K. Rich. The advancement of your children, gentle lady. Q. Eliz. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads? K. Rich. No, to the dignity and height of fortune, The high imperial type of this earth's glory. Q. Eliz. Flatter my sorrows with report of it; Tell me, what state, what dignity, what honour, Canst thou demise to any child of mine? K. Rich. Even all I have; ay, and myself and all, Will I withal endow a child of thine; So in the Lethe of thy angry soul Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs, Which, thou supposest, I have done to thee. Q. Eliz. Be brief, lest that the process of thy kindness Last longer telling than thy kindness' date. K. Rich. Then know, that, from my soul, I love thy daughter. Q. Eliz. My daughter's mother thinks it with her soul. Q. Eliz. That thou dost love my daughter, from thy soul: So, from thy soul's love, didst thou love her bro thers; And, from my heart's love, I do thank thee for it. K. Rich. Be not so hasty to confound my mean ing: I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter, Q. Eliz. Well then, who dost thou mean shall be her king? K. Rich. Even he, that makes her queen; Who else should be? Madam, with all my heart. Q. Eliz. And wilt thou learn of me? K. Rich. Q. Eliz. Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers, A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave, Tell her, thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence, way To win your daughter. Q. Eliz. There is no other way; Unless thou could'st put on some other shape, K. Rich. Say, that I did all this for love of her? Q. Eliz. Nay, then indeed, she cannot choose but have thee, Having bought love with such a bloody spoil. K. Rich. Look, what is done cannot be now Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes, queen. The king, that calls your beauteous daughter,wife, Familiarly shall call thy Dorset-brother; Again shall you be mother to a king, Of ten-times-double gain of happiness. Q. Eliz. What were I best to say? her father's brother Would be her lord? Or shall I say, her uncle? K. Rich. Tell her, the king, that may command, entreats. Q. Eliz. That at her hands, which the king's King forbids. K. Rich. Say, she shall be a high and mighty queen. Q. Eliz. To wail the title, as her mother doth. last? K. Rich. As long as heaven, and nature, length ens it. Q. Eliz. As long as hell, and Richard, likes of it. K. Rich. Say, I, her soy'reign, am her subject low. Q. Eliz. But she, your subject, loaths such sov'reignty. K. Rich. Be eloquent in my behalf to her. Q. Eliz. An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told. K. Rich. Then, in plain terms tell her my loving tale. Q. Eliz. Plain, and notest, is too harsh a style. K. Rich. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick. Q. Eliz. O, no, my reasons are too deep and dead; Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves. K. Rich. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past. Q. Eliz. Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break. |