The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9] · William Shakespeare
SCENE II. _The palace_.
_Riv._ 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. [fbb100] _Enter_ GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, _and_ RATCLIFF. _Glou._ Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause [fbb101] To wail the dimming of our shining star; But none can cure their harms by wailing them. [fbb103] Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy; I did not see your grace: humbly on my knee [fbb105] I crave your blessing. _Duch._ God bless thee, and put meekness in thy mind, [fbb107] Love, charity, obedience, and true duty! _Glou._ [_Aside_] Amen; and make me die a good old man! [fbb109] That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing: [fbb110] I marvel why her grace did leave it out. [fbb111] _Buck._ You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers, That bear this mutual heavy load of moan, [fbb113] Now cheer each other in each other’s love: [fbb114] Though we have spent our harvest of this king, [fbb115] We are to reap the harvest of his son. [fbb116] The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts, [fbb117] But lately splinter’d, knit and join’d together, [fbb118] Must gently be preserved, cherish’d, and kept: [fbb119] Me seemeth good, that, with some little train, ·fbb120· Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch’d [fbb121] Hither to London, to be crown’d our king.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.