No Fear Shakespeare

Richard III

William Shakespeare

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Act 3, Scene 5, Page 2

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Modern Text


BUCKINGHAM
Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent—
BUCKINGHAM
Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent—

RICHARD
Look back! Defend thee! Here are enemies.
RICHARD
Look behind you! Defend yourself! There are enemies here.

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BUCKINGHAM
God and our innocence defend and guard us!
BUCKINGHAM
God defend and guard us innocents against them!
Enter LOVELL and RATCLIFFE, with HASTINGS’s head
LOVELL and RATCLIFFE enter with HASTINGS’s head.

RICHARD
Be patient. They are friends, Ratcliffe and Lovell.
RICHARD
Stay calm. They’re friends—Ratcliffe and Lovell.


LOVELL
Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.
LOVELL
Here’s the head of that notorious traitor, the dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.


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RICHARD
So dear I loved the man that I must weep.
I took him for the plainest harmless creature
That breathed upon this earth a Christian;
Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts.
So smooth he daubed his vice with show of virtue
That, his apparent open guilt omitted—
I mean his conversation with Shore’s wife—
He lived from all attainder of suspects.
RICHARD
I loved this man so much it makes me weep. I took him to be the plainest, most harmless Christian on earth. He was the book in which I recorded all of my most secret thoughts. He was so slick in covering over his plans that if it hadn’t been for his love affair with Shore’s wife, I would never have suspected him.



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BUCKINGHAM
Well, well, he was the covert’st sheltered traitor
That ever lived.—
Would you imagine, or almost believe,
Were ’t not that by great preservation
We live to tell it, that subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council house
To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?
BUCKINGHAM
Well, well, he was the most covert traitor who ever lived. Would you believe, if we hadn’t caught him, this subtle traitor would have murdered the Lord of Gloucester and me in the council room today?

40
LORD MAYOR
Had he done so?
LORD MAYOR
He would have?

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