World of Education/World of Education.iso/world_p/pcshx10d.zip/PCSHX10D.EXE/RII

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 RII.

                    King Richard II

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

KING RICHARD
The QUEEN, his wife
JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster, Richard's uncle
Harry BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, John of Gaunt's son,
   afterward KING HENRY IV
Thomas MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk
Duke of YORK, King Richard's uncle
DUCHESS OF YORK
Duke of AUMERLE, their son
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Gaunt's and York's brother
GREEN   }
BAGOT   }    favorites of King Richard
BUSHY   }
Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND
HARRY PERCY, his son
Earl of SALISBURY
Earl of BERKELEY
Duke of SURREY
Lord ROSS
Lord WILLOUGHBY
Lord FITZWATER
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
LORD MARSHAL
Sir Stephen SCROOP
Sir Piers EXTON
HERALD (s)
CAPTAIN of the Welsh army
FIRST LADY  }
SECOND LADY } attending the Queen
GARDENER
Gardener's MEN
Exton's MEN
KEEPER of the prison at Pomfret
GROOM of King Richard's stable

Lords, soldiers, attendants

ACT I   King Richard II

1.1
                Enter King Richard and John of Gaunt, with the
                Lord Marshal, other nobles, and attendants
KING RICHARD
    Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
    Hast thou according to thy oath and bond
    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,
    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,
    Which then our leisure would not let us hear     5
    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    I have, my liege.
KING RICHARD
    Tell me moreover, hast thou sounded him
    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice
    Or worthily, as a good subject should     10
    On some known ground of treachery in him?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    As near as I could sift him on that argument,
    On some apparent danger seen in him
    Aimed at your highness, no inveterate malice.
KING RICHARD
    Then call them to our presence.
                Exit one or more
    Face to face                15
    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
    The accuser and the accused freely speak.
    High-stomached are they both and full of ire,
    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
                Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Hereford, and Mowbray
                Duke of Norfolk
BOLINGBROKE
    Many years of happy days befall     20
    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
MOWBRAY
    Each day still better others' happiness,
    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
    Add an immortal title to your crown!
KING RICHARD
    We thank you both. Yet one but flatters us     25
    As well appeareth by the cause you come,
    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.
    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
BOLINGBROKE
    First - heaven be the record to my speech     30
    In the devotion of a subject's love,
    Tend'ring the precious safety of my Prince,
    And free from other misbegotten hate,
    Come I appellant to this princely presence.
    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee     35
    And mark my greeting well, for what I speak
    My body shall make good upon this earth,
    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,
    Too good to be so, and too bad to live     40
    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat,
    And wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move     45
    What my tongue speaks my right-drawn sword may prove.
MOWBRAY
    Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.
    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain     50
    The blood is hot that must be cooled for this.
    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
    As to be hushed and naught at all to say.
    First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech     55
    Which else would post until it had returned
    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
    I do defy him, and I spit at him     60
    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain,
    Which to maintain I would allow him odds,
    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
    Or any other ground inhabitable     65
    Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
    Meantime let this defend my loyalty:
    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLINGBROKE
    Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King     70
    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.
    By that, and all the rites of knighthood else     75
    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
    What I have spoke or thou canst worse devise.
MOWBRAY
    I take it up, and by that sword I swear
    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
    I'll answer thee in any fair degree     80
    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial,
    And when I mount, alive may I not light
    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
KING RICHARD    (to Bolingbroke)
    What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
    It must be great that can inherit us     85
    So much as of a thought of ill in him.
BOLINGBROKE
    Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true:
    That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles
    In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,
    The which he hath detained for lewd employments     90
    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
    Besides I say, and will in battle prove,
    Or here or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
    That ever was surveyed by English eye,
    That all the treasons for these eighteen years     95
    Complotted and contrived in this land
    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
    Further I say, and further will maintain
    Upon his bad life, to make all this good,
    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death     100
    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
    And consequently, like a traitor-coward,
    Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood,
    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries
    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth     105
    To me for justice and rough chastisement.
    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
    This arm shall do it or this life be spent.
KING RICHARD
    How high a pitch his resolution soars!
    Thomas of Norfolk, what sayst thou to this     110
MOWBRAY
    O, let my sovereign turn away his face,
    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
    Till I have told this slander of his blood
    How God and good men hate so foul a liar!
KING RICHARD
    Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears     115
    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
    As he is but my father's brother's son,
    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow
    Such neighbour-nearness to our sacred blood
    Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize     120
    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
    He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou.
    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
MOWBRAY
    Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart
    Through the false passage of thy throat thou liest     125
    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
    Disbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers.
    The other part reserved I by consent,
    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
    Upon remainder of a dear account     130
    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen.
    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,
    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace
    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
    For you, my noble lord of Lancaster     135
    The honourable father to my foe,
    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul,
    But ere I last received the Sacrament
    I did confess it, and exactly begged     140
    Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.
    This is my fault. As for the rest appealed,
    It issues from the rancour of a villain,
    A recreant and most degenerate traitor,
    Which in myself I boldly will defend     145
                He throws down his gage
    And interchangeably hurl down my gage
    Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
    To prove myself a loyal gentleman
    Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom,
    In haste whereof most heartily I pray     150
    Your highness to assign our trial day.
                Bolingbroke takes up the gage
KING RICHARD
    Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me.
    Let's purge this choler without letting blood.
    This we prescribe, though no physician:
    Deep malice makes too deep incision     155
    Forget, forgive, conclude, and be agreed,
    Our doctors say this is no time to bleed.
    Good uncle, let this end where it begun.
    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    To be a make-peace shall become my age     160
    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
KING RICHARD
    And, Norfolk, throw down his.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    When, Harry, when?
    Obedience bids I should not bid again.
KING RICHARD
    Norfolk, throw down! We bid, there is no boot.
MOWBRAY    (kneeling)
    Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot     165
    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame.
    The one my duty owes, but my fair name,
    Despite of death that lives upon my grave,
    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
    I am disgraced, impeached, and baffled here     170
    Pierced to the soul with slander's venomed spear,
    The which no balm can cure but his heart blood
    Which breathed this poison.
KING RICHARD
    Rage must be withstood.
    Give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame.
MOWBRAY    [standing]
    Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame     175
    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
    The purest treasure mortal times afford
    Is spotless reputation, that away,
    Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
    A jewel in a ten-times barred-up chest     180
    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
    Mine honour is my life. Both grow in one.
    Take honour from me, and my life is done.
    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try.
    In that I live, and for that will I die     185
KING RICHARD
    Cousin, throw down your gage. Do you begin.
BOLINGBROKE
    O God defend my soul from such deep sin!
    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
    Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue     190
    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,
    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
    The slavish motive of recanting fear,
    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace
    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face     195
                Exit John of Gaunt
KING RICHARD
    We were not born to sue, but to command,
    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
    At Coventry upon Saint Lambert's day.
    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate     200
    The swelling difference of your settled hate.
    Since we cannot atone you, we shall see
    Justice design the victor's chivalry.
    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
    Be ready to direct these home alarms     205
                Exeunt


1.2
                Enter John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, with the
                Duchess of Gloucester
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Alas, the part I had in Gloucester's blood
    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
    To stir against the butchers of his life.
    But since correction lieth in those hands
    Which made the fault that we cannot correct     5
    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven,
    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
    Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire     10
    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.
    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
    Some of those branches by the destinies cut     15
    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
    Is cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt,
    Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded     20
    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.
    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,
    That mettle, that self mould that fashioned thee,
    Made him a man, and though thou liv'st and breathest,
    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent     25
    In some large measure to thy father's death
    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
    Who was the model of thy father's life.
    Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair.
    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaughtered     30
    Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
    That which in mean men we entitle patience
    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life     35
    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    God's is the quarrel, for God's substitute,
    His deputy anointed in his sight,
    Hath caused his death, the which if wrongfully,
    Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift     40
    An angry arm against his minister.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
    Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    To God, the widow's champion and defence.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
    Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold     45
    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.
    O, set my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
    Or if misfortune miss the first career,
    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom     50
    That they may break his foaming courser's back
    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
    A caitiff, recreant to my cousin Hereford!
    Farewell, old Gaunt. Thy sometimes brother's wife
    With her companion, grief, must end her life     55
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Sister, farewell. I must to Coventry.
    As much good stay with thee as go with me.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
    Yet one word more. Grief boundeth where it falls,
    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.
    I take my leave before I have begun     60
    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
    Lo, this is all. - Nay, yet depart not so!
    Though this be all, do not so quickly go.
    I shall remember more. Bid him - ah, what     65
    With all good speed at Pleshey visit me.
    Alack, and what shall good old York there see
    But empty lodgings and unfurnished walls,
    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones,
    And what hear there for welcome but my groans     70
    Therefore commend me, let him not come there
    To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere.
    Desolate, desolate will I hence and die.
    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
                Exeunt severally


