Page 1225 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1
P. 1225
KING RICHARD
Wrong not her birth; she is a royal princess.
ELIZABET H
To save her life I’ll say she is not so.
KING RICHARD
Her life is safest only in her birth.
ELIZABET H
And only in that safety died her brothers. [215]
KING RICHARD
Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.
ELIZABET H
No, to their lives ill friends were contrary.
KING RICHARD
All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
ELIZABET H
True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
My babes were destin’d to a fairer death, [220]
If grace had blest thee with a fairer life.
KING RICHARD
You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
ELIZABET H
Cousins indeed! And by their uncle cozen’d
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life:
Whose hand soever lanc’d their tender hearts, [225]
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murd’rous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame, [230]
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchor’d in thine eyes,
