If yet your gentle souls fly in the air
And be not fix'd in doom perpetual, 12
Hover about me with your airy wings,
And hear your mother's lamentation.
Q. Mar. Hover about her; say, that right for right
Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night. 16
Duch. So many miseries have craz'd my voice,
That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.
Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?
Q. Mar. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet; 20
Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.
Q. Eliz. Wilt thou, O God! fly from such gentle lambs,
And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?
When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done? 24
Q. Mar. When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.
Duch. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,
Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,
Brief abstract and record of tedious days, 28
Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,
[Sitting down.]
Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood!
Q. Eliz. Ah! that thou wouldst as soon afford a grave
As thou canst yield a melancholy seat; 32
Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.
Ah! who hath any cause to mourn but we?
[Sitting down by her.]
Q. Mar. If ancient sorrow be most reverend,
Give mine the benefit of signiory, 36
15 right for right; cf. n.
17 craz'd: cracked
20 quit: requite
28 abstract: epitome; cf. n.
31 thou: i.e. the earth
36 signiory: precedence