1.3
                Enter Lord Marshal with officers setting out
                chairs, and the Duke of Aumerle
LORD MARSHAL
    My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?
AUMERLE
    Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in.
LORD MARSHAL
    The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
    Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.
AUMERLE
    Why then, the champions are prepared, and stay     5
    For nothing but his majesty's approach.
                The trumpets sound, and King Richard enters, with
                John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Bushy, Bagot,
                Green, and other nobles. When they are set, enter
                Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, defendant, in arms, and
                a Herald
KING RICHARD
    Marshal, demand of yonder champion
    The cause of his arrival here in arms.
    Ask him his name, and orderly proceed
    To swear him in the justice of his cause     10
LORD MARSHAL    (to Mowbray)
    In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,
    And why thou com'st thus knightly clad in arms,
    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.
    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath,
    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour     15
MOWBRAY
    My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
    Who hither come engaged by my oath -
    Which God defend a knight should violate -
    Both to defend my loyalty and truth
    To God, my king, and my succeeding issue     20
    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me,
    And by the grace of God and this mine arm
    To prove him, in defending of myself,
    A traitor to my God, my king, and me.
    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven     25
                He sits.
                The trumpets sound. Enter Bolingbroke Duke of
                Hereford, appellant, in armour, and a Herald
KING RICHARD
    Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms
    Both who he is and why he cometh hither
    Thus plated in habiliments of war,
    And formally, according to our law,
    Depose him in the justice of his cause     30
LORD MARSHAL    (to Bolingbroke)
    What is thy name? And wherefore com'st thou hither
    Before King Richard in his royal lists?
    Against whom comest thou? And what's thy quarrel?
    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
BOLINGBROKE
    Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby     35
    Am I, who ready here do stand in arms
    To prove by God's grace and my body's valour
    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
    That he is a traitor foul and dangerous
    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me     40
    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
                He sits
LORD MARSHAL
    On pain of death, no person be so bold
    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists
    Except the Marshal and such officers
    Appointed to direct these fair designs     45
BOLINGBROKE    [standing]
    Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand
    And bow my knee before his majesty,
    For Mowbray and myself are like two men
    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage,
    Then let us take a ceremonious leave     50
    And loving farewell of our several friends.
LORD MARSHAL    (to King Richard)
    The appellant in all duty greets your highness,
    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
KING RICHARD
    We will descend and fold him in our arms.
                He descends from his seat and embraces Bolingbroke
    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is just     55
    So be thy fortune in this royal fight.
    Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed,
    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
BOLINGBROKE
    O, let no noble eye profane a tear
    For me if I be gored with Mowbray's spear     60
    As confident as is the falcon's flight
    Against a bird do I with Mowbray fight.
    (To the Lord Marshal)    My loving lord, I take my leave
        of you,
    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle,
    Not sick, although I have to do with death     65
    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
    Whose youthful spirit in me regenerate     70
    Doth with a two-fold vigour lift me up
    To reach at victory above my head,
    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,
    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat     75
    And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt
    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
    Be swift like lightning in the execution,
    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled     80
    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
BOLINGBROKE    [standing]
    Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
MOWBRAY    [standing]
    However God or fortune cast my lot     85
    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,
    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
    Never did captive with a freer heart
    Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
    His golden uncontrolled enfranchisement     90
    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
    This feast of battle with mine adversary.
    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
    As gentle and as jocund as to jest     95
    Go I to fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.
KING RICHARD
    Farewell, my lord. Securely I espy
    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye. -
    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
LORD MARSHAL
    Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby     100
    Receive thy lance, and God defend the right!
                An officer bears a lance to Bolingbroke
BOLINGBROKE
    Strong as a tower in hope, I cry `Amen!'
LORD MARSHAL    (to an officer)
    Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
                An officer bears a lance to Mowbray
FIRST HERALD
    Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby
    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself     105
    On pain to be found false and recreant,
    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
    A traitor to his God, his king, and him,
    And dares him to set forward to the fight.
SECOND HERALD
    Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk     110
    On pain to be found false and recreant,
    Both to defend himself and to approve
    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby
    To God his sovereign and to him disloyal,
    Courageously and with a free desire     115
    Attending but the signal to begin.
LORD MARSHAL
    Sound trumpets, and set forward combatants!
                A charge is sounded.
                King Richard throws down his warder
    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD
    Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
    And both return back to their chairs again     120
                Bolingbroke and Mowbray disarm and sit
    (To the nobles)   Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound
    While we return these dukes what we decree.
                A long flourish, during which King Richard and his
                nobles withdraw and hold council, then come
                forward. King Richard addresses Bolingbroke and
                Mowbray
    Draw near, and list what with our council we have done.
    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soiled
    With that dear blood which it hath fostered     125
    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
    Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours' swords,
    Which, so roused up with boist'rous untuned drums,
    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms     130
    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood,
    Therefore we banish you our territories.
    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
    Till twice five summers have enriched our fields     135
    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
BOLINGBROKE
    Your will be done. This must my comfort be:
    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
    And those his golden beams to you here lent     140
    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
KING RICHARD
    Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce.
    The sly slow hours shall not determinate
    The dateless limit of thy dear exile     145
    The hopeless word of `never to return'
    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
MOWBRAY
    A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
    And all unlooked-for from your highness' mouth.
    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim     150
    As to be cast forth in the common air,
    Have I deserved at your highness' hands.
    The language I have learnt these forty years,
    My native English, now I must forgo,
    And now my tongue's use is to me no more     155
    Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
    Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
    Or, being open, put into his hands
    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
    Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue     160
    Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,
    And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
    Is made my jailer to attend on me.
    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
    Too far in years to be a pupil now     165
    What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
KING RICHARD
    It boots thee not to be compassionate.
    After our sentence, plaining comes too late.
MOWBRAY
    Then thus I turn me from my country's light     170
    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
KING RICHARD
    Return again, and take an oath with thee.
    Lay on our royal sword your banished hands.
    Swear by the duty that you owe to God -
    Our part therein we banish with yourselves     175
    To keep the oath that we administer.
    You never shall, so help you truth and God,
    Embrace each other's love in banishment,
    Nor never look upon each other's face,
    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile     180
    This low'ring tempest of your home-bred hate,
    Nor never by advised purpose meet
    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill
    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
BOLINGBROKE
    I swear.
MOWBRAY
    And I, to keep all this     185
BOLINGBROKE
    Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:
    By this time, had the King permitted us,
    One of our souls had wandered in the air,
    Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
    As now our flesh is banished from this land     190
    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm.
    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
MOWBRAY
    No, Bolingbroke, if ever I were traitor,
    My name be blotted from the book of life     195
    And I from heaven banished as from hence.
    But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know,
    And all too soon I fear the King shall rue.
    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:
    Save back to England, all the world's my way     200
                Exit
KING RICHARD
    Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
    Hath from the number of his banished years
    Plucked four away.  (To Bolingbroke)  spent,
    Return with welcome home from banishment     205
BOLINGBROKE
    How long a time lies in one little word!
    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
    End in a word: such is the breath of kings.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    I thank my liege that in regard of me
    He shortens four years of my son's exile     210
    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
    For ere the six years that he hath to spend
    Can change their moons and bring their times about,
    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
    Shall be extinct with age and endless night     215
    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
    And blindfold death not let me see my son.
KING RICHARD
    Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    But not a minute, King, that thou canst give.
    Shorten my days thou canst with sudden sorrow     220
    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.
    Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage.
    Thy word is current with him for my death,
    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath     225
KING RICHARD
    Thy son is banished upon good advice,
    Whereto thy tongue a party verdict gave.
    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
    You urged me as a judge, but I had rather     230
    You would have bid me argue like a father.
    Alas, I looked when some of you should say
    I was too strict to make mine own away,
    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
    Against my will to do myself this wrong     235
KING RICHARD
    Cousin, farewell, and uncle, bid him so.
    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
                Flourish. Exeunt all but Aumerle, the Lord
                Marshal, John of Gaunt, and Bolingbroke
AUMERLE
    Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know,
    From where you do remain let paper show.
                Exit
LORD MARSHAL
    My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride     240
    As far as land will let me by your side.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
    That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE
    I have too few to take my leave of you,
    When the tongue's office should be prodigal     245
    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE
    Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE
    To men in joy, but grief makes one hour ten     250
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.
BOLINGBROKE
    My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    The sullen passage of thy weary steps
    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set     255
    The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE
    O, who can hold a fire in his hand
    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus,
    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
    By bare imagination of a feast     260
    Or wallow naked in December snow
    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
    O no, the apprehension of the good
    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more     265
    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.
    Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
BOLINGBROKE
    Then England's ground, farewell. Sweet soil, adieu,
    My mother and my nurse that bears me yet     270
    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:
    Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.
                Exeunt


1.4
                Enter King Richard with Green and Bagot at one
                door, and the Lord Aumerle at another
KING RICHARD
    We did observe. - Cousin Aumerle,
    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
AUMERLE
    I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
    But to the next highway, and there I left him.
KING RICHARD
    And say, what store of parting tears were shed     5
AUMERLE
    Faith, none for me, except the north-east wind,
    Which then grew bitterly against our faces,
    Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD
    What said our cousin when you parted with him     10
AUMERLE
    `Farewell.' And for my heart disdained that my tongue
    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
    To counterfeit oppression of such grief
    That words seemed buried in my sorrow's grave.
    Marry, would the word `farewell' have lengthened hours     15
    And added years to his short banishment,
    He should have had a volume of farewells,
    But since it would not, he had none of me.
KING RICHARD
    He is our cousin, cousin, but 'tis doubt,
    When time shall call him home from banishment     20
    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
    Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green
    Observed his courtship to the common people,
    How he did seem to dive into their hearts
    With humble and familiar courtesy     25
    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
    And patient underbearing of his fortune,
    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
    Off goes his bonnet to an oysterwench     30
    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
    And had the tribute of his supple knee
    With `Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends',
    As were our England in reversion his,
    And he our subjects' next degree in hope     35
GREEN
    Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.
    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland.
    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
    Ere further leisure yield them further means
    For their advantage and your highness' loss     40
KING RICHARD
    We will ourself in person to this war,
    And for our coffers with too great a court
    And liberal largess are grown somewhat light,
    We are enforced to farm our royal realm,
    The revenue whereof shall furnish us     45
    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters,
    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
    And send them after to supply our wants     50
    For we will make for Ireland presently.
                Enter Bushy
    Bushy, what news?
BUSHY
    Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
    Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste
    To entreat your majesty to visit him     55
KING RICHARD
    Where lies he?
BUSHY
    At Ely House.
KING RICHARD
    Now put it, God, in his physician's mind
    To help him to his grave immediately.
    The lining of his coffers shall make coats     60
    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.
    Pray God we may make haste and come too late!
                Exeunt

