Richard II/Source

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Persons Represented):


 * KING RICHARD THE SECOND
 * JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King
 * EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King
 * HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of
 * John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV
 * DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York
 * THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk
 * DUKE OF SURREY
 * EARL OF SALISBURY
 * LORD BERKELEY
 * BUSHY - Servant to King Richard
 * BAGOT - Servant to King Richard
 * GREEN - Servant to King Richard
 * EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
 * HENRY PERCY, surnamed Hotspur, his son
 * LORD ROSS
 * LORD WILLOUGHBY
 * LORD FITZWATER
 * BISHOP OF CARLISLE
 * ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER
 * LORD MARSHAL
 * SIR PIERCE OF EXTON
 * SIR STEPHEN SCROOP
 * Captain of a band of Welshmen


 * QUEEN TO KING RICHARD
 * DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
 * DUCHESS OF YORK
 * Lady attending on the Queen


 * Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants

SCENE: Dispersedly in England and Wales.

SCENE I. London. A Room in the palace.
[Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES.]

KING RICHARD.
 * Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
 * Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
 * Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,
 * Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,
 * Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
 * Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

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,
 * On some known ground of treachery in him?

GAUNT.
 * As near as I could sift him on that argument,
 * On some apparent danger seen in him
 * Aim'd at your Highness, no inveterate malice.

KING RICHARD.
 * Then call them to our presence: face to face
 * And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
 * The accuser and the accused freely speak.
 * High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,
 * In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

[Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Many years of happy days befall
 * My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

MOWBRAY.
 * Each day still better other's 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,
 * 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!—
 * In the devotion of a subject's love,
 * Tendering 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,
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * 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;
 * The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
 * Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
 * As to be hush'd and nought at all to say.
 * First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
 * From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
 * Which else would post until it had return'd
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * 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;
 * 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,
 * Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
 * What I have spoke or thou canst worst 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,
 * Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
 * And when I mount, alive may I not light
 * If I be traitor or unjustly fight!

KING RICHARD.
 * What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
 * It must be great that can inherit us
 * So much as of a thought of ill in him.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;
 * That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles
 * In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,
 * The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,
 * 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 survey'd by English eye,
 * That all the treasons for these eighteen years
 * 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,
 * Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
 * And consequently, like a traitor coward,
 * Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood:
 * Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
 * Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
 * 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 say'st thou to this?

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:
 * 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
 * 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.
 * Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
 * Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers;
 * The other part reserv'd I by consent,
 * For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
 * Upon remainder of a dear account,
 * 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,
 * 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 receiv'd the sacrament
 * I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
 * Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.
 * This is my fault: as for the rest appeal'd,
 * It issues from the rancour of a villain,
 * A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
 * Which in myself I boldly will defend,
 * And interchangeably hurl down my gage
 * Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
 * To prove myself a loyal gentleman
 * Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
 * In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
 * Your highness to assign our trial day.

KING RICHARD.
 * Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;
 * Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
 * This we prescribe, though no physician;
 * Deep malice makes too deep incision:
 * Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed,
 * Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
 * Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
 * We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.

GAUNT.
 * To be a make-peace shall become my age:
 * Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.

KING RICHARD.
 * And, Norfolk, throw down his.

GAUNT.
 * When, Harry, when?
 * Obedience bids I should not bid again.

KING RICHARD.
 * Norfolk, throw down; we bid;
 * There is no boot.

MOWBRAY.
 * Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.
 * 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 disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here;
 * Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
 * The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
 * Which breath'd this poison.

KING RICHARD.
 * Rage must be withstood:
 * Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame.

MOWBRAY.
 * Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame,
 * 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 barr'd-up chest
 * 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Cousin, throw down your gage: do you begin.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * O! God defend my soul from such deep sin.
 * Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight,
 * Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
 * Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue
 * 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.

[Exit 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
 * The swelling difference of your settled hate:
 * Since we can not 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.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same. A room in the DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace.
[Enter GAUNT and DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.]

GAUNT.
 * Alas, the part I had in Woodstock'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,
 * 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.
 * Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
 * Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
 * 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;
 * 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 crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
 * Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all vaded,
 * By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.
 * Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine: that bed, that womb,
 * That metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee,
 * Made him a man; and though thou liv'st and breath'st,
 * Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
 * 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 suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
 * Thou showest 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,
 * The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.

GAUNT.
 * God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
 * His deputy anointed in his sight,
 * Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
 * Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift
 * An angry arm against his minister.

DUCHESS.
 * Where then, alas! may I complain myself?

GAUNT.
 * To God, the widow's champion and defence.

DUCHESS.
 * Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
 * Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold
 * Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
 * O! sit 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
 * 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.

GAUNT.
 * Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.
 * As much good stay with thee as go with me!

DUCHESS.
 * Yet one word more. Grief boundeth where it falls,
 * Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
 * I take my leave before I have begun,
 * 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?—
 * With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
 * Alack! and what shall good old York there see
 * But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
 * Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
 * And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
 * Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
 * To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
 * Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:
 * The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Open Space, near Coventry.
[Lists set out, and a Throne. Heralds, &c., attending.

[Enter the Lord Marshal and AUMERLE.]

MARSHAL.
 * My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?

AUMERLE.
 * Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.

MARSHAL.
 * The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
 * Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.

AUMERLE.
 * Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay
 * For nothing but his Majesty's approach.

[Enter KING RICHARD, who takes his seat on his Throne; GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and Others, who take their places. A trumpet is sounded, and answered by another trumpet within. Then enter MOWBRAY, in armour, defendant, preceeded by 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.

MARSHAL.
 * In God's name and the king's, say who thou art,
 * And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,
 * Against what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel.
 * Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;
 * As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!

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,
 * 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!

[He takes his seat.]

[Trumpet sounds. Enter BOLINGBROKE, appellant, in armour, preceeded by 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.

MARSHAL.
 * 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,
 * 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's a traitor foul and dangerous,
 * To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me:
 * And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

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.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * 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
 * And loving farewell of our several friends.

MARSHAL.
 * The appellant in all duty greets your highness,
 * And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

KING RICHARD. [Descends from his throne.]
 * We will descend and fold him in our arms.
 * Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
 * So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
 * Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
 * Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * O! let no noble eye profane a tear
 * For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.
 * As confident as is the falcon's flight
 * Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * Doth with a twofold 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,
 * And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,
 * Even in the lusty haviour of his son.

GAUNT.
 * God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
 * Be swift like lightning in the execution;
 * And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
 * Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
 * Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:
 * Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive!

[He takes his seat.]

MOWBRAY. [Rising.]
 * However God or fortune cast my lot,
 * 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 uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
 * 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
 * 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.

[The KING and the Lords return to their seats.]

MARSHAL.
 * Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
 * Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!

BOLINGBROKE. [Rising.]
 * Strong as a tower in hope, I cry 'amen'.

MARSHAL.
 * [To an officer.] Go bear this lance to Thomas,
 * Duke of Norfolk.

FIRST HERALD.
 * Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
 * Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * Attending but the signal to begin.

MARSHAL.
 * Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.

[A charge sounded.]


 * 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:
 * Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound
 * While we return these dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish.]

[To the Combatants.] Draw near,
 * And list what with our council we have done.
 * For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
 * With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
 * And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
 * Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;
 * And for we think the eagle-winged pride
 * Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
 * With rival-hating envy, set on you
 * To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
 * Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
 * Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,
 * With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
 * And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
 * 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 enrich'd our fields
 * 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
 * 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;
 * 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 unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
 * A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
 * As to be cast forth in the common air,
 * Have I deserved at your highness' hands.
 * The language I have learn'd these forty years,
 * My native English, now I must forgo;
 * And now my tongue's use is to me no more
 * Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
 * Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up
 * Or, being open, put into his hands
 * That knows no touch to tune the harmony:
 * Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
 * Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
 * And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
 * Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
 * I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
 * Too far in years to be a pupil now:
 * 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,
 * To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

[Retiring.]

KING RICHARD.
 * Return again, and take an oath with thee.
 * Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
 * Swear by the duty that you owe to God,—
 * Our part therein we banish with yourselves—
 * 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
 * This louring 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.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:—
 * By this time, had the king permitted us,
 * One of our souls had wand'red in the air,
 * Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
 * As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
 * 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,
 * And I from heaven banish'd 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.

[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 banish'd years
 * Pluck'd four away.—[To BOLINGBROKE.] Six frozen winters spent,
 * Return with welcome home from banishment.

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.

GAUNT.
 * I thank my liege that in regard of me
 * He shortens four years of my son's exile;
 * 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;
 * 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.

GAUNT.
 * But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:
 * Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
 * And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;
 * Thou can'st 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
 * Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
 * Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower?

GAUNT.
 * Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
 * You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather
 * You would have bid me argue like a father.
 * O! had it been a stranger, not my child,
 * To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.:
 * A partial slander sought I to avoid,
 * And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
 * Alas! I look'd 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:
 * Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

[Flourish. Exit KING RICHARD and Train.]

AUMERLE.
 * Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know,
 * From where you do remain let paper show.

MARSHAL.
 * My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,
 * As far as land will let me, by your side.

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
 * To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

GAUNT.
 * Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

GAUNT.
 * What is six winters? They are quickly gone.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

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.

GAUNT.
 * The sullen passage of thy weary steps
 * Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
 * The precious jewel of thy home return.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
 * Will but remember me what a deal of world
 * I wander from the jewels that I love.
 * Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
 * To foreign passages, and in the end,
 * Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
 * But that I was a journeyman to grief?

GAUNT.
 * All places that the eye of heaven visits
 * Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
 * Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
 * There is no virtue like necessity.
 * Think not the king did banish thee,
 * But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,
 * Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
 * Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
 * And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose
 * Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
 * And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
 * Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
 * To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st.
 * Suppose the singing birds musicians,
 * The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
 * The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
 * Than a delightful measure or a dance;
 * For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
 * The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

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?
 * 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
 * Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.

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!
 * Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
 * Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the King's Castle
[Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN, at one door; 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?

AUMERLE.
 * Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,
 * Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
 * Awak'd 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?

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 seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
 * Marry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours
 * 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,
 * Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
 * Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,
 * Observ'd his courtship to the common people,
 * How he did seem to dive into their hearts
 * With humble and familiar courtesy,
 * 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 oyster-wench;
 * 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.

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.

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 enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
 * The revenue whereof shall furnish us
 * 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;
 * 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 poste-haste
 * To entreat your Majesty to visit him.

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
 * 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!

ALL. Amen.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. London. An Apartment in Ely House.
[GAUNT on a couch; the DUKE OF YORK and Others standing by him.]

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.

GAUNT.
 * O! but they say the tongues of dying men
 * 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 listen'd more
 * Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
 * More are men's ends mark'd 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,
 * My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

YORK.
 * No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
 * As praises of his state: then there are fond,
 * Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
 * The open ear of youth doth always listen:
 * 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,—
 * That is not quickly buzz'd 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.

GAUNT.
 * Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,
 * 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;
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
 * Fear'd 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
 * 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 leas'd out,—I die pronouncing it,—
 * Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
 * England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
 * Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
 * Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
 * With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds:
 * That England, that was wont to conquer others,
 * 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 QUEEN; AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, ROSS, and WILLOUGHBY.]

YORK.
 * The King is come: deal mildly with his youth;
 * For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.

QUEEN.
 * How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

KING RICHARD.
 * What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

GAUNT.
 * O! how that name befits my composition;
 * Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old:
 * Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
 * And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
 * For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
 * Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.
 * The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
 * Is my strict fast, I mean my children's looks;
 * And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
 * Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
 * Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

KING RICHARD.
 * Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

GAUNT.
 * No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
 * 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?

GAUNT.
 * No, no; men living flatter those that die.

KING RICHARD.
 * Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.

GAUNT.
 * O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

KING RICHARD.
 * I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

GAUNT.
 * Now, he that made me knows I see thee ill;
 * Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
 * Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
 * 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,
 * Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
 * And yet, incaged 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,
 * From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
 * Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
 * Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
 * Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
 * It were a shame to let this land by lease;
 * 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—

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.
 * 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.

GAUNT.
 * O! spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
 * For that I was his father Edward's son.
 * That blood already, like the pelican,
 * Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
 * My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,—
 * Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!—
 * 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.
 * 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, bourne out by his Attendants.]

KING RICHARD.
 * And let them die that age and sullens have;
 * 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
 * As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

[Enter 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;
 * 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.
 * 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,
 * Towards our assistance we do seize to us
 * The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
 * Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah! how long
 * Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
 * 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,
 * 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 rag'd more fierce,
 * In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
 * Than was that young and princely gentleman.
 * His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
 * Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
 * But when he frown'd, it was against the French,
 * And not against his friends; his noble hand
 * 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's blood,
 * But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
 * O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
 * 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, pleas'd
 * Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
 * Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
 * The royalties and rights of banish'd 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?
 * Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
 * His charters and his customary rights;
 * Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
 * Be not thyself; for how art thou a king
 * But by fair sequence and succession?
 * 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 offer'd homage,
 * 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
 * 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.

[Exit.]

KING RICHARD.
 * Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:
 * Bid him repair to us to Ely House
 * To see this business. To-morrow next
 * We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:
 * And we create, in absence of ourself,
 * Our Uncle York lord governor of England;
 * For he is just, and always lov'd us well.
 * Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
 * Be merry, for our time of stay is short.

[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE, GREEN, and BAGOT.]

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

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.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
 * That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

WILLOUGHBY.
 * Tends 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.

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 moe
 * 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
 * 'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

ROSS.
 * The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
 * And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fin'd
 * For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.

WILLOUGHBY.
 * And daily new exactions are devis'd;
 * As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
 * But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
 * But basely yielded upon compromise
 * That which his ancestors achiev'd with blows.
 * 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,
 * His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
 * But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * His noble kinsman: most degenerate king!
 * But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
 * Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
 * We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
 * And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

ROSS.
 * We see the very wrack that we must suffer;
 * And unavoided is the danger now,
 * For suffering so the causes of our wrack.

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:
 * We three are but thyself: and, speaking so,
 * Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay
 * In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence
 * That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
 * That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
 * His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
 * Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
 * Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint,
 * All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,
 * With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
 * Are making hither with all due expedience,
 * And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.
 * 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 blemish'd crown,
 * 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.

ROSS.
 * To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.

WILLOUGHBY.
 * Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The Same. A Room in the Castle.
[Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT.]

BUSHY.
 * Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
 * You promis'd, 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,
 * 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 gaz'd upon,
 * Show nothing but confusion; ey'd awry,
 * Distinguish form: so your sweet Majesty,
 * 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
 * As, though in 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 deriv'd
 * From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
 * 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.

[Enter GREEN.]

GREEN.
 * God save your majesty! and well met, gentlemen:
 * I hope the King is not yet shipp'd 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 shipp'd?

GREEN.
 * That he, our hope, might have retir'd 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 arriv'd
 * 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 broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,
 * And all the household servants fled with him
 * 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,
 * Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
 * Which false hope lingers in extremity.

[Enter 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.

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,
 * 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.

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;
 * 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.

YORK.
 * What is't, knave?

SERVANT.
 * 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,—
 * So my untruth had not provok'd 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 disorderly thrust into my hands,
 * Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen:
 * T'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 Castle.
 * I should to Plashy too:
 * But time will not permit. All is uneven,
 * And everything is left at six and seven.

[Exeunt 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 is the wavering commons; for their love
 * Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,
 * By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.

BUSHY.
 * Wherein the king stands generally condemn'd.

BAGOT.
 * If judgment 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
 * Will the hateful commons perform for us,
 * Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.
 * Will you go along with us?

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
 * Is numb'ring 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.

BAGOT.
 * I fear me, never.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. The Wolds in Gloucestershire.
[Enter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, with Forces.]

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;
 * 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,
 * Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd
 * The tediousness and process of my travel.
 * But theirs is sweeten'd with the hope to have
 * The present benefit which I possess;
 * And hope to joy is little less in joy
 * Than hope enjoy'd: 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. But who comes here?

[Enter HARRY PERCY.]

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * It is my son, young Harry Percy,
 * Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.
 * Harry, how fares your uncle?

PERCY.
 * I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Why, is he not with the Queen?

PERCY.
 * No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,
 * Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd
 * The household of the King.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * What was his reason?
 * He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.

PERCY.
 * Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.
 * 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.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?

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.

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
 * I count myself in nothing else so happy
 * As in a soul remembering 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.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir
 * Keeps good old York there with his men of war?

PERCY.
 * There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,
 * Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;
 * And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour;
 * None else of name and noble estimate.

[Enter Ross and 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 banish'd traitor; all my treasury
 * Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,
 * 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 thanks, the exchequer of the poor;
 * Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
 * Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

[Enter BERKELEY.]

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;
 * 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:
 * 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.

[Enter YORK, attended.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * I shall not need transport my words by you;
 * Here comes his Grace in person.
 * My noble uncle!

[Kneels.]

YORK.
 * Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
 * Whose duty is deceivable and false.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * My gracious uncle—

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 banish'd and forbidden legs
 * Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?
 * But then more 'why?' why have they dar'd to march
 * So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
 * Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war
 * And ostentation of despised arms?
 * Com'st thou because the anointed king is hence?
 * Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind,
 * And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
 * Were I but now lord of such hot youth
 * As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself
 * Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
 * From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
 * O! then how quickly should this arm of mine,
 * Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the
 * And minister correction to thy fault!

BOLINGBROKE.
 * My gracious uncle, let me know my fault:
 * On what condition stands it and wherein?

YORK.
 * Even in condition of the worst degree,
 * In gross rebellion and detested treason:
 * Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come
 * Before the expiration of thy time,
 * In braving arms against thy sovereign.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;
 * But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
 * And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace
 * Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:
 * You are my father, for methinks in you
 * I see old Gaunt alive: O! then, my father,
 * Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd
 * A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties
 * Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away
 * 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 cousin;
 * Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,
 * 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 distrain'd and sold;
 * And these and all are all amiss employ'd.
 * What would you have me do? I am a subject,
 * And challenge law: attorneys are denied me;
 * And therefore personally I lay my claim
 * To my inheritance of free descent.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * The noble Duke hath been too much abus'd.

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,
 * And labour'd 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
 * 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!

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
 * Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;
 * But since I cannot, be it known unto 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.

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,
 * 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.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. A camp in Wales.
[Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a CAPTAIN.]

CAPTAIN.
 * My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd 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;
 * The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.

CAPTAIN.
 * 'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
 * The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,
 * And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
 * The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth
 * And lean-look'd 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.
 * Farewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,
 * As well assur'd 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.
 * The 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.]

SCENE I. Bristol. BOLINGBROKE'S camp.
[Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, ROSS; Officers behind, with BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Bring forth these men.
 * 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
 * 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 disfigur'd clean;
 * You have in manner with your sinful hours
 * Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
 * Broke the possession of a royal bed,
 * And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
 * With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
 * 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 stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
 * And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
 * Eating the bitter bread of banishment;
 * Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
 * Dispark'd my parks and felled my forest woods,
 * From my own windows torn my household coat,
 * Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign
 * 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 deliver'd over
 * To execution and the hand of death.

BUSHY.
 * More welcome is the stroke of death to me
 * Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.

GREEN.
 * My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
 * And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.

[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others, with BUSHY and GREEN.]


 * Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;
 * For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:
 * Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
 * Take special care my greetings be deliver'd.

YORK.
 * A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd
 * With letters of your love to her at large.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
 * To fight with Glendower and his complices.
 * Awhile to work, and after holiday.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The coast of Wales. A castle in view.
[Flourish: drums and trumpets. Enter KING RICHARD, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, AUMERLE, and soldiers.]

KING RICHARD.
 * Barkloughly 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.
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * 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
 * 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
 * Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.

CARLISLE.
 * Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king
 * Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
 * The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd
 * And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
 * And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
 * The proffer'd means of succour and redress.

AUMERLE.
 * He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
 * Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
 * 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
 * In murders and in outrage boldly 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,
 * The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
 * Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
 * So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
 * Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
 * Whilst we were wandering with the Antipodes,
 * 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
 * Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
 * The breath of worldly men cannot depose
 * The deputy elected by the Lord.
 * For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
 * To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
 * 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 SALISBURY.]


 * Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?

SALISBURY.
 * Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
 * 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,
 * And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
 * To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,
 * O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
 * For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
 * Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.

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?
 * 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 coward majesty! thou sleepest.
 * Is not the king's name twenty 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
 * Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

[Enter SIR STEPHEN SCROOP.]

SCROOP.
 * More health and happiness betide my liege
 * Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him!

KING RICHARD.
 * Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd:
 * The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
 * 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:
 * 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 arm'd
 * 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 dissolv'd to tears,
 * So high above his limits swells the rage
 * Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
 * With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
 * White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
 * Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices,
 * Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
 * 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,
 * 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
 * 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, damn'd without redemption!
 * Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
 * Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, 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!

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
 * And lie full low, grav'd 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:
 * 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
 * Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
 * Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's.
 * And nothing can we can our own but death,
 * And that small model of the barren earth
 * Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
 * 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 depos'd,
 * Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
 * All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
 * That rounds the mortal temples of a king
 * Keeps Death his court; and there the antick sits,
 * Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
 * Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
 * To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks,
 * Infusing him with self and vain conceit
 * As if this flesh which walls about our life
 * Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
 * Comes at the last, and with a little pin
 * 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:
 * I live with bread like you, feel want,
 * Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
 * How can you say to me I am a king?

CARLISLE.
 * My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
 * But presently prevent the ways to wail.
 * 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;
 * Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

AUMERLE.
 * My father hath a power; inquire of him,
 * And learn to make a body of a limb.

KING RICHARD.
 * Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
 * To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
 * This ague fit of fear is over-blown;
 * 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
 * The state in 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:
 * Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;
 * And all your northern castles yielded up,
 * And all your southern gentlemen in arms
 * Upon his party.

KING RICHARD.
 * Thou hast said enough.
 * [To AUMERLE.] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
 * 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;
 * 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.

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.]

SCENE III. Wales. Before Flint Castle.
[Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE and Forces; YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * So that by this intelligence we learn
 * The Welshmen are dispers'd; 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.
 * 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,
 * 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.

YORK.
 * Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
 * Lest you mistake. The heavens are o'er our heads.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself
 * Against their will. But who comes here?

[Enter HENRY PERCY.]


 * Welcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?

PERCY.
 * The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,
 * Against thy entrance.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Royally!
 * Why, it contains no king?

PERCY.
 * Yes, my good lord,
 * It doth contain a king; King Richard lies
 * Within the limits of yon lime and stone;
 * 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,
 * Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
 * Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
 * Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:
 * Henry Bolingbroke
 * On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,
 * 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 repeal'd
 * And lands restor'd again be freely granted;
 * If not, I'll use the advantage of my power
 * And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
 * Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;
 * The which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
 * It is, such crimson tempest should bedrench
 * 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,
 * That from this castle's totter'd battlements
 * Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.
 * Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
 * With no less terror than the elements
 * Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock
 * 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.

[A Parley sounded, and answered by a Trumpet within.
 * Flourish. Enter on the Walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
 * AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY.]

HENRY PERCY.
 * 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
 * Of his bright passage to the occident.

YORK.
 * Yet he looks 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!

KING RICHARD.
 * [To NORTHUMBERLAND.] We are amaz'd; and thus long
 * have we stood
 * To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
 * Because we thought ourself thy lawful king;
 * And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
 * To pay their awful duty to our presence?
 * If we be not, show us the hand of God
 * That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;
 * For well we know no hand of blood and bone
 * Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
 * Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
 * 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
 * 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 yond methinks he stands,—
 * 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
 * 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.
 * The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King
 * Should so with civil and uncivil arms
 * Be rush'd 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,
 * 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,
 * 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,
 * His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
 * To faithful service of your Majesty.
 * This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;
 * And as I am a gentleman I credit him.

KING RICHARD.
 * Northumberland, say, thus the king returns:
 * His noble cousin is right welcome hither;
 * And all the number of his fair demands
 * Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.
 * With all the gracious utterance thou hast
 * Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.

[NORTHUMBERLAND retires to BOLINGBROKE.]


 * [To AUMERLE.] We do debase ourselves, 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
 * 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 yond proud man should take it off again
 * With words of sooth! O! that I were as great
 * 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.

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 depos'd?
 * The king shall be contented: must he lose
 * The name of king? A God's name, let it go:
 * 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 figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,
 * My sceptre for a palmer's walking-staff,
 * 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
 * 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;
 * 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
 * Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
 * Within the earth; and, there inlaid: 'There lies
 * Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.'
 * Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
 * I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
 * 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
 * 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.
 * In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
 * For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.

[Exeunt from above.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * What says his Majesty?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Sorrow and grief of heart
 * Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;
 * Yet he is come.

[Enter KING RICHARD, and his attendants.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Stand all apart,
 * And show fair duty to his Majesty.[Kneeling.]
 * 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
 * Than my unpleas'd 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.

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.
 * Uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes:
 * Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
 * 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.
 * Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Yea, my good lord.

KING RICHARD.
 * Then I must not say no.

[Flourish. Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Langley. The DUKE OF YORK's garden.
[Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies.]

QUEEN.
 * What sport shall we devise here in this garden
 * To drive away the heavy thought of care?

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.

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.

LADY.
 * Madam, we'll tell tales.

QUEEN.
 * Of sorrow or of joy?

LADY.
 * Of either, madam.

QUEEN.
 * Of neither, girl:
 * For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
 * It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
 * 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.

LADY.
 * Madam, I'll sing.

QUEEN.
 * 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;
 * But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.

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.
 * But stay, here come the gardeners.
 * Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
 * My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
 * They will talk of state, for every one doth so
 * Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.

[QUEEN and Ladies retire.]

[Enter a Gardener and two Servants.]

GARDENER.
 * Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
 * Which, like unruly children, make their sire
 * Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
 * Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
 * Go thou, and like an executioner
 * Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays
 * That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
 * All must be even in our government.
 * You thus employ'd, I will go root away
 * The noisome weeds which without profit suck
 * The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

SERVANT.
 * 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 chok'd up,
 * Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
 * Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
 * Swarming with caterpillars?

GARDENER.
 * Hold thy peace.
 * He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
 * Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;
 * The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
 * That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
 * Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke;
 * I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

SERVANT.
 * What! are they dead?

GARDENER.
 * They are; and Bolingbroke
 * Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O! what pity is it
 * That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd 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,
 * With too much riches it confound itself:
 * Had he done so to great and growing men,
 * They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
 * Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches
 * We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
 * Had he done so, himself had home the crown,
 * Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.

SERVANT.
 * What! think you the king shall be depos'd?

GARDENER.
 * Depress'd he is already, and depos'd
 * 'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night
 * To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's
 * That tell black tidings.

QUEEN.
 * O! I am press'd to death through want of speaking!

[Coming forward.]


 * Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
 * How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
 * What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
 * To make a second fall of cursed man?
 * Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?
 * Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
 * Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
 * 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 weigh'd.
 * 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.
 * Post you to London, and you will find it so;
 * I speak no more than every one 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 thinkest
 * 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?
 * Gardener, for telling me these news of woe,
 * Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!

