Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/115

Richard the Third, IV. iv

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air

And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,

Hover about me with your airy wings,

And hear your mother's lamentation.

Q. Mar. Hover about her; say, that right for right

Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.

Duch. So many miseries have craz'd my voice,

That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.

Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?

Q. Mar. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet;

Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.

Q. Eliz. Wilt thou, O God! fly from such gentle lambs,

And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?

When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?

Q. Mar. When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.

Duch. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,

Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,

Brief abstract and record of tedious days,

Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,

Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood!

Q. Eliz. Ah! that thou wouldst as soon afford a grave

As thou canst yield a melancholy seat;

Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.

Ah! who hath any cause to mourn but we?

[Sitting down by her.]

Q. Mar. If ancient sorrow be most reverend,

Give mine the benefit of signiory,

 15 right for right; cf. n.

17 craz'd: cracked

20 quit: requite

28 abstract: epitome; cf. n.

31 thou: i.e. the earth

36 signiory: precedence

