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Oh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!
Children:
Oh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!
DUCHESS OF YORK:
Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
QUEEN ELIZABETH:
What stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.
Children:
What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.
DUCHESS OF YORK:
What stays had I but they? and they are gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH:
Was never widow had so dear a loss!
Children:
Were never orphans had so dear a loss!
DUCHESS OF YORK:
Was never mother had so dear a loss!
Alas, I am the mother of these moans!
Their woes are parcell'd, mine are general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:
These babes for Clarence weep and so do I;
I for an Edward weep, so do not they:
Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,
Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.
DORSET:
Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness, his doing:
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,
With dull unwilligness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
RIVERS:
Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son: send straight for him
Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.
GLOUCESTER:
Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause
To wail the dimming of our shining star;
But none can cure their harms by wailing them.
Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;
I did not see your grace: humbly on my knee
I crave your blessing.
DUCHESS OF YORK:
God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!
GLOUCESTER:
BUCKINGHAM:
You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
That bear this mutual heavy load of moan,
Now cheer each other in each other's love
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,
Must gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd
Hither to London, to be crown'd our king.
RIVERS:
Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM:
Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,
Which would be so much the more dangerous
By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:
Where every horse bears his commanding rein,
And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
GLOUCESTER:
I hope the king made peace with all of us
And the compact is firm and true in me.
RIVERS:
And so in me; and so, I think, in all:
Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
To no apparent likelihood of breach,
Which haply by much company might be urged: