Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting
hog,
Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary: Act I, scene iii
Queen Elizabeth, the wife of the sickly King Edward IV,
enters with members of her family: her brother, Lord Rivers, and
her two sons from a prior marriage, Lord Gray and the Marquis of
Dorset. The queen tells her relatives that she is fearful because
her husband is growing sicker and seems unlikely to survive his
illness. The king and queen have two sons, but the princes are still
too young to rule. If King Edward dies, control of the throne will
go to Richard until the oldest son comes of age. Elizabeth tells
her kinsmen that Richard is hostile to her and that she fears for
her safety and that of her sons.
Two noblemen enter: the duke of Buckingham, and Stanley,
the earl of Derby. They report that King Edward is doing better,
and that he wants to make peace between Richard and Elizabeth’s
kinsmen, between whom there is long-standing hostility.
Suddenly, Richard enters, complaining loudly. He announces that,
because he is such an honest and plainspoken man, the people at
court slander him, pretending that he has said hostile things about Elizabeth’s
kinsmen. He then accuses Elizabeth and her kinsmen of hoping that
Edward will die soon. Elizabeth, forced to go on the defensive,
tells Richard that Edward simply wants to make peace among all of
them. But Richard accuses Elizabeth of having engineered the imprisonment
of Clarence—an imprisonment that is actually Richard’s doing (as
we have learned in Act I, scene i).
Elizabeth and Richard’s argument escalates. As they argue,
old Queen Margaret enters unobserved. As she watches Richard and Elizabeth
fight, Margaret comments bitterly to herself about how temporary
power is, and she condemns Richard for his part in the death of
her husband, Henry VI, and his son, Prince Edward. Finally, Margaret
steps forward out of hiding. She accuses Elizabeth and Richard of
having caused her downfall and tells them that they do not know
what sorrow is. She adds that Elizabeth enjoys the privileges of
being queen, which should be Margaret’s, and that Richard is to
blame for the murders of her family. The others, startled to see
her because they thought that she had been banished from the kingdom,
join together against her.
Margaret, bitter about her overthrow and the killing
of her family by the people who stand before her, begins to curse
all those present. She prays that Elizabeth will outlive her glory,
and see her husband and children die before her, just as Margaret
has. She curses Hastings, Rivers, and Dorset to die early deaths,
since they were all bystanders when the York family murdered her
son, Edward. Finally, she curses Richard, praying to the heavens
that Richard will mistake his friends for enemies, and vice versa,
and that he will never sleep peacefully.
Margaret leaves, and Catesby, a nobleman, enters to say
that King Edward wants to see his family and speak with them. The
others leave, but Richard stays behind. He announces that he has
set all his plans in motion and is deceiving everybody into thinking
that he is really a good person. Two new men now enter, murderers
whom Richard has hired to kill his brother, Clarence, currently
imprisoned in the Tower of London.