ACT II  King Richard II

2.1
                Enter John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, sick,
                carried in a chair, with the Duke of York
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
YORK
    Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath,
    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    O, but they say the tongues of dying men     5
    Enforce attention, like deep harmony.
    Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain,
    For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
    He that no more must say is listened more
    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose     10
    More are men's ends marked than their lives before.
    The setting sun, and music at the close,
    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear     15
    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
YORK
    No, it is stopped with other, flattering sounds,
    As praises of whose taste the wise are feared,
    Lascivious metres to whose venom sound
    The open ear of youth doth always listen     20
    Report of fashions in proud Italy,
    Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
    Limps after in base imitation.
    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity -
    So it be new there's no respect how vile     25
    That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
    Then all too late comes counsel, to be heard
    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
    Direct not him whose way himself will choose:
    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose   30
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Methinks I am a prophet new-inspired,
    And thus, expiring, do foretell of him.
    His rash, fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
    For violent fires soon burn out themselves.
    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short     35
    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes.
    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.
    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
    This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle     40
    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-paradise,
    This fortress built by nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This happy breed of men, this little world     45
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall,
    Or as a moat defensive to a house
    Against the envy of less happier lands,
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England     50
    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
    Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,
    Renowned for their deeds as far from home
    For Christian service and true chivalry
    As is the sepulchre, in stubborn Jewry     55
    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son,
    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
    Dear for her reputation through the world,
    Is now leased out - I die pronouncing it -
    Like to a tenement or pelting farm     60
    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds.
    That England that was wont to conquer others     65
    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
    How happy then were my ensuing death!
                Enter King Richard and the Queen, the Duke of
                Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Lord Ross, and
                Lord Willoughby
YORK
    The King is come. Deal mildly with his youth,
    For young hot colts, being reined, do rage the more     70
QUEEN
    How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
KING RICHARD
    What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    O, how that name befits my composition!
    Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast     75
    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
    For sleeping England long time have I watched.
    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.
    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
    Is my strict fast: I mean my children's looks     80
    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
    Whose hollow womb inherits naught but bones.
KING RICHARD
    Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    No, misery makes sport to mock itself     85
    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
    I mock my name, great King, to flatter thee.
KING RICHARD
    Should dying men flatter with those that live?
JOHN OF GAUNT
    No, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD
    Thou now a-dying sayst thou flatt'rest me     90
JOHN OF GAUNT
    O no: thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD
    I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    Now He that made me knows I see thee ill:
    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
    Thy deathbed is no lesser than thy land     95
    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick,
    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
    Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure
    Of those physicians that first wounded thee.
    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown     100
    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head,
    And yet, encaged in so small a verge,
    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons     105
    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
    Deposing thee before thou wert possessed,
    Which art possessed now to depose thyself.
    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world
    It were a shame to let this land by lease     110
    But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
    Landlord of England art thou now, not king.
    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law,
    And                         115
KING RICHARD
    And thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool,
    Presuming on an ague's privilege,
    Dar'st with thy frozen admonition
    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
    With fury from his native residence     120
    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,
    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
JOHN OF GAUNT
    O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son     125
    For that I was his father Edward's son.
    That blood already, like the pelican,
    Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly caroused.
    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul -
    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls     130
    May be a precedent and witness good
    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
    Join with the present sickness that I have,
    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
    To crop at once a too-long withered flower     135
    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee.
    These words hereafter thy tormentors be.
    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
    Love they to live that love and honour have.
                Exit, carried in the chair
KING RICHARD
    And let them die that age and sullens have     140
    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
YORK
    I do beseech your majesty impute his words
    To wayward sickliness and age in him.
    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here     145
KING RICHARD
    Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his.
    As theirs, so mine, and all be as it is.
                Enter the Earl of Northumberland
NORTHUMBERLAND
    My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.
KING RICHARD
    What says he?
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Nay, nothing: all is said.
    His tongue is now a stringless instrument     150
    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
YORK
    Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
KING RICHARD
    The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he.
    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be     155
    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.
    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
    Which live like venom where no venom else
    But only they have privilege to live.
    And for these great affairs do ask some charge     160
    Towards our assistance we do seize to us
    The plate, coin, revenues, and movables
    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.
YORK
    How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong     165
    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek     170
    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
    In war was never lion raged more fierce,
    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild     175
    Than was that young and princely gentleman.
    His face thou hast, for even so looked he,
    Accomplished with the number of thy hours.
    But when he frowned it was against the French,
    And not against his friends. His noble hand     180
    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
    O, Richard, York is too far gone with grief     185
    Or else he never would compare between.
KING RICHARD
    Why uncle, what's the matter?
YORK
    O my liege,
    Pardon me if you please, if not, I, pleased
    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
    Seek you to seize and grip into your hands     190
    The royalties and rights of banished Hereford?
    Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live?
    Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry true?
    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
    Is not his heir a well-deserving son     195
    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
    His charters and his customary rights:
    Let not tomorrow then ensue today,
    Be not thyself, for how art thou a king
    But by fair sequence and succession     200
    Now afore God - God forbid I say true! -
    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
    Call in the letters patents that he hath
    By his attorneys general to sue
    His livery, and deny his offered homage     205
    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.
KING RICHARD
    Think what you will, we seize into our hands     210
    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
YORK
    I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.
    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell.
    But by bad courses may be understood
    That their events can never fall out good     215
                Exit
KING RICHARD
    Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight.
    Bid him repair to us to Ely House
    To see this business. Tomorrow next
    We will for Ireland, and 'tis time, I trow.
    And we create, in absence of ourself     220
    Our uncle York Lord Governor of England,
    For he is just and always loved us well. -
    Come on, our Queen, tomorrow must we part.
    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
                Flourish. Exeunt Bushy at one door, King
                Richard, the Queen, Aumerle, Green, and
                Bagot at another door. Northumberland,
                Willoughby, and Ross remain
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead     225
ROSS
    And living too, for now his son is Duke.
WILLOUGHBY
    Barely in title, not in revenues.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Richly in both, if justice had her right.
ROSS
    My heart is great, but it must break with silence
    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue     230
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Nay, speak thy mind, and let him ne'er speak more
    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm.
WILLOUGHBY
    Tends that that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
    If it be so, out with it boldly, man.
    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him     235
ROSS
    No good at all that I can do for him,
    Unless you call it good to pity him,
    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Now afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
    In him, a royal prince, and many more     240
    Of noble blood in this declining land.
    The King is not himself, but basely led
    By flatterers, and what they will inform
    Merely in hate 'gainst any of us all,
    That will the King severely prosecute     245
    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
ROSS
    The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes,
    And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined
    For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
WILLOUGHBY
    And daily new exactions are devised     250
    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what.
    But what, a' God's name, doth become of this?
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Wars hath not wasted it, for warred he hath not,
    But basely yielded upon compromise
    That which his ancestors achieved with blows     255
    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
ROSS
    The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
WILLOUGHBY
    The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
ROSS
    He hath not money for these Irish wars     260
    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
    But by the robbing of the banished Duke.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    His noble kinsman. Most degenerate King!
    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm     265
    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
ROSS
    We see the very wreck that we must suffer,
    And unavoided is the danger now
    For suffering so the causes of our wreck     270
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Not so: even through the hollow eyes of death
    I spy life peering, but I dare not say
    How near the tidings of our comfort is.
WILLOUGHBY
    Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.
ROSS
    Be confident to speak, Northumberland     275
    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,
    Thy words are but as thoughts. Therefore be bold.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Then thus. I have from Port le Blanc,
    A bay in Brittaine, received intelligence
    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Reinold Lord Cobham     280
    Thomas son and heir to the Earl of Arundel
    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir Thomas Ramston,
    Sir John Norbery            285
    Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Coint,
    All these well furnished by the Duke of Brittaine
    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
    Are making hither with all due expedience,
    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore     290
    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
    The first departing of the King for Ireland.
    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
    Redeem from broking pawn the blemished crown     295
    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
    And make high majesty look like itself,
    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh.
    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
    Stay, and be secret, and myself will go     300
ROSS
    To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
WILLOUGHBY
    Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
                Exeunt


2.2
                Enter the Queen, Bushy, and Bagot
BUSHY
    Madam, your majesty is too much sad.
    You promised when you parted with the King
    To lay aside life-harming heaviness
    And entertain a cheerful disposition.
QUEEN
    To please the King I did, to please myself     5
    I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause
    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
    As my sweet Richard. Yet again, methinks
    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb     10
    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
    At nothing trembles. With something it grieves
    More than with parting from my lord the King.
BUSHY
    Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows
    Which shows like grief itself but is not so     15
    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
    Divides one thing entire to many objects -
    Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon,
    Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry,
    Distinguish form. So your sweet majesty     20
    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail,
    Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows
    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,
    More than your lord's departure weep not: more is not seen   25
    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,
    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
QUEEN
    It may be so, but yet my inward soul
    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,
    I cannot but be sad: so heavy-sad     30
    As thought - on thinking on no thought I think -
    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
BUSHY
    'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
QUEEN
    'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived
    From some forefather grief, mine is not so     35
    For nothing hath begot my something grief -
    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve -
    'Tis in reversion that I do possess -
    But what it is that is not yet known what,
    I cannot name, 'tis nameless woe, I wot     40
                Enter Green
GREEN
    God save your majesty, and well met, gentlemen.
    I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.
QUEEN
    Why hop'st thou so? 'Tis better hope he is,
    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped     45
GREEN
    That he, our hope, might have retired his power,
    And driven into despair an enemy's hope,
    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
    The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself,
    And with uplifted arms is safe arrived     50
    At Ravenspurgh.
QUEEN
    Now God in heaven forbid!
GREEN
    Ah madam, 'tis too true! And, that is worse,
    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy,
    The Lords of Ross, Beaumont, and Willoughby,
    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him     55
BUSHY
    Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland,
    And all the rest, revolted faction-traitors?
GREEN
    We have, whereupon the Earl of Worcester
    Hath broke his staff, resigned his stewardship,
    And all the household servants fled with him     60
    To Bolingbroke.
QUEEN
    So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.
    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,
    And I, a gasping new-delivered mother     65
    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.
BUSHY
    Despair not, madam.
QUEEN
    Who shall hinder me?
    I will despair, and be at enmity
    With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
    A parasite, a keeper-back of death     70
    Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,
    Which false hope lingers in extremity.
                Enter the Duke of York, wearing a gorget
GREEN
    Here comes the Duke of York.
QUEEN
    With signs of war about his aged neck.
    O, full of careful business are his looks     75
    Uncle, for God's sake speak comfortable words.
YORK
    Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
    Comfort's in heaven, and we are on the earth,
    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.
    Your husband, he is gone to save far off     80
    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
    Here am I, left to underprop his land,
    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made.
    Now shall he try his friends that flattered him     85
                Enter a Servingman
SERVINGMAN
    My lord, your son was gone before I came.
YORK
    He was? Why so, go all which way it will.
    The nobles they are fled. The commons they are cold,
    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.
    Sirrah, get thee to Pleshey, to my sister Gloucester     90
    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound -
    Hold, take my ring.
SERVINGMAN
    My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,
    Today as I came by I called there -
    But I shall grieve you to report the rest     95
YORK
    What is't, knave?
SERVINGMAN
    An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
YORK
    God for his mercy, what a tide of woes
    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
    I know not what to do. I would to God     100
    So my untruth had not provoked him to it,
    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.
    What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland?
    How shall we do for money for these wars?
    (to the Queen)  Come, sister - cousin,
        I would say, pray pardon me     105
    (to the Servingman)  Go, fellow, get thee home.
        Provide some carts,
    And bring away the armour that is there.
                Exit Servingman
    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
    If I know how or which way to order these affairs
    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands     110
    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.
    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
    And duty bids defend, t'other again
    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged,
    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right     115
    Well, somewhat we must do.
    (To the Queen)    Come, cousin, I'll dispose of you. -
    Gentlemen, go muster up your men,
    And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle.
    I should to Pleshey too, but time will not permit     120
    All is uneven,
    And everything is left at six and seven.
                Exeunt the Duke of York and the Queen. Bushy,
                Bagot, and Green remain
BUSHY
    The wind sits fair for news to go for Ireland,
    But none returns. For us to levy power
    Proportionable to the enemy     125
    Is all unpossible.
GREEN
    Besides, our nearness to the King in love
    Is near the hate of those love not the King.
BAGOT
    And that is the wavering commons, for their love
    Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them     130
    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
BUSHY
    Wherein the King stands generally condemned.
BAGOT
    If judgement lie in them, then so do we,
    Because we ever have been near the King.
GREEN
    Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle     135
    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
BUSHY
    Thither will I with you, for little office
    Will the hateful commoners perform for us,
    Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.
    Will you go along with us     140
BAGOT
    No, I will to Ireland, to his majesty.
    Farewell: if heart's presages be not vain
    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.
BUSHY
    That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
GREEN
    Alas, poor Duke, the task he undertakes     145
    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.
    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
BAGOT
    Farewell at once, for once, for all and ever.
BUSHY
    Well, we may meet again.
BAGOT
    I fear me never.
                Exeunt Bushy and Green at one door, and
                Bagot at another door


2.3
                Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford,
                and the Earl of Northumberland
BOLINGBROKE
    How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Believe me, noble lord,
    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.
    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
    Draws out our miles and makes them wearisome     5
    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
    But I bethink me what a weary way
    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found
    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company     10
    Which I protest hath very much beguiled
    The tediousness and process of my travel.
    But theirs is sweetened with the hope to have
    The present benefit which I possess,
    And hope to joy is little less in joy     15
    Than hope enjoyed. By this the weary lords
    Shall make their way seem short as mine hath done
    By sight of what I have: your noble company.
BOLINGBROKE
    Of much less value is my company
    Than your good words.
                Enter Harry Percy
    But who comes here          20
NORTHUMBERLAND
    It is my son, young Harry Percy,
    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.
    Harry, how fares your uncle?
HARRY PERCY
    I had thought, my lord, to have learned his health of you.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Why, is he not with the Queen     25
HARRY PERCY
    No, my good lord, he hath forsook the court,
    Broken his staff of office, and dispersed
    The household of the King.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    What was his reason?
    He was not so resolved when last we spake together.
HARRY PERCY
    Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor     30
    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh
    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford,
    And sent me over by Berkeley to discover
    What power the Duke of York had levied there,
    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh     35
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?
HARRY PERCY
    No, my good lord, for that is not forgot
    Which ne'er I did remember. To my knowledge,
    I never in my life did look on him.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Then learn to know him now. This is the Duke     40
HARRY PERCY
    My gracious lord, I tender you my service,
    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young,
    Which elder days shall ripen and confirm
    To more approved service and desert.
BOLINGBROKE
    I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure     45
    I count myself in nothing else so happy
    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends,
    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it     50
                He gives Percy his hand
NORTHUMBERLAND
    How far is it to Berkeley, and what stir
    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
HARRY PERCY
    There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,
    Manned with three hundred men, as I have heard,
    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour     55
    None else of name and noble estimate.
                Enter Lord Ross and Lord Willoughby
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,
    Bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste.
BOLINGBROKE
    Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues
    A banished traitor. All my treasury     60
    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enriched,
    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.
ROSS
    Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
WILLOUGHBY
    And far surmounts our labour to attain it.
BOLINGBROKE
    Evermore thank's the exchequer of the poor     65
    Which till my infant fortune comes to years
    Stands for my bounty.
                Enter Berkeley
    But who comes here?
NORTHUMBERLAND
    It is my lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
BERKELEY
    My lord of Hereford, my message is to you.
BOLINGBROKE
    My lord, my answer is to `Lancaster     70
    And I am come to seek that name in England,
    And I must find that title in your tongue
    Before I make reply to aught you say.
BERKELEY
    Mistake me not, my lord, 'tis not my meaning
    To raze one title of your honour out     75
    To you, my lord, I come - what lord you will -
    From the most gracious regent of this land,
    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
    To take advantage of the absent time
    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms     80
                Enter the Duke of York
BOLINGBROKE
    I shall not need transport my words by you.
    Here comes his grace in person. - My noble uncle!
                He kneels
YORK
    Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
    Whose duty is deceivable and false.
BOLINGBROKE
    My gracious uncle           85
YORK
    Tut, tut, grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
    I am no traitor's uncle, and that word `grace'
    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
    Why have those banished and forbidden legs
    Dared once to touch a dust of England's ground     90
    But then more `why': why have they dared to march
    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
    Frighting her pale-faced villages with war
    And ostentation of despised arms?
    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence     95
    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,
    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
    Were I but now the lord of such hot youth
    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself
    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men     100
    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
    O then how quickly should this arm of mine,
    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee
    And minister correction to thy fault!
BOLINGBROKE
    My gracious uncle, let me know my fault     105
    On what condition stands it and wherein?
YORK
    Even in condition of the worst degree:
    In gross rebellion and detested treason.
    Thou art a banished man, and here art come
    Before the expiration of thy time     110
    In braving arms against thy sovereign.
BOLINGBROKE    [standing]
    As I was banished, I was banished Hereford,
    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
    And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace,
    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye     115
    You are my father, for methinks in you
    I see old Gaunt alive. O then, my father,
    Will you permit that I shall stand condemned
    A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties
    Plucked from my arms perforce and given away     120
    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
    If that my cousin King be King in England,
    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.
    You have a son, Aumerle my noble kinsman.
    Had you first died and he been thus trod down     125
    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father
    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
    I am denied to sue my livery here,
    And yet my letters patents give me leave.
    My father's goods are all distrained and sold     130
    And these and all are all amiss employed.
    What would you have me do? I am a subject,
    And I challenge law, attorneys are denied me,
    And therefore personally I lay my claim
    To my inheritance of free descent     135
NORTHUMBERLAND
    The noble Duke hath been too much abused.
ROSS
    It stands your grace upon to do him right.
WILLOUGHBY
    Base men by his endowments are made great.
YORK
    My lords of England, let me tell you this.
    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs     140
    And laboured all I could to do him right.
    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
    Be his own carver, and cut out his way
    To find out right with wrong - it may not be.
    And you that do abet him in this kind     145
    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is
    But for his own, and for the right of that
    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid,
    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath     150
YORK
    Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.
    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
    Because my power is weak and all ill-left.
    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
    I would attach you all, and make you stoop     155
    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King.
    But since I cannot, be it known to you
    I do remain as neuter. So fare you well -
    Unless you please to enter in the castle
    And there repose you for this night     160
BOLINGBROKE
    An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
    But we must win your grace to go with us
    To Bristol Castle, which they say is held
    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
    The caterpillars of the commonwealth     165
    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
YORK
    It may be I will go with you - but yet I'll pause,
    For I am loath to break our country's laws.
    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.
    Things past redress are now with me past care     170
                Exeunt


2.4
                Enter the Earl of Salisbury and a Welsh Captain
WELSH CAPTAIN
    My lord of Salisbury, we have stayed ten days,
    And hardly kept our countrymen together,
    And yet we hear no tidings from the King.
    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
SALISBURY
    Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman     5
    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
WELSH CAPTAIN
    'Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay.
    The bay trees in our country are all withered,
    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven.
    The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth     10
    And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.
    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,
    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
    The other to enjoy by rage and war.
    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings     15
    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,
    As well assured Richard their king is dead.
                Exit
SALISBURY
    Ah, Richard! With the eyes of heavy mind
    I see thy glory, like a shooting star,
    Fall to the base earth from the firmament     20
    Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
    Thy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,
    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.
                Exit

ACT III  King Richard II

3.1
                Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford,
                the Duke of York, the Earl of Northumberland,
                Lord Ross, Harry Percy, and Lord Willoughby
BOLINGBROKE
    Bring forth these men.
                Enter Bushy and Green, guarded as prisoners
    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls,
    Since presently your souls must part your bodies,
    With too much urging your pernicious lives,
    For 'twere no charity. Yet to wash your blood     5
    From off my hands, here in the view of men
    I will unfold some causes of your deaths.
    You have misled a prince, a royal king,
    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
    By you unhappied and disfigured clean     10
    You have, in manner, with your sinful hours
    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
    Broke the possession of a royal bed,
    And stained the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs     15
    Myself - a prince by fortune of my birth,
    Near to the King in blood, and near in love
    Till you did make him misinterpret me -
    Have stooped my neck under your injuries,
    And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds     20
    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
    Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
    From my own windows torn my household coat,
    Razed out my imprese, leaving me no sign     25
    Save men's opinions and my living blood,
    To show the world I am a gentleman.
    This and much more, much more than twice all this,
    Condemns you to the death. - See them delivered over
    To execution and the hand of death     30
BUSHY
    More welcome is the stroke of death to me
    Than Bolingbroke to England.
GREEN
    My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
BOLINGBROKE
    My lord Northumberland, see them dispatched     35
                Exit Northumberland, with Bushy and Green,
                guarded
    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house.
    For God's sake, fairly let her be intreated.
    Tell her I send to her my kind commends.
    Take special care my greetings be delivered.
YORK
    A gentleman of mine I have dispatched     40
    With letters of your love to her at large.
BOLINGBROKE
    Thanks, gentle uncle. - Come, lords, away,
    To fight with Glendower and his complices.
    A while to work, and after, holiday.
                Exeunt