[Exeunt QUEEN and 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
 * 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.]

SCENE I. Westminster Hall.
[The Lords spiritual on the right side of the throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below. Enter BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and attendants. OFFICERS behind, with BAGOT.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Call forth Bagot.
 * Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;
 * What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;
 * Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd
 * The bloody office of his timeless end.

BAGOT.
 * Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.

BAGOT.
 * My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
 * Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.
 * In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted
 * I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,
 * 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
 * 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
 * On equal terms to give him chastisement?
 * Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd
 * With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
 * There is my gage, the manual seal of death
 * That marks thee out for hell: I say thou liest,
 * And will maintain what thou hast said is false
 * In thy heart-blood, through 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
 * In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.

FITZWATER.
 * If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
 * There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
 * By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
 * I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
 * 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 darest not, coward, live to see that day.

FITZWATER.
 * Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

AUMERLE.
 * Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.

HENRY PERCY.
 * Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
 * In this appeal as thou art an unjust;
 * And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
 * To prove it on thee to the extremest point
 * Of mortal breathing: seize it if thou dar'st.

AUMERLE.
 * And if I do not, may my hands rot off
 * And never brandish more revengeful steel
 * Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

ANOTHER LORD.
 * I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
 * And spur thee on with full as many lies
 * As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear
 * From sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;
 * Engage it to the trial if thou dar'st.

AUMERLE.
 * Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all:
 * I have a thousand spirits in one breast
 * To answer twenty thousand such as you.

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.

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.
 * In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
 * 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,
 * 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:
 * Besides, I heard the banish'd 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.
 * That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this,
 * If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * These differences shall all rest under gage
 * Till Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be
 * And, though mine enemy, restor'd again
 * To all his lands and signories; when he is return'd,
 * Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.

CARLISLE.
 * That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.
 * Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
 * For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
 * Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
 * Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;
 * And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
 * To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
 * His body to that pleasant country's earth,
 * And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
 * Under whose colours he had fought so long.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?

CARLISLE.
 * As surely as I live, my lord.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
 * Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
 * Your differences shall all rest under gage
 * Till we assign you to your days of trial

[Enter YORK, attended.]

YORK.
 * Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the
 * From plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul
 * Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
 * 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.

CARLISLE.
 * Marry, God forbid!
 * 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
 * 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 judg'd but they are by to hear,
 * Although apparent guilt be seen in them;
 * And shall the figure of God's majesty,
 * His captain, steward, deputy elect,
 * Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
 * Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,
 * And he himself not present? O! forfend it, God,
 * That in a Christian climate souls refin'd
 * Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
 * I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
 * Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.
 * My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
 * 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,
 * 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 call'd
 * The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.
 * O! if you raise this house against this house,
 * It will the woefullest division prove
 * That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
 * Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
 * Lest child, child's children, cry against you 'woe!'

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?

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.
 * Little are we beholding to your love,
 * And little look'd for at your helping hands.

[Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS bearing the Crown, &c.]

KING RICHARD.
 * Alack! why am I sent for to a king
 * Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
 * Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd
 * 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?
 * 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;
 * 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
 * To Henry Bolingbroke.

KING RICHARD.
 * Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
 * Here, cousin,
 * On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
 * Now is this golden crown like a deep well
 * That owes two buckets, filling one another;
 * 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.

KING 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
 * 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?

KING 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,
 * And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
 * 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 rites:
 * 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!
 * Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,
 * And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd!
 * Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
 * And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!
 * God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,
 * And send him many years of sunshine days!
 * What more remains?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * [Offering a paper.] 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;
 * That, by confessing them, the souls of men
 * May deem that you are worthily depos'd.

KING RICHARD.
 * Must I do so? And must I ravel out
 * My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
 * If thy offences were upon record,
 * 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,
 * Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.
 * Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me
 * Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
 * Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
 * Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates
 * Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,
 * And water cannot wash away your sin.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * My lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.

KING RICHARD.
 * Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see:
 * And yet salt water blinds them not so much
 * 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;
 * Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,
 * Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * My lord,—

KING RICHARD.
 * No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,
 * Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,
 * No, not that name was given me at the font,
 * But 'tis usurp'd: 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,
 * 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,
 * 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 an Attendant.]

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.

KING RICHARD.
 * Fiend! thou torments me ere I come to hell.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * The Commons will not then be satisfied.

KING 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.

[Re-enter Attendant, with glass.]


 * Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
 * 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,
 * 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 fac'd so many follies
 * That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?
 * A brittle glory shineth in this face:
 * As brittle as the glory is the face;

[Dashes the glass against the ground.]


 * For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.
 * Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
 * How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd
 * The shadow of your face.

KING RICHARD.
 * Say that again.
 * The shadow of my sorrow! Ha! let's see:
 * 'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;
 * And these external manner of laments
 * Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
 * That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.
 * There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
 * For thy great bounty, that not only givest
 * 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * 'Fair cousin'! I am greater than a king;
 * 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * And shall I have?

BOLINGBROKE.
 * You shall.

KING RICHARD.
 * Then give me leave to go.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Whither?

KING RICHARD.
 * Whither you will, so I were from your sights.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.

KING RICHARD.
 * O, good! convey? conveyers are you all,
 * That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

[Exeunt KING RICHARD and Guard.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
 * Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.

[Exeunt all but the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER,
 * and AUMERLE.]

ABBOT.
 * A woeful pageant have we here beheld.

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?

ABBOT.
 * 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,
 * 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.]

SCENE I. London. A street leading to the Tower.
[Enter the QUEEN and 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 doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
 * Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
 * Have any resting for her true King's queen.

