Page 1154 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast?
And cry ‘O Clarence, my unhappy son’?

BOY

Why do you look on us, and shake your head, [5]
And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,
If that our noble father were alive?

DUCHESS

My pretty cousins, you mistake me both:
I do lament the sickness of the King,
As loath to lose him; not your father’s death: [10]
It were lost sorrow to wail one that’s lost.

BOY

Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead:
The King mine uncle is to blame for it.
God will revenge it, whom I will importune
With earnest prayers, all to that effect. [15]

GIRL

And so will I.

DUCHESS

Peace, children, peace: the King doth love you well.
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caus’d your father’s death.

BOY

Grandam, we can: for my good uncle Gloucester [20]
Told me the King, provok’d to’t by the Queen,
Devis’d impeachments to imprison him;
And when my uncle told me so he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kiss’d my cheek;
Bade me rely on him as on my father, [25]
And he would love me dearly as a child.

DUCHESS

Ah, that Deceit should steal such gentle shape,
And with a virtuous vizor hide deep Vice!