3.2
                Flourish. Enter King Richard, the Duke of
                Aumerle, the Bishop of Carlisle, and soldiers,
                with drum and colours
KING RICHARD
    Harlechly Castle call they this at hand?
AUMERLE
    Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air
    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
KING RICHARD
    Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy
    To stand upon my kingdom once again     5
                He touches the ground
    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.
    As a long-parted mother with her child
    Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting,
    So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee my earth     10
    And do thee favours with my royal hands.
    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
    But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom
    And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way     15
    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
    Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies,
    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower
    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder     20
    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies. -
    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.
    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king     25
    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
    Fear not, my lord. That power that made you king
    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
AUMERLE
    He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,
    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security     30
    Grows strong and great in substance and in friends.
KING RICHARD
    Discomfortable cousin, know'st thou not
    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,
    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen     35
    In murders and in outrage bloody here,
    But when from under this terrestrial ball
    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
    And darts his light through every guilty hole,
    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins     40
    The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,
    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
    Who all this while hath revelled in the night
    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes     45
    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
    Not able to endure the sight of day,
    But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
    Not all the water in the rough rude sea     50
    Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
    The breath of worldly men cannot depose
    The deputy elected by the Lord.
    For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown     55
    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
    A glorious angel. Then if angels fight,
    Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
                Enter the Earl of Salisbury
    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
SALISBURY
    Nor nea'er nor farther off, my gracious lord     60
    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,
    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
    O, call back yesterday, bid time return     65
    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men.
    Today, today, unhappy day too late,
    Overthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state,
    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled     70
AUMERLE
    Comfort, my liege. Why looks your grace so pale?
KING RICHARD
    But now the blood of twenty thousand men
    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled,
    And till so much blood thither come again
    Have I not reason to look pale and dead     75
    All souls that will be safe fly from my side,
    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE
    Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
KING RICHARD
    I had forgot myself. Am I not King?
    Awake, thou sluggard majesty, thou sleep'st     80
    Is not the King's name forty thousand names?
    Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes
    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
    Ye favourites of a king: are we not high?
    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York     85
    Hath power enough to serve our turn.
                Enter Scroop
    But who comes here?
SCROOP
    More health and happiness betide my liege
    Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
KING RICHARD
    Mine ear is open and my heart prepared.
    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold     90
    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why 'twas my care,
    And what loss is it to be rid of care?
    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
    Greater he shall not be. If he serve God
    We'll serve Him too, and be his fellow so     95
    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend.
    They break their faith to God as well as us.
    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay:
    The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP
    Glad am I that your highness is so armed     100
    To bear the tidings of calamity.
    Like an unseasonable stormy day,
    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores
    As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
    So high above his limits swells the rage     105
    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
    With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
    Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps
    Against thy majesty. Boys with women's voices
    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints     110
    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown.
    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
    Of double-fatal yew against thy state.
    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
    Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel     115
    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
KING RICHARD
    Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.
    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
    What is become of Bushy, where is Green,
    That they have let the dangerous enemy     120
    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOP
    Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
KING RICHARD
    O villains, vipers damned without redemption     125
    Dogs easily won to fawn on any man!
    Snakes in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!
    Three Judases, each one thrice-worse than Judas!
    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war
    Upon their spotted souls for this offence     130
SCROOP
    Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
    Again uncurse their souls. Their peace is made
    With heads, and not with hands. Those whom you curse
    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound     135
    And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.
AUMERLE
    Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOP
    Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
AUMERLE
    Where is the Duke my father, with his power?
KING RICHARD
    No matter where. Of comfort no man speak     140
    Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs,
    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
    Let's choose executors and talk of wills -
    And yet not so, for what can we bequeath     145
    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
    Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
    And nothing can we call our own but death,
    And that small model of the barren earth
    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones     150
    [Sitting]  For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
    And tell sad stories of the death of kings -
    How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
    Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
    Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed     155
    All murdered. For within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene     160
    To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
    As if this flesh which walls about our life
    Were brass impregnable, and humoured thus,
    Comes at the last, and with a little pin     165
    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king.
    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
    With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,
    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
    For you have but mistook me all this while     170
    I live with bread, like you, feel want,
    Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus,
    How can you say to me I am a king?
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
    My lord, wise men ne'er wail their present woes,
    But presently prevent the ways to wail     175
    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
    Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
    And so your follies fight against yourself.
    Fear, and be slain. No worse can come to fight,
    And fight and die is death destroying death     180
    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
AUMERLE
    My father hath a power. Enquire of him,
    And learn to make a body of a limb.
KING RICHARD    [standing]
    Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
    To change blows with thee for our day of doom     185
    This ague-fit of fear is overblown.
    An easy task it is to win our own.
    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
SCROOP
    Men judge by the complexion of the sky     190
    The state and inclination of the day.
    So may you by my dull and heavy eye
    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
    I play the torturer by small and small
    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken     195
    Your uncle York is joined with Bolingbroke,
    And all your northern castles yielded up,
    And all your southern gentlemen in arms
    Upon his faction.
KING RICHARD
    Thou hast said enough.
    (To Aumerle)  Beshrew thee, cousin,
        which didst lead me forth     200
    Of that sweet way I was in to despair.
    What say you now? What comfort have we now?
    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly
    That bids me be of comfort any more.
    Go to Flint Castle, there I'll pine away     205
    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
    That power I have, discharge, and let them go
    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
    For I have none. Let no man speak again
    To alter this, for counsel is but vain     210
AUMERLE
    My liege, one word.
KING RICHARD
    He does me double wrong
    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
    Discharge my followers. Let them hence away
    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.
                Exeunt


3.3
                Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford,
                the Duke of York, the Earl of Northumberland,
                and soldiers, with drum and colours
BOLINGBROKE
    So that by this intelligence we learn
    The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
    With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    The news is very fair and good, my lord     5
    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK
    It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
    To say `King Richard'. Alack the heavy day
    When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Your grace mistakes. Only to be brief     10
    Left I his title out.
YORK
    The time hath been,
    Would you have been so brief with him, he would
    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.
BOLINGBROKE
    Mistake not, uncle, further than you should     15
YORK
    Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
    Lest you mistake the heavens are over our heads.
BOLINGBROKE
    I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself
    Against their will.
                Enter Harry Percy and a trumpeter
    But who comes here?
    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield     20
HARRY PERCY
    The castle royally is manned, my lord,
    Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE
    Royally?
    Why, it contains no king.
HARRY PERCY
    Yes, my good lord,
    It doth contain a king. King Richard lies
    Within the limits of yon lime and stone     25
    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
    Of holy reverence, who, I cannot learn.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
BOLINGBROKE    (to Northumberland)
    Noble lord                  30
    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,
    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
    Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver.
    Henry Bolingbroke
    Upon his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand     35
    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
    To his most royal person, hither come
    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
    Provided that my banishment repealed
    And lands restored again be freely granted     40
    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power,
    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
    Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen,
    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench     45
    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,
    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
    Go, signify as much, while here we march
    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum     50
    That from this castle's tottered battlements
    Our fair appointments may be well perused.
    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
    With no less terror than the elements
    Of fire and water when their thund'ring shock     55
    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water.
    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
    My waters: on the earth, and not on him. -
    March on, and mark King Richard, how he looks     60
                They march about the stage, then Bolingbroke,
                York, Percy, and soldiers stand at a distance from
                the walls, Northumberland and trumpeter advance
                to the walls. The trumpets sound a parley
                without, and an answer within, then a flourish
                within]. King Richard appeareth on the walls, with
                the Bishop of Carlisle, the Duke of Aumerle,
                Scroop, and the Earl of Salisbury
    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
    As doth the blushing discontented sun
    From out the fiery portal of the east
    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
    To dim his glory and to stain the track     65
    Of his bright passage to the occident.
YORK
    Yet looks he like a king. Behold, his eye,
    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack for woe
    That any harm should stain so fair a show     70
KING RICHARD    (to Northumberland)
    We are amazed, and thus long have we stood
    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
    Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
    An if we be, how dare thy joints forget
    To pay their aweful duty to our presence     75
    If we be not, show us the hand of God
    That hath dismissed us from our stewardship.
    For well we know no hand of blood and bone
    Can grip the sacred handle of our sceptre,
    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp     80
    And though you think that all - as you have done -
    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
    And we are barren and bereft of friends,
    Yet know my master, God omnipotent,
    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf     85
    Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
    That lift your vassal hands against my head
    And threat the glory of my precious crown.
    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he is     90
    That every stride he makes upon my land
    Is dangerous treason. He is come to open
    The purple testament of bleeding war,
    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace
    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons     95
    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
    To scarlet indignation, and bedew
    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.
NORTHUMBERLAND    [kneeling]
    The King of heaven forbid our lord the King     100
    Should so with civil and uncivil arms
    Be rushed upon. Thy thrice-noble cousin
    Harry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand,
    And by the honourable tomb he swears,
    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones     105
    And by the royalties of both your bloods,
    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
    And by the worth and honour of himself,
    Comprising all that may be sworn or said     110
    His coming hither hath no further scope
    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees,
    Which on thy royal party granted once,
    His glittering arms he will commend to rust     115
    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
    To faithful service of your majesty.
    This swears he as he is a prince and just,
    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
KING RICHARD
    Northumberland, say thus the King returns     120
    His noble cousin is right welcome hither,
    And all the number of his fair demands
    Shall be accomplished without contradiction.
    With all the gracious utterance thou hast,
    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends     125
                Northumberland and the trumpeter return to
                Bolingbroke
    (To Aumerle)  We do debase ourself, cousin, do we not,
    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send
    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
AUMERLE
    No, good my lord, let's fight with gentle words     130
    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
KING RICHARD
    O God, O God, that e'er this tongue of mine,
    That laid the sentence of dread banishment
    On yon proud man, should take it off again
    With words of sooth! O, that I were as great     135
    As is my grief, or lesser than my name,
    Or that I could forget what I have been,
    Or not remember what I must be now!
    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,
    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me     140
                Northumberland advances to the walls
AUMERLE
    Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
KING RICHARD
    What must the King do now? Must he submit?
    The King shall do it. Must he be deposed?
    The King shall be contented. Must he lose
    The name of King? A God's name, let it go     145
    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
    My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff     150
    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
    And my large kingdom for a little grave,
    A little, little grave, an obscure grave,
    Or I'll be buried in the King's highway,
    Some way of common trade where subjects' feet     155
    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head,
    For on my heart they tread now, whilst I live,
    And buried once, why not upon my head?
    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin.
    We'll make foul weather with despised tears     160
    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,
    And make a dearth in this revolting land.
    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
    And make some pretty match with shedding tears,
    As thus to drop them still upon one place     165
    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
    Within the earth, and therein laid? `There lies
    Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.'
    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
    I talk but idly and you mock at me     170
    Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,
    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his majesty
    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says `Ay'.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    My lord, in the base court he doth attend     175
    To speak with you. May it please you to come down?
KING RICHARD
    Down, down I come like glist'ring Phaethon,
    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
    In the base court: base court where kings grow base
    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace     180
    In the base court, come down: down court, down King,
    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should
                sing.
                Exeunt King Richard and his party
                Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke
BOLINGBROKE
    What says his majesty?
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Sorrow and grief of heart
    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man.
                Enter King Richard and his party below
    Yet he is come.
BOLINGBROKE
    Stand all apart             185
    And show fair duty to his majesty.
                He kneels down
    My gracious lord.
KING RICHARD
    Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
    Me rather had my heart might feel your love     190
    Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
    Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know,
    Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
BOLINGBROKE
    My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
KING RICHARD
    Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all     195
BOLINGBROKE
    So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
    As my true service shall deserve your love.
KING RICHARD
    Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.
                Bolingbroke rises
    (To York)  Uncle, give me your hands.
        Nay, dry your eyes     200
    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
    (To Bolingbroke)  Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
    Though you are old enough to be my heir.
    What you will have I'll give, and willing too,
    For do we must what force will have us do     205
    Set on towards London, cousin: is it so?
BOLINGBROKE
    Yea, my good lord.
KING RICHARD
    Then I must not say no.
                Flourish. Exeunt


