Page 1214 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Exit [followed by all save Buckingham].

BUCKINGHAM

And is it thus? Repays he my deep service
With such contempt? Made I him King for this? [120]
O let me think on Hastings, and be gone
To Brecknock while my fearful head is on.

Exit.

Scene III IT

Enter Tyrrel.

T Y RREL

The tyrannous and bloody act is done;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery - [5]
Albeit they were flesh’d villains, bloody dogs -
Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,
Wept like two children, in their deaths’ sad story.
‘O thus’, quoth Dighton, ‘lay the gentle babes’;
‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest, ‘girdling one another [10]
Within their alabaster innocent arms;
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
And in their summer beauty kiss’d each other.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay,
Which once’, quoth Forrest, ‘almost chang’d my mind. [15]
But O, the Devil -’ There the villain stopp’d,
When Dighton thus told on: ‘We smothered
The most replenished sweet work of Nature,
That from the prime creation e’er she fram’d.’
Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse [20]
They could not speak, and so I left them both
To bear this tidings to the bloody King;

Enter King Richard.

And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord.