William Shakespeare: The Life and Death of King Richard III

ACT III. 1. SCENE I. London. A street.

[The trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOSTER,
BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY, CARDINAL BOUCHIER, and others.]

BUCKINGHAM.
Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.

GLOSTER.
Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign:
The weary way hath made you melancholy.

PRINCE.
No, uncle; but our crosses on the way
Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy:
I want more uncles here to welcome me.

GLOSTER.
Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit:
Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show; which, God he knows,
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
Your grace attended to their sugar'd words
But look'd not on the poison of their hearts:
God keep you from them and from such false friends!

PRINCE.
God keep me from false friends! but they were none.

GLOSTER.
My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.

[Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train.]

MAYOR.
God bless your grace with health and happy days!

PRINCE.
I thank you, good my lord;--and thank you all.

[Exeunt Mayor, &c.]

I thought my mother and my brother York
Would long ere this have met us on the way:
Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not
To tell us whether they will come or no!

BUCKINGHAM.
And, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.

[Enter HASTINGS.]

PRINCE.
Welcome, my lord: what, will our mother come?

HASTINGS.
On what occasion, God he knows, not I,
The queen your mother and your brother York
Have taken sanctuary: the tender prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.