3.4
                Enter the Queen, with her two Ladies
QUEEN
    What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
    To drive away the heavy thought of care?
FIRST LADY
    Madam, we'll play at bowls.
QUEEN
    'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,
    And that my fortune runs against the bias     5
SECOND LADY
    Madam, we'll dance.
QUEEN
    My legs can keep no measure in delight
    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief,
    Therefore no dancing, girl. Some other sport.
FIRST LADY
    Madam, we'll tell tales     10
QUEEN
    Of sorrow or of joy?
FIRST LADY
    Of either, madam.
QUEEN
    Of neither, girl.
    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
    It doth remember me the more of sorrow     15
    Or if of grief, being altogether had,
    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy.
    For what I have I need not to repeat,
    And what I want it boots not to complain.
SECOND LADY
    Madam, I'll sing.
QUEEN
    'Tis well that thou hast cause     20
    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
SECOND LADY
    I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
QUEEN
    And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
    And never borrow any tear of thee.
                Enter a Gardener and two Men
    But stay, here come the gardeners     25
    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
    My wretchedness unto a row of pins
    They will talk of state, for everyone doth so
    Against a change. Woe is forerun with woe.
                The Queen and her Ladies stand apart
GARDENER    [to First Man]
    Go, bind thou up young dangling apricots     30
    Which, like unruly children, make their sire
    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
    [To Second Man]    Go thou, and, like an executioner,
    Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays     35
    That look too lofty in our commonwealth.
    All must be even in our government.
    You thus employed, I will go root away
    The noisome weeds which without profit suck
    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers     40
FIRST MAN
    Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
    Keep law and form and due proportion,
    Showing as in a model our firm estate,
    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
    Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up     45
    Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,
    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
    Swarming with caterpillars?
GARDENER
    Hold thy peace.
    He that hath suffered this disordered spring
    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf     50
    The weeds which his broad spreading leaves did shelter,
    That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
    Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke -
    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
SECOND MAN
    What, are they dead?
GARDENER
    They are, and Bolingbroke     55
    Hath seized the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
    That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land
    As we this garden! We at time of year
    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood     60
    With too much riches it confound itself.
    Had he done so to great and growing men,
    They might have lived to bear, and he to taste,
    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live     65
    Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
FIRST MAN
    What, think you then the King shall be deposed?
GARDENER
    Depressed he is already, and deposed
    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night     70
    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's
    That tell black tidings.
QUEEN
    O, I am pressed to death through want of speaking!
                She comes forward
    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news   75
    What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee
    To make a second fall of cursed man?
    Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
    Divine his downfall? Say where, when, and how     80
    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch!
GARDENER
    Pardon me, madam. Little joy have I
    To breathe this news, yet what I say is true.
    King Richard he is in the mighty hold
    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weighed     85
    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself
    And some few vanities that make him light.
    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
    Besides himself, are all the English peers,
    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down     90
    Post you to London and you will find it so.
    I speak no more than everyone doth know.
QUEEN
    Nimble mischance that art so light of foot,
    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
    And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st     95
    To serve me last, that I may longest keep
    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
    To meet at London London's king in woe.
    What, was I born to this, that my sad look
    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke     100
    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,
    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
                Exit with her Ladies
GARDENER
    Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse
    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
    Here did she fall a tear. Here in this place     105
    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb-of-grace.
    Rue even for ruth here shortly shall be seen
    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
                Exeunt

ACT IV  King Richard II

4.1
                Enter, as to Parliament, Bolingbroke Duke of
                Lancaster and Hereford, the Duke of Aumerle, the
                Earl of Northumberland, Harry Percy, Lord
                Fitzwater, the Duke of Surrey, the Bishop of
                Carlisle, and the Abbot of Westminster
BOLINGBROKE
    Call forth Bagot.
                Enter Bagot, with officers
    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind:
    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,
    Who wrought it with the King, and who performed
    The bloody office of his timeless end.
BAGOT
    Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle     5
BOLINGBROKE    (to Aumerle)
    Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
                Aumerle stands forth
BAGOT
    My lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
    Scorns to unsay what once it hath delivered.
    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted
    I heard you say `Is not my arm of length     10
    That reacheth from the restful English court
    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'
    Amongst much other talk that very time
    I heard you say that you had rather refuse
    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns     15
    Than Bolingbroke's return to England,
    Adding withal how blest this land would be
    In this your cousin's death.
AUMERLE
    Princes and noble lords,
    What answer shall I make to this base man?
    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars     20
    On equal terms to give him chastisement?
    Either I must, or have mine honour soiled
    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
                He throws down his gage
    There is my gage, the manual seal of death
    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest     25
    And will maintain what thou hast said is false
    In thy heart blood, though being all too base
    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
BOLINGBROKE
    Bagot, forbear. Thou shalt not take it up.
AUMERLE
    Excepting one, I would he were the best     30
    In all this presence that hath moved me so.
FITZWATER
    If that thy valour stand on sympathy,
    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.
                He throws down his gage
    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it     35
    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.
    If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest,
    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
AUMERLE
    Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day     40
FITZWATER
    Now by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE
    Fitzwater, thou art damned to hell for this.
HARRY PERCY
    Aumerle, thou liest. His honour is as true
    In this appeal as thou art all unjust,
    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage     45
                He throws down his gage
    To prove it on thee to the extremest point
    Of mortal breathing. Seize it if thou dar'st.
AUMERLE
    An if I do not, may my hands rot off,
    And never brandish more revengeful steel
    Over the glittering helmet of my foe     50
SURREY
    My lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
FITZWATER
    'Tis very true. You were in presence then,
    And you can witness with me this is true.
SURREY
    As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true     55
FITZWATER
    Surrey, thou liest.
SURREY
    Dishonourable boy,
    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
    That it shall render vengeance and revenge,
    Till thou, the lie-giver, and that lie do lie
    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull     60
    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn.
                He thows down his gage
    Engage it to the trial if thou dar'st.
FITZWATER
    How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness     65
    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,
    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith
    To tie thee to my strong correction.
    As I intend to thrive in this new world,
    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal     70
    Besides, I heard the banished Norfolk say
    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men
    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.
AUMERLE
    Some honest Christian trust me with a gage.
                He takes another's gage and throws it down
    That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this     75
    If he may be repealed, to try his honour.
BOLINGBROKE
    These differences shall all rest under gage
    Till Norfolk be repealed. Repealed he shall be,
    And, though mine enemy, restored again
    To all his lands and signories. When he is returned     80
    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
    That honourable day shall never be seen.
    Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought
    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross     85
    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens,
    And, toiled with works of war, retired himself
    To Italy, and there at Venice gave
    His body to that pleasant country's earth,
    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ     90
    Under whose colours he had fought so long.
BOLINGBROKE
    Why, Bishop of Carlisle, is Norfolk dead?
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
    As surely as I live, my lord.
BOLINGBROKE
    Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants     95
    Your differences shall all rest under gage
    Till we assign you to your days of trial.
                Enter the Duke of York
YORK
    Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
    From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul
    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields     100
    To the possession of thy royal hand.
    Ascend his throne, descending now from him,
    And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!
BOLINGBROKE
    In God's name I'll ascend the regal throne.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
    Marry, God forbid           105
    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
    Would God that any in this noble presence
    Were enough noble to be upright judge
    Of noble Richard. Then true noblesse would     110
    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
    What subject can give sentence on his king?
    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
    Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear,
    Although apparent guilt be seen in them     115
    And shall the figure of God's majesty,
    His captain, steward, deputy elect,
    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
    Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God     120
    That in a Christian climate souls refined
    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks
    Stirred up by God thus boldly for his king.
    My lord of Hereford here, whom you call king     125
    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king,
    And, if you crown him, let me prophesy
    The blood of English shall manure the ground,
    And future ages groan for this foul act.
    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels     130
    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.
    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny
    Shall here inhabit, and this land be called
    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls     135
    O, if you rear this house against this house
    It will the woefullest division prove
    That ever fell upon this cursed earth!
    Prevent, resist it, let it not be so,
    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe     140
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Well have you argued, sir, and for your pains
    Of capital treason we arrest you here.
    My lord of Westminster, be it your charge
    To keep him safely till his day of trial.
    May it please you, lords, to grant the Commons' suit     145
BOLINGBROKE
    Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
    He may surrender. So we shall proceed
    Without suspicion.
YORK
    I will be his conduct.
                Exit
BOLINGBROKE
    Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
    Procure your sureties for your days of answer     150
    Little are we beholden to your love,
    And little looked for at your helping hands.
                Enter Richard and the Duke of York, with
                attendants bearing the crown and sceptre
RICHARD
    Alack, why am I sent for to a king
    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
    Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned     155
    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
    To this submission. Yet I well remember
    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?
    Did they not sometime cry `All hail!' to me     160
    So Judas did to Christ. But He in twelve
    Found truth in all but one, I, in twelve thousand, none.
    God save the King! Will no man say `Amen'?
    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, Amen.
    God save the King, although I be not he     165
    And yet Amen, if heaven do think him me.
    To do what service am I sent for hither?
YORK
    To do that office of thine own good will
    Which tired majesty did make thee offer:
    The resignation of thy state and crown     170
    To Henry Bolingbroke.
RICHARD    (to an attendant)
    Give me the crown.   Here, cousin, seize the crown.
    Here, cousin. On this side my hand, on that side thine.
    Now is this golden crown like a deep well
    That owes two buckets filling one another     175
    The emptier ever dancing in the air,
    The other down, unseen, and full of water.
    That bucket down and full of tears am I,
    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
BOLINGBROKE
    I thought you had been willing to resign     180
RICHARD
    My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.
    You may my glories and my state depose,
    But not my griefs, still am I king of those.
BOLINGBROKE
    Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
RICHARD
    Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down     185
    My care is loss of care by old care done,
    Your care is gain of care by new care won.
    The cares I give I have, though given away,
    They 'tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
BOLINGBROKE
    Are you contented to resign the crown     190
RICHARD
    Ay, no, no, ay, for I must nothing be,
    Therefore no, no, for I resign to thee.
    Now mark me how I will undo myself.
    I give this heavy weight from off my head,
                Bolingbroke accepts the crown
    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand     195
                Bolingbroke accepts the sceptre
    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart.
    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
    With mine own hands I give away my crown,
    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths     200
    All pomp and majesty I do forswear.
    My manors, rents, revenues I forgo.
    My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny.
    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me.
    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee     205
    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,
    And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved.
    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
    And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit.
    `God save King Henry,' unkinged Richard says     210
    `And send him many years of sunshine days.'
    What more remains?
NORTHUMBERLAND    (giving Richard papers)
    No more but that you read
    These accusations and these grievous crimes
    Committed by your person and your followers
    Against the state and profit of this land     215
    That by confessing them, the souls of men
    May deem that you are worthily deposed.
RICHARD
    Must I do so? And must I ravel out
    My weaved-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
    If thy offences were upon record     220
    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop
    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
    There shouldst thou find one heinous article
    Containing the deposing of a king
    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath     225
    Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven.
    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon
    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
    Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates     230
    Have here delivered me to my sour cross,
    And water cannot wash away your sin.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    My lord, dispatch. Read o'er these articles.
RICHARD
    Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see.
    And yet salt water blinds them not so much     235
    But they can see a sort of traitors here.
    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself
    I find myself a traitor with the rest,
    For I have given here my soul's consent
    T'undeck the pompous body of a king     240
    Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,
    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    My lord -
RICHARD
    No lord of thine, thou haught-insulting man,
    Nor no man's lord. I have no name, no title     245
    No, not that name was given me at the font,
    But 'tis usurped. Alack the heavy day,
    That I have worn so many winters out
    And know not now what name to call myself!
    O, that I were a mockery king of snow     250
    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke
    To melt myself away in water-drops!
    Good king, great king - and yet not greatly good -
    An if my word be sterling yet in England,
    Let it command a mirror hither straight     255
    That it may show me what a face I have,
    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
BOLINGBROKE
    Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
                Exit one or more
NORTHUMBERLAND
    Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
RICHARD
    Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell     260
BOLINGBROKE
    Urge it no more, my lord Northumberland.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    The Commons will not then be satisfied.
RICHARD
    They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough
    When I do see the very book indeed
    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself     265
                Enter one with a glass
    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
                Richard takes the glass and looks in it
    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
    So many blows upon this face of mine
    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,
    Like to my followers in prosperity     270
    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face
    That every day under his household roof
    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
    That like the sun did make beholders wink?
    Is this the face which faced so many follies     275
    That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke?
    A brittle glory shineth in this face.
    As brittle as the glory is the face,
                He shatters the glass
    For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers.
    Mark, silent King, the moral of this sport     280
    How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
BOLINGBROKE
    The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
    The shadow of your face.
RICHARD
    Say that again:
    `The shadow of my sorrow' - ha, let's see.
    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within     285
    And these external manner of laments
    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
    That swells with silence in the tortured soul.
    There lies the substance, and I thank thee, King,
    For thy great bounty that not only giv'st     290
    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
    And then be gone and trouble you no more.
    Shall I obtain it?
BOLINGBROKE
    Name it, fair cousin.
RICHARD
    Fair cousin? I am greater than a king     295
    For when I was a king my flatterers
    Were then but subjects, being now a subject,
    I have a king here to my flatterer.
    Being so great, I have no need to beg.
BOLINGBROKE
    Yet ask                     300
RICHARD
    And shall I have?
BOLINGBROKE
    You shall.
RICHARD
    Then give me leave to go.
BOLINGBROKE
    Whither?
RICHARD
    Whither you will, so I were from your sights     305
BOLINGBROKE
    Go some of you, convey him to the Tower.
RICHARD
    O good, `convey'! Conveyors are you all,
    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
                Exit, guarded
BOLINGBROKE
    On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves     310
                Exeunt all but the Abbot of Westminster, the
                Bishop of Carlisle, and Aumerle
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
    A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
    The woe's to come, the children yet unborn
    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
AUMERLE
    You holy clergymen, is there no plot
    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot     315
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
    My lord, before I freely speak my mind herein,
    You shall not only take the sacrament
    To bury mine intents, but also to effect
    Whatever I shall happen to devise.
    I see your brows are full of discontent     320
    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
    Come home with me to supper. I will lay
    A plot shall show us all a merry day.
                Exeunt

