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GLOUCESTER:
Ha!
QUEEN MARGARET:
I call thee not.
GLOUCESTER:
I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought
That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET:
Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!
GLOUCESTER:
'Tis done by me, and ends in 'Margaret.'
QUEEN ELIZABETH:
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
QUEEN MARGARET:
Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!
Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come when thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.
HASTINGS:
False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
QUEEN MARGARET:
Foul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.
RIVERS:
Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
QUEEN MARGARET:
To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
DORSET:
Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
QUEEN MARGARET:
Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
O, that your young nobility could judge
What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
GLOUCESTER:
Good counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.
DORSET:
It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.
GLOUCESTER:
Yea, and much more: but I was born so high,
Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.
QUEEN MARGARET:
And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!
Witness my son, now in the shade of death;
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!
BUCKINGHAM:
Have done! for shame, if not for charity.
QUEEN MARGARET:
Urge neither charity nor shame to me:
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame
And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.
BUCKINGHAM:
Have done, have done.
QUEEN MARGARET:
O princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand,
In sign of league and amity with thee:
Now fair befal thee and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
BUCKINGHAM:
Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
QUEEN MARGARET: