Q. Mar. Thy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.
Duch. Why should calamity be full of words?
Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their clients' woes,
Airy succeeders of intestate joys, 128
Poor breathing orators of miseries!
Let them have scope: though what they will impart
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.
Duch. If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me, 132
And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smother'd.
[A trumpet heard.]
The trumpet sounds: be copious in exclaims.
Enter King Richard and his Train [marching].
K. Rich. Who intercepts me in my expedition? 136
Duch. O! she that might have intercepted thee,
By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!
Q. Eliz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden crown, 140
Where should be branded, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown,
And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children? 144
Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence
And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?
Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?
Duch. Where is kind Hastings? 148
K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
128 intestate: literally, not having made a will; cf. n.
131 Help . . . else: is of no avail otherwise
142 ow'd: owned
148 Cf. n.
