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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