Richard III

Queen Margaret emerges from hiding—she's been lurking in England to watch her enemies' destruction. Queen Elizabeth mourns her murdered sons: 'Ah my poor princes! ah my tender babes: my unblowed flowers, new appearing sweets.' The Duchess of York joins her—Richard's own mother, destroyed by what her son has become. Margaret claims supremacy in grief: 'If ancient sorrow be most reverent, give mine the benefit.' She catalogs the Edwards: 'I had an Edward, till a Richard killed him: I had a husband, till a Richard killed him: Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him: Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him.' The Duchess turns on Margaret: 'I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him'—but then agrees about her surviving son. Margaret delivers her devastating curse on Richard: 'From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept a hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death: that dog, that had his teeth before his eyes, to worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood.' The Duchess accepts the curse—her own son is the monster. Margaret's vengeance is complete—all her enemies dead or suffering. She prophesies Richard's end is near: 'Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray, to have him suddenly conveyed from hence.' Elizabeth begs Margaret to teach her to curse. Margaret's famous denunciation: 'Decline all this, and see what now thou art. For happy wife, a most distressed widow: for joyful mother, one that wails the name: for one being sued to, one that humbly sues: for queen, a very caitiff crowned with care.' Margaret exits triumphant. Richard enters with trumpets. The Duchess confronts her son: 'O she that might have intercepted thee by strangling thee in her accursed womb.' Elizabeth demands: 'Where are my children?' The Duchess: 'Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?' Richard orders drums to drown them out: 'Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike I say.' He cannot silence them. His own mother curses him. The women's grief becomes weapon.