Cuts for Act 1, Scene 3

Cuts are preceded by a '[' and end with a ']'.  If multiple speeches are cut, each
speech will be bracketed separately.

Special Note:
Possible cuts are indicated by a '{' and a '}'.  These may be cut at a later time
but are currently uncut.
 

Page 22 - after line 18

STANLEY

God make your majesty joyful as you have been!

[The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.
To your good prayers will scarcely say amen.
Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.]

[I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers;
Or, if she be accused in true report,
Bear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds
From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.]

Saw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?

But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
Are come from visiting his majesty.

[What likelihood of his amendment, lords?]

Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.

GLOUCESTER

They do me wrong, and I will not endure it!
Who are they that complains unto the king,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
[By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.]
Because I cannot flatter and speak fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abused
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

QUEEN ELIZABETH

[By Him that raised me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,]
I never did incense his majesty
Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury,
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty
With those gross taunts I often have endured.
{I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen, with this condition,
To be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:}

Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind

Small joy have I in being England's queen.

GLOUCESTER

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.]
To royalize his blood I spent mine own.

Ay, and much better blood than his or thine.

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 Alban's slain?]
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere now, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

QUEEN MARGARET

Ah, 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 deposed, you quake like rebels?]
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

QUEEN MARGARET

And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
[The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!]
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!
Thou rag of honour! thou detested--
 

QUEEN MARGARET

And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!
[Witness my son, now in the shade of death;
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.]
Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

Peace, peace for shame, if not for charity.

Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
[My charity is outrage, life my shame
And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.]

QUEEN MARGARET

I will not think but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;
[Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.]

GLOUCESTER

So do I ever -- (Aside) being well-advised.
[For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.]

GLOUCESTER

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls--
[Namely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;]
And tell them 'tis the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now, they believe it; and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey.
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
[And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;]
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Enter two Murderers

But, soft! here come my executioners.
How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?

We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant
That we may be admitted where he is.

[Well thought upon; I have it here about me.

Gives the warrant

When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.]
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
[For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.]