Richard III: Act 4, Scene 3 – Analysis
Scene Profile – At a Glance
- Location: London. The palace.
- What Happens: Tyrrel reports that the princes are dead, smothered in the Tower by Dighton and Forrest, who wept as they did it. Richard takes stock of his position, resolves to woo his niece Elizabeth before Richmond can, and learns that Ely has fled to Richmond and Buckingham is in the field.
- Key Characters: Sir James Tyrrel, King Richard, Ratcliffe.
- Dramatic Function: The murder of the princes reported, not shown – the play’s moral centre delivered by a hired man – and the turn from Richard’s rise to his fall.
- Famous Quote:
"The tyrannous and bloody act is done..."
(Tyrrel, Act 4, Scene 3) - Why It Matters: The princes’ deaths are the crime the play cannot forgive, and Shakespeare stages them through the tears of the men who did it, so the horror arrives at one remove and hits harder.
Scene Summary
Sir James Tyrrel enters alone with the news: the tyrannous and bloody act is done, the most piteous massacre this land was ever guilty of. He hired Dighton and Forrest to do it – hardened killers, bloody dogs – and yet they melted with compassion and wept like children as they told him how it went. He repeats their account: the boys lay girdling one another in their innocent arms, their lips like four red roses on a stalk, a prayer-book on their pillow which almost changed Forrest’s mind; then Dighton’s flat conclusion, we smothered the sweetest work of Nature. Both men left speechless with remorse, and Tyrrel has come to tell the bloody king.
Richard enters and asks whether he should be happy. Tyrrel says the thing is done; Richard asks whether he saw them dead, and buried – the chaplain of the Tower buried them, but Tyrrel does not know where. Richard tells him to come after supper to describe the process of their death, and to think how he may be rewarded.
Alone, Richard counts his position: Clarence’s son locked up, Clarence’s daughter married off to a nobody, Edward’s sons asleep in Abraham’s bosom, and Anne his wife has bid the world good night. Since the Breton Richmond means to marry young Elizabeth, his brother’s daughter, and by that knot look proudly on the crown, Richard will go to her first, a jolly thriving wooer. Ratcliffe interrupts with bad news: Morton, Bishop of Ely, has fled to Richmond, and The Duke of Buckingham, backed by the Welsh, is in the field and growing. Richard says Ely with Richmond troubles him more than Buckingham’s rash-levied strength, and rouses himself: fearful commenting serves delay, delay leads to beggary, so let fiery expedition be his wing. Go muster men; his counsel is his shield.
Four Red Roses on a Stalk
Shakespeare keeps the murder offstage and gives the account to a subcontractor. Tyrrel did not do it himself; he hired two men, and what he reports is not the killing but their tears. The horror arrives at two removes, and it is the most tender passage in the play.
Original
"Thus, thus," quoth Forrest, "girdling one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
Which in their summer beauty kissed each other.
(Tyrrel, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
‘Like this,’ said Forrest, ‘holding one another
Together in their innocent white arms.
Their lips, like four red roses on a stalk,
Under a summer’s sun tenderly kissed.
The description is pastoral – alabaster, roses, summer, a kiss – and it comes out of the mouth of a professional murderer, quoted by another one. That is the scene’s device: the men least able to feel are the ones who describe the sleeping children, and the beauty they see undoes them. The prayer-book on the pillow almost stops Forrest; the word “devil” stops him altogether; Dighton finishes the sentence in the plainest possible language, “We smothered”, and then reaches for the grandest, “the most replenished sweet work of Nature”. The princes are never given a death scene of their own because the play wants them remembered as an image rather than as characters – two boys asleep, a stalk of roses – and the image is what the ghosts will carry into Richard’s tent in Act 5. This is the point where the play’s argument about conscience changes hands: the hired killers have it, and the king who hired them does not.
Am I Happy in Thy News?
Richard’s reception of the report is brisk. He wants to know it is done, that they are dead, that they are buried; he books a fuller account for after supper, like an entertainment; and he offers Tyrrel a reward in the vaguest terms. Then he takes inventory.
Original
The son of Clarence have I pent up close,
His daughter meanly have I matched in marriage,
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom,
And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.
(King Richard, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
I’ve locked the son of Clarence up to hold him,
And married off his daughter to a poor man,
And Edward’s sons are sleeping with the angels,
And my wife Anne has bid this world goodnight.