ACT V   King Richard II

5.1
                Enter the Queen, with her Ladies
QUEEN
    This way the King will come. This is the way
    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected Tower,
    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
    Is doomed a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth     5
    Have any resting for her true king's queen.
                Enter Richard and guard
    But soft, but see - or rather do not see -
    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,
    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears     10
    Ah, thou the model where old Troy did stand!
    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
    And not King Richard! Thou most beauteous inn:
    Why should hard-favoured grief be lodged in thee,
    When triumph is become an alehouse guest     15
RICHARD
    Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
    To think our former state a happy dream,
    From which awaked, the truth of what we are
    Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet     20
    To grim necessity, and he and I
    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
    And cloister thee in some religious house.
    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
    Which our profane hours here have stricken down     25
QUEEN
    What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
    Transformed and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke
    Deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage     30
    To be o'erpowered, and wilt thou, pupil-like,
    Take the correction, mildly kiss the rod,
    And fawn on rage with base humility,
    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
RICHARD
    A king of beasts indeed! If aught but beasts     35
    I had been still a happy king of men.
    Good sometimes Queen, prepare thee hence for France.
    Think I am dead, and that even here thou tak'st,
    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
    In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire     40
    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
    Of woeful ages long ago betid,
    And ere thou bid goodnight, to quit their griefs
    Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,
    And send the hearers weeping to their beds     45
    Forwhy the senseless brands will sympathize
    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
    And in compassion weep the fire out,
    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal black,
    For the deposing of a rightful king     50
                Enter the Earl of Northumberland
NORTHUMBERLAND
    My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed.
    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you.
    With all swift speed you must away to France.
RICHARD
    Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal     55
    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
    The time shall not be many hours of age
    More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head,
    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,
    Though he divide the realm and give thee half     60
    It is too little helping him to all.
    He shall think that thou, which know'st the way
    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
    Being ne'er so little urged another way,
    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne     65
    The love of wicked friends converts to fear,
    That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
    To worthy danger and deserved death.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
    Take leave and part, for you must part forthwith     70
RICHARD
    Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate
    A twofold marriage: 'twixt my crown and me,
    And then betwixt me and my married wife.
    (To the Queen)  Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me -
    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made     75
    Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,
    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime,
    My queen to France, from whence set forth in pomp
    She came adorned hither like sweet May,
    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day     80
QUEEN
    And must we be divided? Must we part?
RICHARD
    Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
QUEEN
    Banish us both, and send the King with me.
NORTHUMBERLAND
    That were some love, but little policy.
QUEEN
    Then whither he goes, thither let me go     85
RICHARD
    So two together weeping make one woe.
    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here.
    Better far off than, near, be ne'er the nea'er.
    Go count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.
QUEEN
    So longest way shall have the longest moans     90
RICHARD
    Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,
    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part     95
    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
                They kiss
QUEEN
    Give me mine own again. 'Twere no good part
    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
                They kiss
    So now I have mine own again, be gone,
    That I may strive to kill it with a groan     100
RICHARD
    We make woe wanton with this fond delay.
    Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.
                Exeunt Richard, guarded, and Northumberland
                at one door, the Queen and her Ladies at
                another door


5.2
                Enter the Duke and Duchess of York
DUCHESS OF YORK
    My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
    When weeping made you break the story off,
    Of our two cousins' coming into London.
YORK
    Where did I leave?
DUCHESS OF YORK
    At that sad stop, my lord,
    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops     5
    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.
YORK
    Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,
    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,
    Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,
    With slow but stately pace kept on his course     10
    Whilst all tongues cried `God save thee, Bolingbroke!'
    You would have thought the very windows spake,
    So many greedy looks of young and old
    Through casements darted their desiring eyes
    Upon his visage, and that all the walls     15
    With painted imagery had said at once,
    `Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'
    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,
    Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
    Bespake them thus: `I thank you, countrymen     20
    And thus still doing, thus he passed along.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Alack, poor Richard! Where rode he the whilst?
YORK
    As in a theatre the eyes of men,
    After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
    Are idly bent on him that enters next     25
    Thinking his prattle to be tedious,
    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
    Did scowl on gentle Richard. No man cried `God save him!'
    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home,
    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head     30
    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
    His face still combating with tears and smiles,
    The badges of his grief and patience,
    That had not God for some strong purpose steeled
    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted     35
    And barbarism itself have pitied him.
    But heaven hath a hand in these events,
    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
    Whose state and honour I for aye allow     40
                Enter the Duke of Aumerle
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Here comes my son Aumerle.
YORK
    Aumerle that was,
    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,
    And, madam, you must call him `Rutland' now.
    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth
    And lasting fealty to the new-made King     45
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now
    That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?
AUMERLE
    Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.
    God knows I had as lief be none as one.
YORK
    Well, bear you well in this new spring of time     50
    Lest you be cropped before you come to prime.
    What news from Oxford? Hold these jousts and triumphs?
AUMERLE
    For aught I know, my lord, they do.
YORK
    You will be there, I know.
AUMERLE
    If God prevent it not, I purpose so     55
YORK
    What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom?
    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.
AUMERLE
    My lord, 'tis nothing.
YORK
    No matter, then, who see it.
    I will be satisfied. Let me see the writing.
AUMERLE
    I do beseech your grace to pardon me     60
    It is a matter of small consequence,
    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
YORK
    Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.
    I fear, I fear!
DUCHESS OF YORK
    What should you fear?
    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is entered into     65
    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day.
YORK
    Bound to himself? What doth he with a bond
    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.
    Boy, let me see the writing.
AUMERLE
    I do beseech you, pardon me. I may not show it     70
YORK
    I will be satisfied. Let me see it, I say.
                He plucks it out of Aumerle's bosom, and reads it
    Treason, foul treason! Villain, traitor, slave!
DUCHESS OF YORK
    What is the matter, my lord?
YORK
    Ho, who is within there? Saddle my horse. -
    God for his mercy, what treachery is here     75
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Why, what is it, my lord?
YORK
    Give me my boots, I say. Saddle my horse. -
    Now by mine honour, by my life, my troth,
    I will appeach the villain.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    What is the matter          80
YORK
    Peace, foolish woman.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    I will not peace. What is the matter, son?
AUMERLE
    Good mother, be content. It is no more
    Than my poor life must answer.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Thy life answer?
YORK
    Bring me my boots. I will unto the King     85
                His man enters with his boots
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Strike him, Aumerle! Poor boy, thou art amazed.
    (To York's man)   Hence, villain! Never more come in my sight.
YORK
    Give me my boots, I say.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Why, York, what wilt thou do?
    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?
    Have we more sons? Or are we like to have     90
    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?
    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,
    And rob me of a happy mother's name?
    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
YORK
    Thou fond, mad woman        95
    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?
    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,
    And interchangeably set down their hands
    To kill the King at Oxford.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    He shall be none.
    We'll keep him here, then what is that to him     100
YORK
    Away, fond woman! Were he twenty times my son
    I would appeach him.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Hadst thou groaned for him
    As I have done thou wouldst be more pitiful.
    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect
    That I have been disloyal to thy bed     105
    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.
    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.
    He is as like thee as a man may be,
    Not like to me or any of my kin,
    And yet I love him.
YORK
    Make way, unruly woman      110
                Exit with his man
DUCHESS OF YORK
    After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse.
    Spur, post, and get before him to the King,
    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.
    I'll not be long behind - though I be old,
    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York     115
    And never will I rise up from the ground
    Till Bolingbroke have pardoned thee. Away, be gone!
                Exeunt severally


