The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  ‘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 tortured soul.

  There lies the substance, and I thank thee, King,

  For thy great bounty that not only giv’st

  Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way

  How to lament the cause. I’ll beg one boon,

  And then be gone and trouble you no more.

  Shall I obtain it?

  BOLINGBROKE

  Name it, fair cousin.

  RICHARD

  Fair cousin? I am greater than a king;

  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.

  RICHARD And shall I have?

  BOLINGBROKE You shall.

  RICHARD Then give me leave to go.

  BOLINGBROKE Whither?

  RICHARD

  Whither you will, so I were from your sights.

  BOLINGBROKE

  Go some of you, convey him to the Tower.

  RICHARD

  O good, ‘convey’! Conveyors are you all,

  That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.

  ⌈Exit, guarded⌉

  BOLINGBROKE

  On Wednesday next we solemnly set down

  Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.

  Exeunt all but the Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Aumerle

  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER

  A woeful pageant have we here beheld.

  BISHOP OF CARLISLE

  The woe’s to come, the children yet unborn

  Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

  AUMERLE

  You holy clergymen, is there no plot

  To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?

  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER

  My lord, before I freely speak my mind herein,

  You shall not only take the sacrament

  To bury mine intents, but also to effect

  Whatever I shall happen to devise.

  I see your brows are full of discontent,

  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

  5.1 Enter the Queen, with her Ladies

  QUEEN

  This way the King will come. This is the way

  To Julius Caesar’s ill-erected Tower,

  To whose flint bosom my condemned lord

  Is doomed a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.

  Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth

  Have any resting for her true king’s queen.

  Enter Richard ⌈and guard⌉

  But soft, but see—or rather do not see—

  My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,

  That you in pity may dissolve to dew,

  And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.—

  Ah, thou the model where old Troy did stand!

  Thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb,

  And not King Richard! Thou most beauteous inn:

  Why should hard-favoured grief be lodged in thee,

  When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

  RICHARD

  Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,

  To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,

  To think our former state a happy dream,

  From which awaked, the truth of what we are

  Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,

  To grim necessity, and he and I

  Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,

  And cloister thee in some religious house.

  Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown,

  Which our profane hours here have stricken down.

  QUEEN

  What, is my Richard both in shape and mind

  Transformed and weakenèd? Hath Bolingbroke

  Deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?

  The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw

  And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage

  To be o’erpowered; and wilt thou, pupil-like,

  Take the correction, mildly kiss the rod,

  And fawn on rage with base humility,

  Which art a lion and the king of beasts ?

  RICHARD

  A king of beasts indeed! If aught but beasts,

  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 goodnight, to quit their griefs

  Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

  And send the hearers weeping to their beds;

  Forwhy the senseless brands will sympathize

  The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,

  And in compassion weep the fire out;

  And some will mourn in ashes, some coal black,

  For the deposing of a rightful king.

  Enter the Earl of Northumberland

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed.

  You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.

  And, madam, there is order ta’en for you.

  With all swift speed you must away to France.

  RICHARD

  Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal

  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.

  He shall think that thou, which know‘st the way

  To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,

  Being ne’er so little urged another way,

  To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.

  The love of wicked friends converts to fear,

  That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both

  To worthy danger and deserved death.

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  My guilt be on my head, and there an end.

  Take leave and part, for you must part forthwith.

  RICHARD

  Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate

  A twofold marriage:‘twixt my crown and me,

  And then betwixt me and my married wife.

  (To the Queen) Let me unkiss the oath ’twixt thee and me—

  And yet not so, for with a kiss ‘twas made.

  Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,

  Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;

  My queen to France, from whence set forth in pomp

  She came adorned hither like sweet May,

  Sent back like Hallowmas or short’st of day.

  QUEEN

  And must we be divided? Must we part?

  RICHARD

  Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

  QUEEN

  Banish us both, and send the King with me.

  ⌈NORTHUMBERLAND⌉

  That were some love, but little policy.

  QUEEN

  Then whither he goes, thither let me go.

  RICHARD

  So two together weeping make one woe.

  Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here.

  Better far off than, near, be ne’er the nea’er.

  Go count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.

  QUEEN
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  So longest way shall have the longest moans.

  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

  So now I have mine own again, be gone,

  That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

  RICHARD

  We make woe wanton with this fond delay.

  Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.

  Exeunt FRichard, guarded, and Northumberland at one door, the Queen and her Ladies at another door⌉

  5.2 Enter the Duke and Duchess of York

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,

  When weeping made you break the story off,

  Of our two cousins’ coming into London.

  YORK

  Where did I leave?