Four lines, four obstacles removed, and the tone is a man ticking a list. Clarence’s children are dealt with, the princes are in Abraham’s bosom – a phrase of scripture used as a euphemism, exactly as the Act 1 soliloquy promised he would use holy writ – and Anne’s death is reported in a single line of formal courtesy that tells the audience nothing about how she died and everything about how little it cost him. The next move follows at once: Richmond wants young Elizabeth, so Richard will woo her first, “a jolly thriving wooer”. The self-description is the old Richard, pleased with himself, and it is the last time the play lets him sound like that unopposed. Ratcliffe enters with the news that the fall has begun. Richard’s response – fearful commenting is leaden, delay is beggary, fiery expedition is his wing – is a man reasoning himself back into motion, and the couplet about counsel and shield is the first of the rhymed exits that mark his last act, where the verse starts to hurry.
Language and Technique
- Report within report: Tyrrel quotes Dighton and Forrest, who describe the princes: the murder reaches the audience through three voices, none of them the king’s, and the distance makes it worse.
- Pastoral imagery for a killing: Alabaster arms, four red roses on a stalk, summer beauty, a kiss – the language of a love poem applied to two smothered children.
- The broken sentence: “But O! The devil” – Forrest cannot finish, and the dash in the text is the sound of a murderer’s conscience choking him.
- The inventory: Richard’s soliloquy lists the dead and the disposed-of in four flat lines, one per obstacle, so the audience hears murder as bookkeeping.
- Scripture as euphemism: “Sleep in Abraham’s bosom” borrows the Bible’s phrase for the blessed dead to avoid the word murdered – Richard clothing villainy in holy writ, as he promised in Act 1.
Key Quotes from Act 4, Scene 3
Quote 1
The tyrannous and bloody act is done,
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
(Tyrrel, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
This bloody act of tyranny is done,
The most abhorrent, wretched massacre
That ever was conducted in this land.
Quote Analysis: Tyrrel’s opening is a public announcement made to nobody, and it uses the play’s heaviest register – tyrannous, bloody, arch deed, piteous massacre. The phrase “this land was guilty of” is the important one: not Richard, not Tyrrel, but the land. The murder is a national crime, which is how the Tudor audience was taught to regard it.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay,
Which once," quoth Forrest, "almost changed my mind;
But O! The devil" – there the villain stopped...
(Tyrrel, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
A prayerbook lay beside them on a pillow,
Which almost,’ Forrest said, ‘did change my mind;
But, oh, that devil’ – then the villain stopped...
Quote Analysis: The detail that almost saved the princes was a prayer-book, and Forrest’s account breaks on the word devil. The pause is written into the line – the dash, and Tyrrel’s note that the villain stopped – so the audience hears a hardened man fail to complete a sentence. It is the play’s most economical picture of conscience at work.
Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?
(King Richard, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Kind Tyrrel, do you bring me happy news?
Quote Analysis: One line of Richard’s, and it contains him. “Kind” to a murderer, “happy” for the death of two nephews, and the whole thing a question, as if the news might disappoint him. The modern verse keeps the courtesy, which is the horror.
Come, I have learned that fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor to dull delay;
Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove’s Mercury, and herald for a king!
(King Richard, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
I’ve learned that when we talk of things that scare us,
It causes indecision and delay;
Delay will weaken us and make us paupers.
So I’ll act with the fury of a fire,
And send a message of the king’s desire!
Quote Analysis: Richard talking himself out of fear. The abstractions – commenting, delay, beggary – are personified as servants and beggars, and speed is given wings and a classical name. It is good rhetoric and it is aimed at himself; the man who once needed no encouragement now has to supply his own.
Key Takeaways
- The murder is heard, not seen: Two hired killers weep, a subcontractor reports, and the king asks for the details after supper.
- The princes become an image: Roses on a stalk, a prayer-book, a kiss: the play fixes them as a picture so the ghosts can carry it to Bosworth.
- Richard takes inventory: Clarence’s children, Edward’s sons and Anne are disposed of in four lines – bookkeeping, not confession.
- The fall begins here: Ely has fled, Buckingham is in the field, Richmond wants Elizabeth: from this scene Richard reacts instead of plotting.
