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  • 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
    Vpon the hatches thence we lookt toward England,
    850And cited vp a thousand fearefull times,
    During the wars of Yorke and Lancaster:
    That had befallen vs, as we pact along,
    Vpon the giddy footing of the hatches:
    Me thought that Glocester stumbled, and in stumbling,
    855Stroke me that thought to stay him ouer board,
    Into the tumbling billowes of the maine.
    Lord, Lord, me thought what paine it was to drowne,
    What dreadfull noise of waters in my eares,
    What vgly sights of death within my eies:
    860Me thought I sawe a thousand fearefull wracks,
    Ten thousand men, that fishes gnawed vpon,
    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heapes of pearle,
    Inestimable stones, vnualued Iewels,
    865Some lay in dead mens sculs, and in those holes,
    Where eies did once inhabite, there were crept
    As twere in scorne of eies reflecting gems,
    Which woed the slimy bottome of the deepe,
    And mockt the dead bones that lay scattered by.
    870Brok. Had you sueh leisure in the time of death,
    To gaze vpon the secrets of the deepe?
    Clar. Me thought I had, for still the enuious floud
    Kept in my soule, and would not let it foorth,
    875To seeke the emptie vast and wandering aire,
    But smothered it within my panting bulke,
    Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
    Brok. Awakt you not with this sore agony.
    Cla. O no, my dreame was lengthned after life,
    880O then began the tempest to my soule,
    Who past me thought the melancholy floud,
    With that grim ferriman, which Poets write of,
    Vnto the kingdome of perpetuall night:
    The first that there did greet my stranger soule,
    885Was my great father in law renowmed Warwicke,
    Who cried alowd what scourge for periury.
    Can this darke monarchy affoord false Clarence,
    And so he vanisht, then came wandring by,
    A sha
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