Richard III
Act V, Scene 5
Another part of Bosworth Field.
Virginia Shakespeare Festival production of Richard III
KFFOWLER, photographer; 2015
- Alarum. Enter King Richard and Richmond;
- they fight; Richard is slain.
- Then, retreat being sounded, flourish, and enter
- Richmond, Stanley the Earl of Derby, bearing
- the crown, with other Lords, etc.
Richmond
1 - 2- God and your arms be prais’d, victorious friends,
- The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.
Stanley
3 - 7- Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.
- Lo here this long-usurped royalty
- From the dead temples of this bloody wretch
- Have I pluck’d off to grace thy brows withal.
- Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
Richmond
8 - 9- Great God of heaven, say amen to all!
- But tell me, is young George Stanley living?
Stanley
10 - 11- He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,
- Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.
Richmond
12- What men of name are slain on either side?
Stanley
13 - 14- John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,
- Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.
Richmond
15 - 41- Inter their bodies as become their births.
- Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled
- That in submission will return to us,
- And then as we have ta’en the sacrament,
- We will unite the White Rose and the Red.
- Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
- That long have frown’d upon their enmity!
- What traitor hears me, and says not amen?
- England hath long been mad and scarr’d herself:
- The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood,
- The father rashly slaughter’d his own son,
- The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire.
- All this divided York and Lancaster,
- Divided in their dire division,
- O now let Richmond and Elizabeth,
- The true succeeders of each royal house,
- By God’s fair ordinance conjoin together!
- And let their heirs (God, if thy will be so)
- Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac’d peace,
- With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
- Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
- That would reduce these bloody days again,
- And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
- Let them not live to taste this land’s increase
- That would with treason wound this fair land’s peace!
- Now civil wounds are stopp’d, peace lives again;
- That she may long live here, God say amen!
Richard III's tomb in Leicester Cathedral
Richard's remains were discovered in 2012 and were reinterred in Leicester Cathedral
Isananni, photographer; 2015
- Exeunt.