Study Questions and Analysis
Why does Shakespeare not show the murder of the princes?
Because a report can do what a staged killing cannot. If the audience watched two boys smothered, the scene would be about violence; as Tyrrel tells it, the scene is about the effect of the killing on the killers, and the princes are preserved as an image of innocence – asleep, embracing, a prayer-book beside them – rather than as struggling victims. The play also needs the boys for Act 5, where their ghosts must be remembered exactly as Tyrrel describes them.
Albeit they were fleshed villains, bloody dogs,
Melted with tenderness and kind compassion,
Wept like two children in their deaths’ sad story.
(Tyrrel, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Although they’re bloody ruthless murderers,
They melted out of tenderness and pity,
And wept like children at this tragedy.
There is a practical reason too: the murder was, and is, unproven. Nobody knows what happened to the real princes, and Shakespeare’s source, Sir Thomas More, supplied the names Dighton and Forrest, the smothering and the tears; the play follows More closely here. By keeping the deed offstage and letting a hired man narrate it, Shakespeare makes it certain within the play without having to invent the details the record lacks. Samuel Johnson, in his 1765 edition, praised the play’s “scenes noble in themselves” while finding other parts “shocking”; this scene is the one that is both at once.
What does Richard mean by “a jolly thriving wooer”?
He means to marry his niece. Having killed Edward’s sons, Richard reasons that the surviving claim to the crown passes through Edward’s daughter Elizabeth, that Richmond intends to marry her, and that the way to block him is to marry her first. Anne, his wife, has just died – the play does not say how, and the omission is loud – so he is free. “Jolly thriving wooer” is his own description of himself, and it looks back to the wooing of Anne in Act 1, Scene 2, which he won.
Now for I know the Britain Richmond aims
At young Elizabeth, my brother’s daughter,
And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,
To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.
(King Richard, Act 4, Scene 3)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Now I know that the Breton Richmond plans
To woo Elizabeth, my brother’s daughter,
So being wed to her gives him the crown,
And so I’ll go to her to beat him to it.
The phrase sets up Act 4, Scene 4, where he will woo Queen Elizabeth for her daughter and, as the audience learns in Act 4, Scene 5, lose. The self-satisfaction is the point: it is the last time Richard speaks of himself as the play’s winner, and the news that follows – Ely fled, Buckingham in arms – is the first he cannot manage with a joke. A student can use the line to mark the turn of the play’s structure: the rise ends here, and the fall begins in the same speech.
Why do the murderers weep?
Because the scene needs someone to feel what Richard does not. Dighton and Forrest are described as fleshed villains and bloody dogs – men who have killed before – and they are undone by the sight of two sleeping children and a prayer-book. Their tears are the audience’s grief performed for it by the least likely people, and the contrast with Richard’s brisk questions (dead? buried?) makes his indifference visible. The pattern repeats the murderers of Clarence in Act 1, Scene 4, one of whom repented; here both do.
There is a theological point as well. Conscience, in this play, is something every character has except its protagonist – the Second Murderer debated it in Act 1, Hastings and Buckingham discover it on the way to the block, and here two professional killers are struck dumb by it. Richard will meet his own only at Bosworth. E. M. W. Tillyard, in Shakespeare’s History Plays (1944), read the play as the working out of God’s plan, and the murderers’ remorse is part of that design: heaven’s objection to the crime is registered by the men who commit it.
What is happening to Richard’s position in this scene?
It turns. The first half of the scene is the last of Richard’s successes – the princes are dead and his list of obstacles is complete – and the second half is the first of his failures. Ratcliffe’s news is that Bishop Morton of Ely, whom Richard sent for strawberries in Act 3, has fled to Richmond in Brittany, and that Buckingham, refused his reward in Act 4, Scene 2, is in the field with Welsh troops and gaining strength. Richard judges correctly that Ely and Richmond together are the graver threat, and rouses himself to speed.
From this point the play changes rhythm. Richard no longer plans; he responds. The next scene brings four messengers in a row, and the one after that reports that the queen has chosen Richmond for her daughter. The couplet on which Richard exits – counsel is his shield, traitors brave the field – is the first of several rhymed exits in his last act, and the rhymes are a sign of hurry. The audience has watched him control the play for three acts; it now watches the play get away from him.