5.3
                Enter Bolingbroke, crowned King Henry, with
                Harry Percy, and other nobles
KING HENRY
    Can no man tell of my unthrifty son?
    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.
    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.
    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.
    Enquire at London 'mongst the taverns there     5
    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent
    With unrestrained loose companions -
    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes
    And beat our watch and rob our passengers -
    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy     10
    Takes on the point of honour to support
    So dissolute a crew.
HARRY PERCY
    My lord, some two days since, I saw the Prince,
    And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford.
KING HENRY
    And what said the gallant     15
HARRY PERCY
    His answer was he would unto the stews,
    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove,
    And wear it as a favour, and with that
    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
KING HENRY
    As dissolute as desperate. Yet through both     20
    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder days
    May happily bring forth.
                Enter the Duke of Aumerle, amazed
    But who comes here?
AUMERLE
    Where is the King?
KING HENRY
    What means our cousin that he stares and looks so wildly?
AUMERLE    (kneeling)
    God save your grace! I do beseech your majesty     25
    To have some conference with your grace alone.
KING HENRY    (to lords)
    Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
                Exeunt all but King Henry and Aumerle
    What is the matter with our cousin now?
AUMERLE
    For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
    My tongue cleave to the roof within my mouth     30
    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
KING HENRY
    Intended or committed was this fault?
    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,
    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
AUMERLE    (rising)
    Then give me leave that I may turn the key     35
    That no man enter till my tale be done.
KING HENRY
    Have thy desire.
                Aumerle locks the door.
                The Duke of York knocks at the door and crieth
YORK    (within)
    My liege, beware! Look to thyself!
    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
                King Henry draws his sword
KING HENRY
    Villain, I'll make thee safe.
AUMERLE
    Stay thy revengeful hand! Thou hast no cause to fear     40
YORK    (knocking within)
    Open the door, secure foolhardy King!
    Shall I for love speak treason to thy face?
    Open the door, or I will break it open.
                King Henry opens the door. Enter the Duke of
                York
KING HENRY
    What is the matter, uncle? Speak,
    Recover breath, tell us how near is danger     45
    That we may arm us to encounter it.
YORK
    Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
    The treason that my haste forbids me show.
                He gives King Henry the paper
AUMERLE
    Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise past.
    I do repent me. Read not my name there     50
    My heart is not confederate with my hand.
YORK
    It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King.
    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
    Forget to pity him, lest pity prove     55
    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
KING HENRY
    O, heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!
    O loyal father of a treacherous son!
    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,
    From whence this stream through muddy passages     60
    Hath held his current and defiled himself,
    Thy overflow of good converts to bad,
    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
YORK
    So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd     65
    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.
    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
    Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies.
    Thou kill'st me in his life: giving him breath     70
    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
DUCHESS OF YORK    (within)
    What ho, my liege, for God's sake let me in!
KING HENRY
    What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?
DUCHESS OF YORK    (within)
    A woman, and thy aunt, great King, 'tis I.
    Speak with me, pity me! Open the door     75
    A beggar begs that never begged before.
KING HENRY
    Our scene is altered from a serious thing,
    And now changed to `The Beggar and the King'.
    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.
    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin     80
                Aumerle opens the door. Enter the Duchess of York
YORK
    If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,
    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
    This festered joint cut off, the rest rest sound.
    This let alone will all the rest confound.
DUCHESS OF YORK    (kneeling)
    O King, believe not this hard-hearted man     85
    Love loving not itself, none other can.
YORK
    Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?
    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Sweet York, be patient. - Hear me, gentle liege.
KING HENRY
    Rise up, good aunt.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Not yet, I thee beseech     90
    Forever will I kneel upon my knees,
    And never see day that the happy sees,
    Till thou give joy, until thou bid me joy
    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
AUMERLE    (kneeling)
    Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee     95
YORK    (kneeling)
    Against them both my true joints bended be.
    Ill mayst thou thrive if thou grant any grace.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face.
    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest.
    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast     100
    He prays but faintly, and would be denied,
    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.
    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know,
    Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow.
    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy     105
    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.
    Our prayers do outpray his, then let them have
    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
KING HENRY
    Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Nay, do not say `Stand up'.
    Say `Pardon' first, and afterwards `Stand up     110
    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
    `Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.
    I never longed to hear a word till now.
    Say `Pardon', King. Let pity teach thee how.
    The word is short, but not so short as sweet     115
    No word like `Pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.
YORK
    Speak it in French, King: say `Pardonnez-moi'.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord
    That sets the word itself against the word     120
    Speak `Pardon' as 'tis current in our land,
    The chopping French we do not understand.
    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there,
    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce     125
    Pity may move thee `Pardon' to rehearse.
KING HENRY
    Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    I do not sue to stand.
    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
KING HENRY
    I pardon him as God shall pardon me.
                York and Aumerle rise
DUCHESS OF YORK
    O, happy vantage of a kneeling knee     130
    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.
    Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain,
    But makes one pardon strong.
KING HENRY
    I pardon him
    With all my heart.
DUCHESS OF YORK    (rising)
    A god on earth thou art.
KING HENRY
    But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot     135
    With all the rest of that consorted crew,
    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
    Good uncle, help to order several powers
    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.
    They shall not live within this world, I swear     140
    But I will have them if I once know where.
    Uncle, farewell, and cousin, so adieu.
    Your mother well hath prayed, and prove you true.
DUCHESS OF YORK
    Come, my old son. I pray God make thee new.
                Exeunt King Henry at one door, York, the
                Duchess of York, and Aumerle at another door


5.4
                Enter Sir Piers Exton, and his Men
EXTON
    Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?
    `Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
    Was it not so?
FIRST MAN
    Those were his very words.
EXTON
    `Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice,
    And urged it twice together, did he not     5
SECOND MAN
    He did.
EXTON
    And speaking it, he wishtly looked on me,
    As who should say `I would thou wert the man
    That would divorce this terror from my heart',
    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go     10
    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.
                Exeunt


5.5
                Enter Richard, alone
RICHARD
    I have been studying how I may compare
    This prison where I live unto the world,
    And for because the world is populous,
    And here is not a creature but myself,
    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out     5
    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
    My soul the father, and these two beget
    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
    And these same thoughts people this little world
    In humours like the people of this world     10
    For no thought is contented. The better sort,
    As thoughts of things divine, are intermixed
    With scruples, and do set the faith itself
    Against the faith, as thus: `Come, little ones',
    And then again              15
    `It is as hard to come as for a camel
    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs     20
    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,
    And for they cannot, die in their own pride.
    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
    Nor shall not be the last - like seely beggars     25
    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame
    That many have, and others must, set there,
    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
    Of such as have before endured the like     30
    Thus play I in one person many people,
    And none contented. Sometimes am I king,
    Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
    And so I am. Then crushing penury
    Persuades me I was better when a king     35
    Then am I kinged again, and by and by
    Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,
    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,
    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
    With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased     40
    With being nothing.
                The music plays
    Music do I hear.
    Ha, ha, keep time! How sour sweet music is
    When time is broke and no proportion kept.
    So is it in the music of men's lives.
    And here have I the daintiness of ear     45
    To check time broke in a disordered string,
    But for the concord of my state and time
    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me,
    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock     50
    My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch
    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
    Is pointing still in cleansing them from tears.
    Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is     55
    Are clamorous groans that strike upon my heart,
    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans
    Show minutes, hours, and times. But my time
    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
    While I stand fooling here, his jack of the clock     60
    This music mads me. Let it sound no more,
    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
                The music ceases
    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me,
    For 'tis a sign of love, and love to Richard     65
    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
                Enter a Groom of the stable
GROOM
    Hail, royal Prince!
RICHARD
    Thanks, noble peer.
    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
    What art thou, and how com'st thou hither,
    Where no man never comes but that sad dog     70
    That brings me food to make misfortune live?
GROOM
    I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,
    When thou wert king, who, travelling towards York,
    With much ado at length have gotten leave
    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face     75
    O, how it erned my heart when I beheld
    In London streets, that coronation day,
    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,
    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
    That horse that I so carefully have dressed     80
RICHARD
    Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
    How went he under him?
GROOM
    So proudly as if he disdained the ground.
RICHARD
    So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back.
    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand     85
    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
    Would he not stumble, would he not fall down -
    Since pride must have a fall - and break the neck
    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee     90
    Since thou, created to be awed by man,
    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse,
    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
    Spur-galled and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke.
                Enter Keeper to Richard, with meat
KEEPER    (to Groom)
    Fellow, give place. Here is no longer stay     95
RICHARD    (to Groom)
    If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
GROOM
    What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
                Exit
KEEPER
    My lord, will't please you to fall to?
RICHARD
    Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
KEEPER
    My lord, I dare not. Sir Piers of Exton     100
    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
RICHARD    (striking the Keeper)
    The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
KEEPER
    Help, help, help!
                Exton and his men rush in
RICHARD
    How now! What means death in this rude assault     105
                He seizes a weapon from a man, and kills him
    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.
                He kills another
    Go thou, and fill another room in hell.
                Here Exton strikes him down
RICHARD
    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
    Hath with the King's blood stained the King's own land     110
    Mount, mount, my soul, thy seat is up on high,
    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
                He dies
EXTON
    As full of valour as of royal blood.
    Both have I spilt. O, would the deed were good!
    For now the devil that told me I did well     115
    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.
    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
                Exeunt Exton with Richard's body at one door,
                and his men with the other bodies at another
                door


5.6
                Flourish. Enter King Henry and the Duke of York,
                with other lords and attendants
KING HENRY
    Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
    Is that the rebels have consumed with fire
    Our town of Ci'cester in Gloucestershire,
    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.
                Enter the Earl of Northumberland
    Welcome, my lord. What is the news     5
NORTHUMBERLAND
    First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
    The next news is, I have to London sent
    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.
    The manner of their taking may appear
    At large discoursed in this paper here     10
                He gives the paper to King Henry
KING HENRY
    We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains,
    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
                Enter Lord Fitzwater
FITZWATER
    My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,
    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors     15
    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
KING HENRY
    Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot.
    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
                Enter Harry Percy, with the Bishop of Carlisle,
                guarded
HARRY PERCY
    The grand conspirator Abbot of Westminster,
    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy     20
    Hath yielded up his body to the grave.
    But here is Carlisle living, to abide
    Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.
KING HENRY
    Carlisle, this is your doom.
    Choose out some secret place, some reverent room     25
    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life.
    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife.
    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
                Enter Exton with his men bearing the coffin
EXTON
    Great King, within this coffin I present     30
    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies
    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
KING HENRY
    Exton, I thank thee not, for thou hast wrought
    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand     35
    Upon my head and all this famous land.
EXTON
    From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
KING HENRY
    They love not poison that do poison need,
    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,
    I hate the murderer, love him murdered     40
    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
    But neither my good word nor princely favour.
    With Cain go wander through the shades of night,
    And never show thy head by day nor light.
                Exeunt Exton and his men
    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe     45
    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
    Come mourn with me for what I do lament,
    And put on sullen black incontinent.
    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land
    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand     50
    March sadly after. Grace my mournings here
    In weeping after this untimely bier.
                Exeunt with the coffin