  DUCHESS OF YORK At that sad stop, my lord,

  Where rude misgoverned hands from windows’ tops

  Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard’s head.

  YORK

  Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,

  Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

  Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,

  With slow but stately pace kept on his course,

  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,

  Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,

  Bespake them thus: ‘I thank you, countrymen’,

  And thus still doing, thus he passed along.

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  Alack, poor Richard! Where rode he the whilst?

  YORK

  As in a theatre the eyes of men,

  After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,

  Are idly bent on him that enters next,

  Thinking his prattle to be tedious,

  Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes

  Did scowl on gentle Richard. No man cried ‘God save him!’

  No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;

  But dust was thrown upon his sacred head,

  Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,

  His face still combating with tears and smiles,

  The badges of his grief and patience,

  That had not God for some strong purpose steeled

  The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,

  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.

  Enter the Duke of Aumerle

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  Here comes my son Aumerle.

  YORK

  Aumerle that was;

  But that is lost for being Richard’s friend,

  And, madam, you must call him ’Rutland’ now.

  I am in Parliament pledge for his truth

  And lasting fealty to the new-made King.

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now

  That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?

  AUMERLE

  Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.

  God knows I had as lief be none as one.

  YORK

  Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,

  Lest you be cropped before you come to prime.

  What news from Oxford? Hold these jousts and triumphs?

  AUMERLE

  For aught I know, my lord, they do.

  YORK

  You will be there, I know.

  AUMERLE

  If God prevent it not, I purpose so.

  YORK

  What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom?

  Yea, look’st thou pale? Let me see the writing.

  AUMERLE

  My lord, ’tis nothing.

  YORK

  No matter, then, who see it.

  I will be satisfied. Let me see the writing.

  AUMERLE

  I do beseech your grace to pardon me.

  It is a matter of small consequence,

  Which for some reasons I would not have seen.

  YORK

  Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.

  I fear, I fear!

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  What should you fear?

  ‘Tis nothing but some bond that he is entered into

  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.

  He plucks it out of Aumerle’s bosom, and reads it

  Treason, foul treason ! Villain, traitor, slave !

  DUCHESS OF YORK What is the matter, my lord?

  YORK

  Ho, who is within there? Saddle my horse.—

  God for his mercy, what treachery is here I

  DUCHESS of YORK Why, what is it, my lord?

  YORK

  Give me my boots, I say. Saddle my horse.—

  Now by mine honour, by my life, my troth,

  I will appeach the villain.

  DUCHESS OF YORK What is the matter?

  YORK Peace, foolish woman.

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  I will not peace. What is the matter, son?

  AUMERLE

  Good mother, be content. It is no more

  Than my poor life must answer.

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  Thy life answer?

  YORK

  Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.

  His man enters with his boots

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  Strike him, Aumerle! Poor boy, thou art amazed.

  (To York’s man) Hence, villain! Never more come in my sight.

  YORK

  Give me my boots, I say.

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  Why, York, what wilt thou do?

  Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?

  Have we more sons? Or are we like to have?

  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 OF YORK

  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 OF YORK

  Hadst thou groaned for him

  As I have done thou wouldst be more pitiful.

  But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect

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sp; 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 ⌈with his man⌉

  DUCHESS OF YORK

  After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse.

  Spur, post, and get before him to the King,

  And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.

  I’ll not be long behind—though I be old,

  I doubt not but to ride as fast as York—

  And never will I rise up from the ground

  Till Bolingbroke have pardoned thee. Away, be gone I

  Exeunt ⌈severally⌉

  5.3 Enter Bolingbroke, crowned King Henry, with Harry Percy, and other nobles

  KING HENRY

  Can no man tell of my unthrifty son?

  ‘Tis full three months since I did see him last.

  If any plague hang over us, ’tis he.

  I would to God, my lords, he might be found.

  Enquire at London ’mongst the taverns there,

  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.

  HARRY PERCY

  My lord, some two days since, I saw the Prince,

  And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford.

  KING HENRY And what said the gallant?

  HARRY PERCY

  His answer was he would unto the stews,

  And from the common’st creature pluck a glove,

  And wear it as a favour, and with that

  He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.

  KING HENRY

  As dissolute as desperate. Yet through both

  I see some sparks of better hope, which elder days

  May happily bring forth.

  Enter the Duke of Aumerle, amazed

  But who comes here?

  AUMERLE Where is the King?

  KING HENRY

  What means our cousin that he stares and looks so wildly?

  AUMERLE (kneeling)

  God save your grace! I do beseech your majesty

  To have some conference with your grace alone.

  KING HENRY (to lords)

  Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.

  Exeunt all but King Henry and Aumerle

  What is the matter with our cousin now?