Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/119

Richard the Third, IV. iv

Q. Mar. Thy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.

Exit Margaret.

Duch. Why should calamity be full of words?

Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their clients' woes,

Airy succeeders of intestate joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

Let them have scope: though what they will impart

Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.

Duch. If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me,

And in the breath of bitter words let's smother

My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smother'd.

The trumpet sounds: be copious in exclaims.

K. Rich. Who intercepts me in my expedition?

Duch. O! she that might have intercepted thee,

By strangling thee in her accursed womb,

From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!

Q. Eliz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden crown,

Where should be branded, if that right were right,

The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown,

And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?

Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?

Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence

And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?

Duch. Where is kind Hastings?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women

 128 intestate: literally, not having made a will; cf. n.

131 Help else: is of no avail otherwise

142 ow'd: owned

148 Cf. n.