[Enter KING 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.
 * 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-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
 * When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

KING 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 awak'd, the truth of what we are
 * Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,
 * To grim Necessity; and he and
 * 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 thrown down.

QUEEN.
 * What! is my Richard both in shape and mind
 * Transform'd and weaken'd! Hath Bolingbroke depos'd
 * Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
 * The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
 * And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
 * To be o'erpower'd; 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?

KING RICHARD.
 * A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,
 * 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
 * With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
 * Of woeful ages long ago betid;
 * And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs
 * Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
 * And send the hearers weeping to their beds;
 * For why, 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.

[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.]

NORTHUMBERLAND.
 * My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;
 * 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
 * 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
 * It is too little, helping him to all;
 * And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way
 * To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
 * Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
 * To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
 * The love of wicked men 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.

KING RICHARD.
 * Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, ye violate
 * A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me,
 * And then betwixt me and my married wife.
 * Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
 * And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.
 * Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,
 * Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
 * My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
 * She came adorned hither like sweet May,
 * Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.

QUEEN.
 * And must we be divided? Must we part?

KING 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.

KING 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 near.
 * Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.

QUEEN.
 * So longest way shall have the longest moans.

KING 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;
 * 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 again.]


 * So, now I have mine own again, be gone.
 * That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

KING RICHARD.
 * We make woe wanton with this fond delay:
 * Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same. A room in the DUKE OF YORK's palace.
[Enter YORK and his DUCHESS.]

DUCHESS.
 * 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.
 * At that sad stop, my lord,
 * Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops
 * 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 seem'd to know,
 * With slow but stately pace kept on his course,
 * 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
 * With painted imagery had said at once
 * 'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'
 * Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,
 * Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
 * Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen:'
 * And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.

DUCHESS.
 * Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?

YORK.
 * As in a theatre, the eyes of men
 * After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage
 * Are idly bent on him that enters next,
 * Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
 * Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
 * Did scowl on Richard: no man cried 'God save him;'
 * No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
 * But dust was thrown upon his sacred head,
 * 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, steel'd
 * The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
 * 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.

DUCHESS.
 * 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.

[Enter AUMERLE.]

DUCHESS.
 * 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,
 * Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.
 * What news from Oxford? hold those justs and triumphs?

AUMERLE.
 * For aught I know, my lord, they do.

YORK.
 * You will be there, I know.

AUMERLE.
 * If God prevent not, I purpose so.

YORK.
 * What seal is that that 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;
 * 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.
 * What should you fear?
 * 'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into
 * 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.

YORK.
 * I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.

[Snatches it and reads.]


 * Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!

DUCHESS.
 * What is the matter, my lord?

YORK.
 * Ho! who is within there?

[Enter a Servant.]


 * Saddle my horse.
 * God for his mercy! what treachery is here!

DUCHESS.
 * 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.

[Exit Servant.]

DUCHESS.
 * What is the matter?

YORK.
 * Peace, foolish woman.

DUCHESS.
 * I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?

AUMERLE.
 * Good mother, be content; it is no more
 * Than my poor life must answer.

DUCHESS.
 * Thy life answer!

YORK.
 * Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.

[Re-enter Servant with boots.]

DUCHESS.
 * Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.
 * [To Servant.]
 * Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.

[Exit Servant.]

YORK.
 * Give me my boots, I say.

DUCHESS.
 * 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?
 * 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,
 * 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.
 * He shall be none;
 * We'll keep him here: then what is that to him?

YORK.
 * Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son
 * I would appeach him.

DUCHESS.
 * Hadst thou groan'd for him
 * As I have done, thou'dst be more pitiful.
 * But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect
 * That I have been disloyal to thy bed
 * 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!

[Exit.]

DUCHESS.
 * 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:
 * And never will I rise up from the ground
 * Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away! be gone.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Windsor. A room in the Castle.
[Enter BOLINGBROKE as King, HENRY PERCY, and other LORDS.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Can no man tell me 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.
 * Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,
 * 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,
 * Takes on the point of honour to support
 * So dissolute a crew.

PERCY.
 * My lord, some two days since I saw the prince,
 * And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * And what said the gallant?

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.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * As dissolute as desperate; yet through both
 * I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years
 * May happily bring forth. But who comes here?

[Enter AUMERLE.]

AUMERLE.
 * Where is the King?

BOLINGBROKE.
 * What means our cousin that he stares and looks
 * So wildly?

AUMERLE.
 * God save your Grace! I do beseech your majesty,
 * To have some conference with your Grace alone.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.

[Exeunt HENRY PERCY and LORDS.]


 * What is the matter with our cousin now?

AUMERLE.
 * [Kneels.] For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
 * My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,
 * Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * 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.
 * Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
 * That no man enter till my tale be done.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Have thy desire.

[AUMERLE locks the door.]

YORK.
 * [Within.] My liege, beware! look to thyself;
 * Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * [Drawing.] Villain, I'll make thee safe.

AUMERLE.
 * Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.

YORK.
 * [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.

[BOLINGBROKE unlocks the door; and afterwards, relocks it.]

[Enter YORK.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * What is the matter, uncle? speak;
 * Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,
 * 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.

AUMERLE.
 * Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd:
 * I do repent me; read not my name there;
 * 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 thy pity prove
 * A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * 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
 * Hath held his current and defil'd 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,
 * 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 sham'd life in his dishonour lies:
 * Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,
 * The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.

DUCHESS.
 * [Within.] What ho! my liege, for God's sake, let me in.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?

