But toiling desperately to find it out –

Torment myself to catch the English crown;

And from that torment I will free myself,

Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,

And cry ‘Content!’ to that which grieves my heart,

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,

And frame my face to all occasions.

I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;

I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk;

I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,

Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,

And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.

[V, vi, 61–93] Undaunted by the flesh-and-blood barriers between him and his succession, Richard continues in his violent progress towards power with the cold-hearted murder of King Henry himself:

What! Will the aspiring blood of Lancaster

Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.

See how my sword weeps for the poor King’s death!

O, may such purple tears be always shed

From those that wish the downfall of our house!

If any spark of life be yet remaining,

Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither,

(He stabs him again)

I that have neither pity, love, nor fear.

Indeed, ’tis true that Henry told me of;

For I have often heard my mother say

I came into the world with my legs forward.

Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste

And seek their ruin that usurped our right?

The midwife wondered and the women cried

‘O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!’

And so I was, which plainly signified

That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.

Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,

Let hell make crooked my mind to answer it.

I have no brother, I am like no brother;

And this word ‘love’, which greybeards call divine,

Be resident in men like one another,

And not in me; I am myself alone.

Clarence, beware; thou keepest me from the light,

But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;

For I will buzz abroad such prophecies

That Edward shall be fearful of his life,

And then to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death.

King Henry and the Prince his son are gone;

Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,

Counting myself but bad till I be best.

I’ll throw thy body in another room,

And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.

Titus Andronicus

[II, i, 1–24] The servant shall be master, resolves Aaron, Moorish lover of Tamora, the Gothic Queen, seeing opportunities for himself in her marriage to Saturninus, Emperor of Rome:

Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’ top,

Safe out of fortune’s shot, and sits aloft,

Secure of thunder’s crack or lightning flash,