fcc SCENE III. Pomfret Castle

Enter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN to death.

♦ Rat. Come, bring forth the prisoners.

Riv. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:

To-day shalt thou behold a subject die

For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.

5 Grey. God keep the prince from all the pack of you!

A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.

♦ Vaug. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.

Rat. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.

Riv. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,

10 Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

Within the guilty closure of thy walls

Richard the second here was hack’d to death;

♦ And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,

♦ We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.

15 Grey. Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,

For standing by when Richard stabb’d her son.

♦ Riv. Then cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,

♦ Then cursed she Richard. O, remember, God,

♦ To hear her prayers for them, as now for us!

20 And for my sister and her princely sons,

♦ Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,

Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.

♦ Rat. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.

♦ Riv. Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us all embrace:

25 And take our leave, until we meet in heaven. [Exeunt.