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- $Unique_ID{SSP02506}
- $Title{King Richard II: Act II, Scene II}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*02500.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- KING RICHARD II
-
-
- ACT II
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE II: The palace.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter 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
- 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
- With nothing trembles: at some thing 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;
- 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, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows
- Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,
- More than your lord's departure weep not: more's
- not seen;
- 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, though 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,
- For nothing had 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 shipp'd for Ireland.
-
- QUEEN: Why hopest thou so? 'tis better hope he is;
- For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:
- Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?
-
- 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 banish'd 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 Henry Percy,
- The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
- With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
-
- BUSHY: Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland
- And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
-
- GREEN: We have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester
- Hath broke his staff, resign'd 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-deliver'd mother,
- Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.
-
- 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 bands of life,
- Which false hope lingers in extremity.
-
- {Enter DUKE OF YORK.}
-
- GREEN: Here comes the Duke of York.
-
- QUEEN: With signs of war about his aged neck:
- O, full of careful business are his looks!
- Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.
-
- DUKE OF 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 flatter'd him.
-
- {Enter a Servant.}
-
- Servant: My lord, your son was gone before I came.
-
- DUKE OF 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 Plashy, to my sister Gloucester; 90
- Bid her send me presently a thousand pound:
- Hold, take my ring.
-
- Servant: My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,
- To-day, as I came by, I called there;
- But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
-
- DUKE OF YORK: What is't, knave?
-
- Servant: An hour before I came, the duchess died.
-
- DUKE OF 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 dispatch'd for Ireland?
- How shall we do for money for these wars?
- Come, sister,--cousin, I would say--pray, pardon me.
- Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts
- And bring away the armour that is there.
-
- [Exit Servant.]
-
- Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
- If I know how or which way to order these affairs
- Thus thrust disorderly into my hands, 110
- Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen:
- The one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
- And duty bids defend; the other again
- Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,
- Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
- Well, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll
- Dispose of you.
- Gentlemen, go, muster up your men,
- And meet me presently at Berkeley.
- I should to Plashy too; 120
- But time will not permit: all is uneven,
- And every thing is left at six and seven.
-
- [Exeunt DUKE OF YORK and QUEEN.]
-
- BUSHY: The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,
- But none returns. For us to levy power
- Proportionable to the enemy
- 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's the wavering commons: for their love
- Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them 130
- By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
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- BUSHY: Wherein the king stands generally condemn'd.
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- 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:
- The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
-
- BUSHY: Thither will I with you; for little office
- The hateful commons will 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 art that ne'er shall meet again.
-
- BUSHY: That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
-
- GREEN: Alas, poor duke! the task he undertakes
- Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry:
- Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
- Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.
-
- BUSHY: Well, we may meet again.
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- BAGOT: I fear me, never.
-
- [Exeunt.]
-
