Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Adrian Kiernander
Not Peer Reviewed

Richard the Third (Modern)

[3.3]
Enter Sir Richard Ratcliffe [and guards], with the lords Rivers, Grey and Vaughan, prisoners.
1934.1Ratcliffe
Come, bring forth the prisoners.
Sir Richard Ratcliffe, let me tell thee this:
To day shalt thou behold a subject die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
God keep the Prince from all the pack of you:
A knot you are of damnèd bloodsuckers.
O Pomfret, Pomfret, O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers.
1945Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Richard the Second here was hacked to death,
And for more slander to thy dismal soul
We give thee up our guiltless bloods to drink.
Now Margaret's curse is fallen upon our heads
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.
Then cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham:
Then cursed she Richard. O remember, God,
1955To hear her prayers for them as now for us,
And for my sister and her princely son:
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true bloods,
Which as thou knowest unjustly must be spilled.
Ratcliffe
Come, come, dispatch, the limit of your lives is out.
Come Grey, come Vaughan, let us all embrace
And take our leave until we meet in heaven.
Exeunt.