ACT 3
Richard III Act 3, Scene 3: Retold in Modern English Verse
Rivers, Grey and Vaughan at Pomfret
Ratcliffe leads Rivers, Grey and Vaughan to execution at Pomfret Castle. Rivers protests his innocence and remembers that Richard II was murdered in the same place. Grey recalls Margaret’s curse on them all for standing by when her son was stabbed; Rivers remembers that she cursed Richard, Buckingham and Hastings too. They pray for the Queen and the princes, embrace, and go to their deaths.
Characters appearing: Ratcliffe | Rivers | Grey | Vaughan
Key themes: Prophecy and Curses | Power and Ambition | Fate vs Free Will
POMFRET CASTLE.
[ENTER SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE WITH HALBERDS, CARRYING THE NOBLES RIVERS, GREY, AND VAUGHAN TO DEATH AT POMFRET.]
SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE
Come, bring forth the prisoners.
Bring all the prisoners here.
EARL RIVERS
Sir Richard Ratcliffe, let me tell thee this:
Sir Richard Ratcliffe, let me tell you this:
Today shalt thou behold a subject die
Today you’re going to see a person die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
For speaking truth and acting loyally.
LORD GREY
God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!
May God protect the Prince from all of you!
A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.
You are a bunch of goddamned parasites.
SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN
You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.
You’ll live to rue this day for evermore.
SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE
Dispatch, the limit of your lives is out.
Enough of that, because your lives are over.
EARL RIVERS
O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison!
Oh Pomfret! You’re a bloody awful prison!
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
You frighten and you kill nobility!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Within these guilty walls you put behind bars
Richard the Second here was hacked to death;
Richard the Second, who was hacked to death here;
And for more slander to thy dismal seat,
And slurring your bad reputation further,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
We’ll bleed to death here, though we’re innocent.
LORD GREY
Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,
And now Queen Margaret’s curse on us has happened
When she exclaimed on Hastings, you, and I,
When she condemned Lord Hastings, you and me,
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.
EARL RIVERS
Then cursed she Richard, then cursed she Buckingham,
She first cursed Richard, then cursed Buckingham,
Then cursed she Hastings. O, remember, God,
And then cursed Hastings. Dear God, please remember
To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!
Her prayers for them, then hear the prayers for us now!
And for my sister and her princely sons,
And do not kill my sister and her sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
But, God, be satisfied with spilling our blood,
Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.
For you know none of us deserve to die.
SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE
Make haste, the hour of death is expiate.
It’s time to pay your penalty with death.
EARL RIVERS
Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us here embrace.
Come, Grey and Vaughan, let all of us embrace.
Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.
Goodbye, until we meet again in heaven.
[EXEUNT.]
