^note and drown thy cries ^note!

Boy.
Good ^note aunt, you wept ^note not for our ^note father's death,
How can we aid you with our kindred ^note tears?

Girl. ^note
Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;

Your widow-dolour ^note likewise be unwept!

Q. Eliz.
Give me no help in lamentation;
I am not barren to bring forth complaints ^note:
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern'd by the watery moon ^note,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world! ^note
Oh ^note for my husband ^note, for my dear ^note lord Edward!

Chil. ^note
Oh ^note for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!

Duch.
Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence ^note!

Q. Eliz.
What stay had I but Edward? and he's ^note gone.

Chil. ^note
What stay had we but Clarence? and he's ^note gone.

Duch.
What stays ^note had I but they? and they are gone.

Q. Eliz.
Was never ^note widow had so dear a loss.

Chil. ^note
Were never ^note orphans had so dear a ^note loss.

Duch.
Was never ^note mother had so dear a ^note loss.
Alas, I am the mother of these moans ^note!
Their woes are parcell'd, mine are ^note general.
She for an ^note Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep ^note, so doth not she:
These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I;
I for an Edward weep ^note, so do not they ^note: ^note
Alas, you three, on me threefold distress'd
Pour ^note all your ^note tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,

And I will pamper it with lamentations ^note.

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

Riv.
Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son: send straight for him;
Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward's throne ^note. Enter Gloucester ^note, Buckingham, Derby, Hastings, and Ratcliff. ^note

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

Duch.
God bless thee, and put meekness in thy mind ^note,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

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

Buck.
You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
That bear this mutual heavy ^note load of moan,

Now cheer each other ^note in each other's love:
Though we have spent our harvest of ^note this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son ^note.
The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts ^note,
But lately ^note splinter'd ^note, knit and join'd together,
Must gently ^note be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd ^note
Hither to London, to be crown'd our king.

Riv.
Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham? ^note

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

Glou. ^note
I hope the king made peace with all of us;
And the compact is firm and true in me.

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

Hast.
And so say I ^note. ^note

Glou.
Then be it so; and go we to determine
Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow ^note.

Madam, and you, my mother ^note, will you go
To give your censures ^note in this weighty ^note business?

Q. Eliz. Duch.
With all our hearts. ^note [Exeunt ^note all but Buckingham and Gloucester.

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

Glou.
My other self, my counsel's consistory,
My oracle, my prophet!—My ^note dear cousin,
I, like ^note a child, will go by thy direction.
Towards ^note Ludlow ^note then, for we'll ^note not stay behind. [Exeunt. ^note

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