SCENE VI. London. The Tower

Enter King Henry and Richard , with the Lieutenant on the walls.

RICHARD. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?

KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord—my lord, I should say rather. ’Tis sin to flatter; “good” was little better: “Good Gloucester” and “good devil” were alike, And both preposterous; therefore, not “good lord”.

RICHARD. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.

[ Exit Lieutenant . ]

KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf; So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, And next his throat unto the butcher’s knife. What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?

RICHARD. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush; And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird, Have now the fatal object in my eye Where my poor young was limed, was caught, and killed.

RICHARD. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete That taught his son the office of a fowl! And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.

KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus; Thy father, Minos, that denied our course; The sun that seared the wings of my sweet boy, Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life. Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words! My breast can better brook thy dagger’s point Than can my ears that tragic history. But wherefore dost thou come? Is ’t for my life?

RICHARD. Think’st thou I am an executioner?

KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art. If murdering innocents be executing, Why, then thou art an executioner.

RICHARD. Thy son I killed for his presumption.

KING HENRY. Hadst thou been killed when first thou didst presume, Thou hadst not lived to kill a son of mine. And thus I prophesy: that many a thousand Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear, And many an old man’s sigh, and many a widow’s, And many an orphan’s water-standing eye, Men for their sons’, wives for their husbands’, Orphans for their parents’ timeless death, Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born. The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign; The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time; Dogs howled, and hideous tempest shook down trees; The raven rooked her on the chimney’s top, And chatt’ring pies in dismal discord sung; Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain, And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope, To wit, an indigested and deformed lump, Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree. Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, To signify thou cam’st to bite the world; And, if the rest be true which I have heard, Thou cam’st—

RICHARD. I’ll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.

[ Stabs him. ]

For this, amongst the rest, was I ordained.

KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this. O God, forgive my sins, and pardon thee!

[ Dies. ]

RICHARD. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted. See how my sword weeps for the poor King’s death. O, may such purple tears be always shed From those that wish the downfall of our house! If any spark of life be yet remaining, Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither—

[ Stabs him again. ]

I that have neither pity, love, nor fear. Indeed, ’tis true that Henry told me of, For I have often heard my mother say I came into the world with my legs forward. Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste And seek their ruin that usurped our right? The midwife wondered, and the women cried “O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!” And so I was, which plainly signified That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog. Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so, Let hell make crooked my mind to answer it. I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word “love,” which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another, And not in me. I am myself alone. Clarence, beware; thou keep’st me from the light, But I will sort a pitchy day for thee; For I will buzz abroad such prophecies That Edward shall be fearful of his life; And then, to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death. King Henry and the Prince his son are gone; Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest, Counting myself but bad till I be best. I’ll throw thy body in another room, And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.

[ Exit with the body. ]