Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pilled from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not, that I am Queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels.
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away.
RICHARD.
Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou in my sight?
QUEEN MARGARET.
But repetition of what thou hast marred.
That will I make before I let thee go.
RICHARD.
Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
QUEEN MARGARET.
I was, but I do find more pain in banishment
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a son thou ow’st to me;
And thou a kingdom; all of you, allegiance.
This sorrow that I have by right is yours;
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
RICHARD.
The curse my noble father laid on thee
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,
And then to dry them, gav’st the Duke a clout
Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland—
His curses then, from bitterness of soul
Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,
And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
So just is God, to right the innocent.
HASTINGS.
O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.
RIVERS.
Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
DORSET.
No man but prophesied revenge for it.