Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs: Enter Queen MARGARET, behind. Q. Mar. And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee! Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me. Glo. What? threat you me with telling of the king? I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower. Q. Mar. Out, devil! I remember them too well: Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king, I was a pack-horse in his great affairs; A weeder-out of his proud adversaries, A liberal rewarder of his friends; 3 To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own. Q. Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine. Glo. In all which time, you and your husband Grey, Were factious for the house of Lancaster: And, Rivers, so were you: Was not your husband In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans' slain? Let me put in your minds, if you forget, + "To be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:”. - MALONE. my pains-] My labours, my toils. 2 3 royalize] i. e. to make royal. Yea," MALONE. Margaret's battle-] Is- Margaret's army. What you have been ere now, and what you are; Q. Mar. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art. Glo. Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick, Ay, and forswore himself,- Which Jesu pardon !--Q. Mar. Which God revenge! Glo. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown; I am too childish-foolish for this world. Q. Mar. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world, Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is. Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days, Q. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose That I enjoy, being the queen thereof. Q. Mar. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof; For I am she, and altogether joyless. I can no longer hold me patient. [Advancing. Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out In sharing that which you have pill'd from me: " Which of you trembles not, that looks on me? If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects; Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels? Ah, gentle villain", do not turn away! 5 which you have pill'd from me ;] To pill is to pillage. • Ah, gentle villain,] Gentle appears to be taken in its common acceptation, but to be used ironically. Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight?7 Q. Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd; That will I make, before I let thee go. Glo. Wert thou not banished, on pain of death? Q. Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in banishment, Than death can yield me here by my abode. A husband, and a son, thou ow'st to me, paper, Glo. The curse my noble father laid on thee, 8 Q. Eliz. So just is God, to right the innocent. Hast. O, 'twas the foulest deed, to slay that babe, And the most merciless, that e'er was heard of. Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported. Dor. No man but prophecy'd revenge for it. Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it. Q. Mar. What! were you snarling all, before I came, Ready to catch each other by the throat, And turn you all your hatred now on me? Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven, what mak'st thou in my sight?] An obsolete expression for – what dost thou in my sight. 8 hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.] To plague, in ancient language, is to punish. Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven? - Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine! Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!-Rivers, and Dorset, you were standers by, And so wast thou, lord Hastings, when my son Was stabb'd with bloody daggers; God, I pray him, That none of you may live your natural age, But by some unlook'd accident cut off! Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag. Q. Mar. And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me. If heaven have any grievous plague in store, On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace! 9 by surfeit die your king,] Alluding to his luxurious life. Thou elvish-mark'd', abortive, rooting hog!2 Thou rag of honour! thou detested Glo. Margaret. Glo. I cry thee mercy then; for I did think, Margaret. Glo. 'Tis done by me; and ends in yourself. Q. Mar. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune! Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider, * elvish-mark'd,] The common people in Scotland, (as we learn from Kelly's Proverbs,) have still an aversion to those who have any natural defect or redundancy, as thinking them mark'd out for mischief. 2 rooting hog!] The expression is fine, alluding (in memory of her young son) to the ravage which hogs make, with the finest flowers, in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her sons. WARBURTON. 3 The slave of nature,] The expression is strong and noble, and alludes to the ancient custom of masters branding their profligate slaves; by which it is insinuated that his misshapen person was the mark that nature had set upon him to stigmatize his ill conditions. bottled spider,] A spider is called bottled, because, like other insects, he has a middle slender, and a belly protuberant. Richard's form and venom made her liken him to a spider. |