Internet Shakespeare Editions

Toolbox




Jump to line
Help on texts

About this text

  • Title: Richard the Third (Quarto 1, 1597)
  • Editor: Adrian Kiernander

  • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Adrian Kiernander
    Peer Reviewed

    Richard the Third (Quarto 1, 1597)

    The Tragedy
    Glo. To fight on Edwards party for the crowne,
    And for his meede poore Lo: he is mewed vppe:
    I would to God my heart were flint like Edwards,
    610Or Edwards soft and pittifull like mine,
    I am too childish, foolish for this world.
    Qu. Ma. Hie thee to hell for shame and leaue the world
    Thou Cacodemon, there thy kingdome is.
    Ry. My Lo: of Glocester in those busie daies,
    615Which here you vrge to proue vs enemies,
    We followed then our Lo: our lawfull King,
    So should we you if you should be our King.
    Glo. If I should be? I had rather be a pedler,
    Farre be it from my heart the thought of it.
    620Qu. As little ioy my Lord as you suppose
    You should enioy, were you this countries King,
    As little ioy may you suppose in me,
    That I enioy being the Queene thereof.
    Qu. M . A little ioy enioies the Queene thereof,
    625For I am she and altogether ioylesse.
    I can no longer hold me patient:
    Heare me you wrangling Pyrats that fall out,
    In sharing that which you haue pild from me:
    Which of you trembles not that lookes on me?
    630If not, that I being Queene you bow like subiects,
    Yet that by you deposde you quake like rebels:
    O gentle villaine doe not turne away.
    Glo. Foule wrinckled witch what makst thou in my sight?
    Q. Ma. But repetition of what thou hast mard,
    635That will I make before I let thee go:
    A husband and a son thou owest to me,
    640And thou a kingdome, all of you allegeance:
    The sorrow that I haue by right is yours,
    And all the pleasures you vsurpe are mine.
    Glo. The curse my noble father laid on thee,
    When thou didst crowne his warlike browes with paper,
    645And with thy scorne drewst riuers from his eies,
    And then to drie them gau'st the Duke a clout,
    Steept in the faultlesse bloud of pretty Rutland:
    His