Act 5, Scene 6

London. The Tower.

[KING HENRY is discovered sitting with a book in his hand, the Lieutenant attending. Enter GLOSTER.]
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2798 Good day, my lord. What! at your book so hard?
King Henry VI
2799 Ay, my good lord;—my lord, I should say rather.
2800 'T is sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.
2801 Good Gloster and good devil were alike,
2802 And both preposterous; therefore, not good lord.
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2803 Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.
[Exit Lieutenant.]
King Henry VI
2804 So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;
2805 So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,
2806 And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.—
2807 What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2808 Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
2809 The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
King Henry VI
2810 The bird that hath been limed in a bush
2811 With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;
2812 And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,
2813 Have now the fatal object in my eye
2814 Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2815 Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete
2816 That taught his son the office of a fowl!
2817 And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.
King Henry VI
2818 I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
2819 Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
2820 The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,
2821 Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea
2822 Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
2823 Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
2824 My breast can better brook thy dagger's point
2825 Than can my ears that tragic history.
2826 But wherefore dost thou come? is 't for my life?
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2827 Think'st thou I am an executioner?
King Henry VI
2828 A persecutor, I am sure, thou art;
2829 If murdering innocents be executing,
2830 Why, then thou are an executioner.
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2831 Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
King Henry VI
2832 Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,
2833 Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
2834 And thus I prophesy,—that many a thousand,
2835 Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,
2836 And many an old man's sigh and many a widow's,
2837 And many an orphan's water-standing eye,—
2838 Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate,
2839 And orphans for their parents' timeless death,—
2840 Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
2841 The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;
2842 The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
2843 Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
2844 The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
2845 And chatt'ring pies in dismal discord sung.
2846 Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
2847 And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,
2848 An indigested and deformed lump,
2849 Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
2850 Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,
2851 To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;
2852 And, if the rest be true which I have heard,
2853 Thou cam'st—
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2854 I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.
[Stabs him.]
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2855 For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.
King Henry VI
2856 Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.
2857 O, God forgive my sins, and pardon thee!
[Dies.]
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2858 What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
2859 Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
2860 See, how my sword weeps for the poor King's death!
2861 O, may such purple tears be always shed
2862 From those that wish the downfall of our house!—
2863 If any spark of life be yet remaining,
2864 Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither,
[Stabs him again.]
Richard Plantagenet (Gloucester)
2865 I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
2866 Indeed, 't is true that Henry told me of;
2867 For I have often heard my mother say
2868 I came into the world with my legs forward.
2869 Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste
2870 And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
2871 The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried
2872 'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
2873 And so I was, which plainly signified
2874 That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.
2875 Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
2876 Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
2877 I have no brother, I am like no brother,
2878 And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,
2879 Be resident in men like one another,
2880 And not in me! I am myself alone.—
2881 Clarence, beware! thou keep'st me from the light;
2882 But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
2883 For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
2884 That Edward shall be fearful of his life,
2885 And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
2886 King Henry and the prince his son are gone;
2887 Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,
2888 Counting myself but bad till I be best.
2889 I'll throw thy body in another room,
2890 And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
[Exit with the body.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2807classical allusion
“What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?”
Roscius was the most celebrated actor of ancient Rome -- his name had become a byword in English for a supreme performer. Henry, knowing Richard has come to murder him, uses the name bitterly: he casts the Tower as a theatre and Richard as the star turn in a death-scene. The question is heavy with irony since Henry already knows the answer.
classical Roscius, the great Roman actor
TLN 2810archaic vocab
“bird that hath been limed in a bush”
'Limed' means caught with birdlime -- a thick, sticky paste smeared on branches to trap birds by their feet. Henry uses the image to answer Richard's gibe that only the guilty fear every bush: Henry has already been caught (imprisoned in the Tower) and has good reason to fear every snare. 'My poor young' in line 2812 means 'my poor young one,' i.e., his murdered son the Prince of Wales.
TLN 2815classical allusion
“peevish fool was that of Crete That taught his son the office of a fowl”
Richard mockingly alludes to Daedalus, the master craftsman of Greek myth who made feather-and-wax wings for himself and his son Icarus to escape imprisonment on the island of Crete. Icarus, exhilarated by flight, soared too near the sun; the wax melted and he drowned. Richard calls Daedalus a 'peevish fool' for teaching his son to fly, since the boy died for it. Henry then maps the myth precisely onto his own life: he is Daedalus, Prince Edward (just murdered at Tewkesbury) is Icarus, Richard's brother Edward IV is the burning sun, and Richard himself is the engulfing sea.
classical Daedalus and Icarus
TLN 2834historical topical
“I prophesy,—that many a thousand, Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear”
Henry VI was popularly regarded in Tudor England as a holy man with the gift of prophecy. Here he foretells the grief Richard will cause 'many a thousand' -- orphans, widows, bereaved fathers -- as Richard works his way to the throne and then destroys all who stand in his path, including his own brothers. The play treats the prophecy as genuine: everything Henry predicts comes true in Richard III. 'Timeless death' (line 2839) means untimely, premature death.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2841cultural context
“The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign; The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time”
Henry catalogs the portents at Richard's birth: a shrieking owl, a night-crow, howling dogs, a raven perching on the chimney, chattering magpies -- all Elizabethan omens of death and disaster. A mother suffering 'more than a mother's pain' and delivering 'an indigested and deformed lump' points to Richard's famous physical deformity, which Tudor sources (and Richard himself in his soliloquy below) describe as a difficult, unnatural birth. Born with teeth is the final marvel: a mark of a predator from the first moment of life.
historical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 2858rhetorical device
“will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted”
Richard watches Henry's blood pool on the floor and delivers a grotesque pun: 'aspiring' blood is blood that strives to 'mount' (rise) -- yet the Lancastrian dynasty, which aspired to the crown, has come to this. He then looks at his sword blade (wet with blood) and calls the dripping 'purple tears' shed for the 'poor King's death' -- a savagely ironic mock-elegy from the man who has just killed him. 'Purple' was the color of royal blood and royal mourning; it also means simply blood-red here.
historical The Stage Machiavelhistorical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 2875rhetorical device
“since the heavens have shap'd my body so, Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it”
Richard's logic is stark and chilling: heaven has given him a deformed body, so he will let hell warp his mind to match. He then rejects all human bonds -- brotherhood, love -- in a single sentence: 'I am myself alone.' This is the manifesto of a man who has decided to let his deformity define and excuse him, turning outward disadvantage into inward license to do evil. The speech is a pivotal moment in the construction of the future Richard III.
historical The Stage Machiavelhistorical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 2881historical topical
“Clarence, beware! thou keep'st me from the light; But I will sort a pitchy day for thee”
Richard, alone over Henry's body, begins planning his next murders. Clarence (his brother George) stands between him and the throne, so Richard announces he will 'sort' (arrange, find) 'a pitchy day' -- a day as dark as pitch -- for him. He intends to plant false rumors that will make Edward IV fear Clarence, giving Richard the cover to have him killed. This is exactly what happens in Richard III, where Clarence is drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. 'Buzz abroad' (line 2883) means 'spread by whispering.'
historical The Wars of the Roses