KING RICHARD THE SECOND

Act 3 Scene 4

(Enter the Queen, with her two Ladies)
l1l	Queen	 What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
l2l		To drive away the heavy thought of care?
l3l	[First] Lady	Madam, we’ll play at bowls.
l4l	Queen	’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,
l5l		And that my fortune runs against the bias.
l6l	[Second] Lady	Madam, we’ll dance.
l7l	Queen	My legs can keep no measure in delight
l8l		When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief#
l9l		Therefore no dancing, girl. Some other sport.
l10l	[First] Lady	Madam, we’ll tell tales.
l11l	Queen	Of sorrow or of joy?
l12l	[First] Lady	Of either, madam.
l13l	Queen	Of neither, girl.
l14l		For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
l15l		It doth remember me the more of sorrow.
l16l		Or if of grief, being altogether had,
l17l		It adds more sorrow to my want of joy.
l18l		For what I have I need not to repeat,
l19l		And what I want it boots not to complain.
l20l	[Second] Lady	Madam, I’ll sing.
	Queen	’Tis well that thou hast cause#
l21l		But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
l22l	[Second] Lady	I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
l23l	Queen	And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
l24l		And never borrow any tear of thee.
		(Enter a Gardener and two Men)
l25l		But stay# here come the gardeners.
l26l		Let’s step into the shadow of these trees.
l27l		My wretchedness unto a row of pins
l28l		They will talk of state, for everyone doth so
l29l		Against a change. Woe is forerun with woe.
		(The Queen and her Ladies stand apart)
l30l	Gardener	(to First Man)
		 Go, bind thou up young dangling apricots
l31l		Which, like unruly children, make their sire
l32l		Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
l33l		Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
l34l		(To Second Man)
		 Go thou, and, like an executioner,
l35l		Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays
l36l		That look too lofty in our commonwealth.
l37l		All must be even in our government.
l38l		You thus employed, I will go root away
l39l		The noisome weeds which without profit suck
l40l		The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
l41l	[First] Man	Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
l42l		Keep law and form and due proportion,
l43l		Showing as in a model our firm estate,
l44l		When our sea-wallèd garden, the whole land,
l45l		Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
l46l		Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,
l47l		Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
l48l		Swarming with caterpillars?
	Gardener	Hold thy peace.
l49l		He that hath suffered this disordered spring
l50l		Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
l51l		The weeds which his broad spreading leaves did shelter,
l52l		That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
l53l		Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke—
l54l		I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
l55l	[Second] Man	What, are they dead?
	Gardener	They are# and Bolingbroke
l56l		Hath seized the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
l57l		That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land
l58l		As we this garden! We at time of year
l59l		Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
l60l		Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
l61l		With too much riches it confound itself.
l62l		Had he done so to great and growing men,
l63l		They might have lived to bear, and he to taste,
l64l		Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
l65l		We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.
l66l		Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
l67l		Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
l68l	[First] Man	What, think you then the King shall be deposed?
l69l	Gardener	Depressed he is already, and deposed
l70l		’Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
l71l		To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s
l72l		That tell black tidings.
l73l	Queen	O, I am pressed to death through want of speaking!
		( 73 She comes forward)
l74l		Thou, old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden,
l75l		How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
l76l		What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee
l77l		To make a second fall of cursèd man?
l78l		Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
l79l		Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
l80l		Divine his downfall? Say where, when, and how
l81l		Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch!
l82l	Gardener	Pardon me, madam. Little joy have I
l83l		To breathe this news, yet what I say is true.
l84l		King Richard he is in the mighty hold
l85l		Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weighed.
l86l		In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself
l87l		And some few vanities that make him light.
l88l		But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
l89l		Besides himself, are all the English peers,
l90l		And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
l91l		Post you to London and you will find it so.
l92l		I speak no more than everyone doth know.
l93l	Queen	Nimble mischance that art so light of foot,
l94l		Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
l95l		And am I last that knows it? O, thou think’st
l96l		To serve me last, that I may longest keep
l97l		Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
l98l		To meet at London London’s king in woe.
l99l		What, was I born to this, that my sad look
l100l		Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
l101l		Gard’ner, for telling me these news of woe,
l102l		Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow.
		(Exit with her Ladies)
l103l	Gardener	 Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse
l104l		I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
l105l		Here did she fall a tear. Here in this place
l106l		I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb-of-grace.
l107l		Rue even for ruth here shortly shall be seen
l108l		In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
		(Exeunt)