Page 1221 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1
P. 1221
Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine. [125]
Exit.
DUCHESS
Why should calamity be full of words?
ELIZABET H
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 [130]
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.
DUCHESS
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. [135]
Enter King Richard and his Train [including Catesby], marching with
drums and trumpets.
KING RICHARD
Who intercepts me in my expedition?
DUCHESS
O, she that might have intercepted thee -
By strangling thee in her accursed womb -
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done.
ELIZABET H
Hid’st thou that forehead with a golden crown [140]
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?
DUCHESS
Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence, [145]
And little Ned Plantagenet his son?