DUCHESS.
 * [Within.] A woman, and thine aunt, great king; 'tis I.
 * Speak with me, pity me, open the door:
 * A beggar begs that never begg'd before.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Our scene is alter'd from a serious thing,
 * And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'
 * My dangerous cousin, let your mother in:
 * I know she's come to pray for your foul sin.

YORK.
 * If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,
 * More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
 * This fester'd joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
 * This let alone will all the rest confound.

[Enter DUCHESS.]

DUCHESS.
 * O King, believe not this hard-hearted man:
 * 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.
 * Sweet York, be patient. [Kneels.] Hear me, gentle liege.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Rise up, good aunt.

DUCHESS.
 * Not yet, I thee beseech.
 * For ever will I walk 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.
 * Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.

[Kneels.]

YORK.
 * Against them both, my true joints bended be.

[Kneels.]


 * Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!

DUCHESS.
 * 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;
 * 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 still kneel till to the ground they grow:
 * His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;
 * Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.
 * Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have
 * That mercy which true prayer ought to have.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Good aunt, stand up.

DUCHESS.
 * Nay, do not say 'stand up';
 * Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up'.
 * An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
 * 'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.
 * I never long'd to hear a word till now;
 * Say 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how:
 * The word is short, but not so short as sweet;
 * No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.

YORK.
 * Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'

DUCHESS.
 * Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
 * Ah! my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,,
 * That sett'st the word itself against the word.
 * 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,
 * Pity may move thee pardon to rehearse.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Good aunt, stand up.

DUCHESS.
 * I do not sue to stand;
 * Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.

DUCHESS.
 * O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
 * Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again;
 * Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,

But makes one pardon strong.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * With all my heart
 * I pardon him.

DUCHESS.
 * A god on earth thou art.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * But for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,
 * 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,
 * But I will have them, if I once know where.
 * Uncle, farewell: and, cousin, adieu:
 * Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.

DUCHESS.
 * Come, my old son: I pray God make thee new.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.
[Enter EXTON and a Servant.]

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?

SERVANT.
 * These were his very words.

EXTON.
 * 'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice
 * And urg'd it twice together, did he not?

SERVANT.
 * He did.

EXTON.
 * And, speaking it, he wistly 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.
 * I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE V. Pomfret. The dungeon of the Castle.
[Enter KING RICHARD.]

KING 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.
 * 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,
 * For no thought is contented. The better sort,
 * As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
 * With scruples, and do set the word itself
 * Against the word:
 * As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,
 * 'It is as hard to come as for a camel
 * To thread the postern of a 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
 * 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 silly beggars
 * Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,
 * That many have and others must sit there:
 * And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
 * Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
 * Of such as have before endur'd the like.
 * Thus play I in one person many people,
 * And none contented: sometimes am I king;
 * Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
 * And so I am: then crushing penury
 * Persuades me I was better when a king;
 * Then am I king'd again; and by and by
 * Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
 * And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,
 * Nor I, nor any man that but man is
 * With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd
 * With being nothing.
 * Music do I hear? [Music.]
 * 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
 * To check time broke in a disorder'd 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 numbering clock:
 * 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 sound that tells what hour it is
 * Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
 * Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
 * Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time
 * Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
 * While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.
 * 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.
 * Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
 * For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
 * Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

[Enter a Groom of the stable.]

GROOM.
 * Hail, royal Prince!

KING RICHARD.
 * Thanks, noble peer;
 * The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
 * What art thou? and how comest thou hither, man,
 * Where no man never comes but that sad dog
 * 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.
 * O! how it yearn'd 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 dress'd.

KING RICHARD.
 * Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
 * How went he under him?

GROOM.
 * So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.

KING RICHARD.
 * So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
 * That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
 * 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,
 * Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
 * Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
 * And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
 * Spur-gall'd and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke.

[Enter Keeper, with a dish.]

KEEPER. [To the Groom.]
 * Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.

KING RICHARD.
 * If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.

GROOM.
 * My tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.

[Exit.]

KEEPER.
 * My lord, will't please you to fall to?

KING RICHARD.
 * Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.

KEEPER.
 * My lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Exton,
 * Who lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

KING RICHARD.
 * The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
 * Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

[Strikes the Keeper.]

KEEPER.
 * Help, help, help!

[Enter EXTON and Servants, armed.]

KING RICHARD.
 * How now! What means death in this rude assault?
 * Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.

[Snatching a weapon and killing one.]


 * Go thou and fill another room in hell.

[He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down.]


 * That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
 * That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
 * Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.
 * Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
 * Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.

[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,
 * 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.]

SCENE VI. Windsor. An Apartment in the Castle.
[Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE and YORK, with Lords and Attendants.]

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
 * Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire
 * Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;
 * But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.

[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.]


 * Welcome, my lord. What is the news?

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.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;
 * And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

[Enter 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
 * That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
 * Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

[Enter HENRY PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE.]

PERCY.
 * The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
 * With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,
 * Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
 * But here is Carlisle living, to abide
 * Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Carlisle, this is your doom:
 * Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
 * More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
 * So as thou livest 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 attendants, hearing a coffin.]

EXTON.
 * Great king, within this coffin I present
 * Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
 * The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
 * Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
 * A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
 * Upon my head and all this famous land.

EXTON.
 * From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

BOLINGBROKE.
 * 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.
 * The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
 * But neither my good word nor princely favour:
 * With Cain go wander thorough shade of night,
 * And never show thy head by day nor light.
 * Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe,
 * 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.
 * March sadly after; grace my mournings here,
 * In weeping after this untimely bier.

[Exeunt]