William Shakespeare: The Life and Death of King Richard III

ACT I. 2. SCENE II. London. Another street. (continued)

GLOSTER.
Let him thank me that holp to send him thither,
For he was fitter for that place than earth.

ANNE.
And thou unfit for any place but hell.

GLOSTER.
Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.

ANNE.
Some dungeon.

GLOSTER.
Your bed-chamber.

ANNE.
Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!

GLOSTER.
So will it, madam, till I lie with you.

ANNE.
I hope so.

GLOSTER.
I know so.--But, gentle Lady Anne,--
To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
And fall something into a slower method,--
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner?

ANNE.
Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.

GLOSTER.
Your beauty was the cause of that effect;
Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep
To undertake the death of all the world,
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

ANNE.
If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

GLOSTER.
These eyes could not endure that beauty's wreck;
You should not blemish it if I stood by:
As all the world is cheered by the sun,
So I by that; it is my day, my life.

ANNE.
Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!

GLOSTER.
Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.

ANNE.
I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.

GLOSTER.
It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.