KING RICHARD.
Who intercepts me in my expedition?
DUCHESS.
O, she that might have intercepted thee,
By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Hid’st thou that forehead with a golden crown
Where should be branded, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the Prince that owed that crown,
And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children?
DUCHESS.
Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence,
And little Ned Plantagenet his son?
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?
DUCHESS.
Where is kind Hastings?
KING RICHARD.
A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord’s anointed. Strike, I say!
[Flourish. Alarums.]
Either be patient and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
DUCHESS.
Art thou my son?