Enter King Henry the Sixth, wearing the red rose,
and Richard of Gloucester, wearing the white rose,
with the Lieutenant above on the Tower walls. RICHARD
Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard? KING HENRY
Ay, my good lord—“my lord,” I should say rather.
’Tis sin to flatter; “good” was little better:
“Good Gloucester” and “good devil” were alike,
And both preposterous: therefore, not “good lord.” 5 RICHARD, to Lieutenant
Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer. Lieutenant exits. | At the Tower, Richard enters Henry's cell. He tells the Lieutenant to leave them alone. |
KING HENRY
So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;
So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece
And next his throat unto the butcher’s knife.
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act? 10 RICHARD
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer. KING HENRY
The bird that hath been limèd in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;
And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird, 15
Have now the fatal object in my eye
Where my poor young was limed, was caught, and
killed. RICHARD
Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete
That taught his son the office of a fowl! 20
And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned. KING HENRY
I Daedalus, my poor boy Icarus,
Thy father Minos, that denied our course;
The sun that seared the wings of my sweet boy
Thy brother Edward, and thyself the sea 25
Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
My breast can better brook thy dagger’s point
Than can my ears that tragic history.
But wherefore dost thou come? Is ’t for my life? 30 RICHARD
Think’st thou I am an executioner? KING HENRY
A persecutor I am sure thou art.
If murdering innocents be executing,
Why, then, thou art an executioner. RICHARD
Thy son I killed for his presumption. 35 | Henry knows that Richard has come to kill him. News travels quickly, because he's already heard about his son's death. Richard says Henry must be guilty, then, because "suspicion haunts the guilty mind." Uh huh. |
KING HENRY
Hadst thou been killed when first thou didst presume,
Thou hadst not lived to kill a son of mine.
And thus I prophesy: that many a thousand
Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,
And many an old man’s sigh, and many a widow’s 40
And many an orphan’s water-standing eye,
Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,
Orphans for their parents’ timeless death,
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign; 45
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howled, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
The raven rooked her on the chimney’s top;
And chatt’ring pies in dismal discords sung;
Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain, 50
And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope:
To wit, an indigested and deformèd lump,
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born
To signify thou cam’st to bite the world. 55
And if the rest be true which I have heard,
Thou cam’st— RICHARD
I’ll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech; Stabs him. For this amongst the rest was I ordained. KING HENRY
Ay, and for much more slaughter after this. 60
O God, forgive my sins, and pardon thee. Dies. | Henry predicts that everyone—men, widows, orphans, a thousand people—will "rue the hour" that Richard was born. Everyone will hate him and curse his name—even his own mother. As last words go, these are pretty powerful. But Richard gets the last laugh: he doesn't even let Henry finish before stabbing him. |
RICHARD
What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
See how my sword weeps for the poor king’s death.
O, may such purple tears be always shed 65
From those that wish the downfall of our house.
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither— Stabs him again. I that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, ’tis true that Henry told me of, 70
For I have often heard my mother say
I came into the world with my legs forward.
Had I not reason, think you, to make haste
And seek their ruin that usurped our right?
The midwife wondered, and the women cried 75
“O Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!”
And so I was, which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crook’d my mind to answer it. 80
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word “love,” which graybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me. I am myself alone.
Clarence, beware; thou keep’st me from the light, 85
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
That Edward shall be fearful of his life;
And then to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death.
King Henry and the Prince his son are gone. 90
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,
Counting myself but bad till I be best.
I’ll throw thy body in another room,
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom. He exits, carrying out the body. |
With Henry dead, Richard delivers a soliloquy. He thinks about what Henry just said, and he eventually decides that he doesn't have a brother. He doesn't even understand the word love. There's only him in the world, basically. Creepy. Richard looks at his to-do list. He can check off "kill Henry" now... and move on to "get rid of George." |