Act 2, Scene 4

London. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN ELIZABETH, and the DUCHESS OF YORK.]
Archbishop of York
1417 Last night, I hear, they at Northampton lay;
1418 And at Stony-Stratford they do rest to-night:
1419 To-morrow or next day they will be here.
Duchess of York
1420 I long with all my heart to see the prince:
1421 I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
Queen Elizabeth
1422 But I hear no; they say my son of York
1423 Has almost overta'en him in his growth.
Richard, Duke of York (the young prince)
1424 Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.
Duchess of York
1425 Why, my good cousin? it is good to grow.
Richard, Duke of York (the young prince)
1426 Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,
1427 My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow
1428 More than my brother. "Ay," quoth my uncle Gloster,
1429 "Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace."
1430 And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,
1431 Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
Duchess of York
1432 Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
1433 In him that did object the same to thee:
1434 He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,
1435 So long a growing and so leisurely,
1436 That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.
Archbishop of York
1437 And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.
Duchess of York
1438 I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.
Richard, Duke of York (the young prince)
1439 Now, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,
1440 I could have given my uncle's grace a flout
1441 To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.
Duchess of York
1442 How, my young York? I pr'ythee let me hear it.
Richard, Duke of York (the young prince)
1443 Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast
1444 That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old:
1445 'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
1446 Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
Duchess of York
1447 I pr'ythee, pretty York, who told thee this?
Richard, Duke of York (the young prince)
1448 Grandam, his nurse.
Duchess of York
1449 His nurse! why she was dead ere thou wast born.
Richard, Duke of York (the young prince)
1450 If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.
Queen Elizabeth
1451 A parlous boy!—go to, you are too shrewd.
Archbishop of York
1452 Good madam, be not angry with the child.
Queen Elizabeth
1453 Pitchers have ears.
Archbishop of York
1454 Here comes a messenger.
[Enter a MESSENGER.]
Archbishop of York
1455 What news?
Messenger
1456 Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.
Queen Elizabeth
1457 How doth the prince?
Messenger
1458 Well, madam, and in health.
Duchess of York
1459 What is thy news?
Messenger
1460 Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,
1461 With them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
Duchess of York
1462 Who hath committed them?
Messenger
1463 The mighty dukes, Gloster and Buckingham.
Archbishop of York
1464 For what offence?
Messenger
1465 The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd;
1466 Why or for what the nobles were committed
1467 Is all unknown to me, my gracious lady.
Queen Elizabeth
1468 Ah me, I see the ruin of my house!
1469 The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;
1470 Insulting tyranny begins to jet
1471 Upon the innocent and aweless throne:—
1472 Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!
1473 I see, as in a map, the end of all.
Duchess of York
1474 Accursed and unquiet wrangling days
1475 How many of you have mine eyes beheld?
1476 My husband lost his life to get the crown;
1477 And often up and down my sons were toss'd
1478 For me to joy and weep their gain and loss:
1479 And being seated, and domestic broils
1480 Clean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors
1481 Make war upon themselves; brother to brother,
1482 Blood to blood, self against self: O, preposterous
1483 And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;
1484 Or let me die, to look on death no more!
Queen Elizabeth
1485 Come, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary.—
1486 Madam, farewell.
Duchess of York
1487 Stay, I will go with you.
Queen Elizabeth
1488 You have no cause.
[To the queen.]
Archbishop of York
1489 My gracious lady, go.
1490 And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
1491 For my part, I'll resign unto your grace
1492 The seal I keep; and so betide to me
1493 As well I tender you and all of yours!
1494 Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1429cultural context
“Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace”
Richard quoted a proverbial rhyme at supper: herbs with 'grace' (virtue, goodness) grow slowly, while weeds shoot up fast. He was mocking the young Duke of York for growing quickly, insinuating that rapid growth is a sign of worthlessness. Young York grasps the insult but only recalls it belatedly, wishing he had shot back that Richard himself grew fast — and therefore, by his own proverb, must be a weed.
TLN 1440archaic vocab
“given my uncle's grace a flout / To touch his growth nearer”
'Flout' means a taunt or mocking jibe — young York says he could have hit back at Richard with a sharper jeer about his own growth than Richard managed against him. 'Touch his growth nearer' means 'score a more cutting hit on the subject of his growing.' The boy is proud of the comeback he thought of too late.
TLN 1451archaic vocab
“A parlous boy”
'Parlous' is a contraction of 'perilous' meaning dangerously clever or shrewd — Queen Elizabeth calls her younger son a 'parlous boy' because his sharp wit has just produced a satirical joke about Richard's deformity, which is the kind of remark that could get someone killed. She scolds him for it ('go to, you are too shrewd'), then immediately warns that even small pitchers have ears.
TLN 1453cultural context
“Pitchers have ears”
This is a proverbial warning meaning small children hear and repeat everything — 'pitchers' are jugs, whose two handles look like ears. Queen Elizabeth cuts off the Archbishop's defence of young York with this proverb: it is not that she disagrees, but that the palace is unsafe for open talk, even harmless-seeming banter. The proverb doubles as an admission that anyone in this room might be a spy.
TLN 1460historical topical
“Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret”
Pomfret is Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire — a royal stronghold that had become associated with political imprisonment and death. Richard II was murdered there in 1400. That the queen's brother Rivers, her son Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan have been sent to Pomfret rather than to the Tower tells an Elizabethan audience that execution, not just detention, is coming. Queen Elizabeth understands this at once: 'I see the ruin of my house.'
historical More's History of King Richard IIIhistorical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 1469rhetorical device
“The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind; / Insulting tyranny begins to jet”
Elizabeth frames Richard's seizure of power in two images: a tiger catching a 'hind' (a female deer, standing for the helpless royal family), and tyranny beginning to 'jet' — to strut arrogantly — upon an 'aweless' throne, one no longer held in awe or able to command respect. The predator-prey pairing collapses Richard's political coup into the language of hunt and slaughter. 'Jet' as a verb means to swagger or strut; it is now archaic.
TLN 1480rhetorical device
“themselves, the conquerors / Make war upon themselves; brother to brother, / Blood to blood, self against self”
The Duchess of York uses a series of paired, self-cancelling phrases — 'brother to brother, / Blood to blood, self against self' — to describe the horror of civil war: it is not merely war but a kingdom turned against its own body. The triple repetition (a figure called anaphora) hammers the point home. The Duchess speaks as someone who has watched three generations of this: she has lost a husband fighting for the crown and then lived to see her own sons destroy each other.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 1491historical topical
“I'll resign unto your grace / The seal I keep”
The Archbishop of York hands Queen Elizabeth the Great Seal of England — the official stamp used to authenticate royal documents and government acts — as he escorts her and young York to sanctuary at Westminster. The Great Seal was the physical embodiment of royal authority; surrendering it to the queen is both a gesture of loyalty and a drastic act that removes the seal from Richard's reach, making it impossible for Richard to issue valid royal orders in the young king's name until the seal is recovered.
historical More's History of King Richard III