Cuts for Act 2, Scene 2

Rules for cuts:
If possible, we will provide the entire speech that contains the cuts.  If a
cut goes across speeches, we will provide enough before and after to show
how it fits in context.  We will provide the page number and the line # where
we start the current speech (not the line where the cuts begin).  If a speech contains
several cuts, we will indicate them in the same section and not one at a time.  If
a whole section of the scene contains suts, we will not break it up, but keep
the section intact and indicate cuts throughout the section.

Cuts are preceded by a '[' and end with a ']'.  If multiple speeches are cut, each
speech will be bracketed separately.

Special Note:
Possible cuts are indicated by a '{' and a '}'.  These may be cut at a later time
but are currently uncut.
 

Page 50 - Top of Scene

Boy

{Tell me, good grandam, is our father dead?}
DUCHESS OF YORK
{No, boy.}
Boy
{Why do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,
And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'}
 
Girl
{Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
And call us wretches, orphans, castaways
If that our noble father be alive?}
 
DUCHESS OF YORK
{My pretty cousins, you mistake me much;
I do lament the sickness of the king.
As loath to lose him, not your father's death;
It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.}
 
Boy
{Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.
The king my uncle is to blame for this:
God will revenge it; whom I will importune
With daily prayers all to that effect.}
 
Girl
{And so will I.}
DUCHESS OF YORK
{Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caused your father's death.}
 
Boy
{Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester
Told me, the king, provoked by the queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him :
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;
Bade me rely on him as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as his child.}
 
DUCHESS OF YORK
{Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
He is my son; yea, and therein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.}
 
Boy
{Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?}
DUCHESS OF YORK
{Ay, boy.}
Boy
{I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?}
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her ears; RIVERS, and DORSET after her
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
[I'll join with black despair against my soul,
And to myself become an enemy.]
 
DUCHESS OF YORK
What means this scene of rude impatience?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
To make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead!
Why grow the branches now the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
[If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.]
 
DUCHESS OF YORK
Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
As I had title in thy noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
And lived by looking on his images:
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
Which grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left thee:
But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,
And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,
Edward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my grief,
To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!
 
Boy
{Good aunt, you wept not for our father's death;
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?}
 
Girl
{Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!}
 
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Give me no help in lamentation;
[I am not barren to bring forth complaints
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!]
Ah for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!
 
Children
{Oh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!}
DUCHESS OF YORK
Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.
Children
{What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.}
DUCHESS OF YORK
What stays had I but they? and they are gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Was never widow had so dear a loss!
Children
{Were never orphans had so dear a loss!}
DUCHESS OF YORK
Was never mother had so dear a loss!
Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!
Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:
[These babes for Clarence weep and so do I;
I for an Edward weep, so do not they:
Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,]
Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.
 
DORSET
Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness, his doing:
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,
With dull unwilligness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
 
RIVERS
Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son: send straight for him
Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:
[Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.]
 
Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF
 
Page 54 - after line 111

BUCKINGHAM

You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
That bear this mutual heavy load of moan,
Now cheer each other in each other's love
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
[The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,
Must gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:]
Meseemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet
Hither to London, to be crown'd our king.
 
RIVERS
Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM
Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,
Which would be so much the more dangerous
By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:
[Where every horse bears his commanding rein,
And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.]
 
Page 55 - after line 145

BUCKINGHAM

My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
For God's sake, let not us two be behind;
For, by the way, I'll sort occasion,
[As index to the story we late talk'd of,]
To part the queen's proud kindred from the king.