The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 125
AUMERLE
For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
My tongue cleave to the roof within my mouth,
Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
KING HENRY
Intended or committed was this fault?
If on the first, how heinous e’er it be,
To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
AUMERLE (rising)
Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
That no man enter till my tale be done.
KING HENRY
Have thy desire.
Aumerle locks the door.
The Duke of York knocks at the door and crieth
YORK (within) My liege, beware! Look to thyself!
Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
King Henry draws his sword
KING HENRY (to Aumerle) Villain, I’ll make thee safe.
AUMERLE
Stay thy revengeful hand! Thou hast no cause to fear.
YORK (knocking within)
Open the door, secure foolhardy King!
Shall I for love speak treason to thy face?
Open the door, or I will break it open.
⌈King Henry⌉ opens the door. Enter the Duke of York
KING HENRY
What is the matter, uncle? Speak,
Recover breath, tell us how near is danger,
That we may arm us to encounter it.
YORK
Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
The treason that my haste forbids me show.
He gives King Henry the paper
AUMERLE
Remember, as thou read’st, thy promise past.
I do repent me. Read not my name there.
My heart is not confederate with my hand.
YORK
It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
I tore it from the traitor’s bosom, King.
Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
Forget to pity him, lest pity prove
A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
KING HENRY
O, heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!
O loyal father of a treacherous son!
Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,
From whence this stream through muddy passages
Hath held his current and defiled himself,
Thy overflow of good converts to bad,
And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
YORK
So shall my virtue be his vice’s bawd,
And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
As thriftless sons their scraping fathers’ gold.
Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies.
Thou kill’st me in his life: giving him breath
The traitor lives, the true man’s put to death.
DUCHESS OF YORK (within)
What ho, my liege, for God’s sake let me in!
KING HENRY
What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?
DUCHESS OF YORK (within)
A woman, and thy aunt, great King; ’tis I.
Speak with me, pity me! Open the door!
A beggar begs that never begged before.
KING HENRY
Our scene is altered from a serious thing,
And now changed to ‘The Beggar and the King’.
My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.
I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.
Aumerle opens the door. Enter the Duchess of York
YORK
If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,
More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
This festered joint cut off, the rest rest sound.
This let alone will all the rest confound.
DUCHESS OF YORK (kneeling)
O King, believe not this hard-hearted man.
Love loving not itself, none other can.
YORK
Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?
Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
DUCHESS OF YORK
Sweet York, be patient.—Hear me, gentle liege.
KING HENRY
Rise up, good aunt.
DUCHESS OF YORK Not yet, I thee beseech.
Forever will I kneel upon my knees,
And never see day that the happy sees,
Till thou give joy, until thou bid me joy
By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
AUMERLE (kneeling)
Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.
YORK (kneeling)
Against them both my true joints bended be.
Ill mayst thou thrive if thou grant any grace.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face.
His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest.
His words come from his mouth; ours from our
breast.
He prays but faintly, and would be denied;
We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.
His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow.
His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;
Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.
Our prayers do outpray his; then let them have
That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
⌈KING HENRY⌉
Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK Nay, do not say ‘Stand up’.
Say ‘Pardon’ first, and afterwards ‘Stand up’.
An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
‘Pardon’ should be the first word of thy speech.
I never longed to hear a word till now.
Say ‘Pardon’, King. Let pity teach thee how.
The word is short, but not so short as sweet;
No word like ’Pardon’ for kings’ mouths so meet.
YORK
Speak it in French, King: say ‘Pardonnez-moi’.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord
That sets the word itself against the word!
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.
KING HENRY
Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK I do not sue to stand.
Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
KING HENRY
I pardon him as God shall pardon me.
⌈York and Aumerle rise⌉
DUCHESS OF YORK
O, happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.
Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon strong.
KING HENRY
I pardon him
With all my heart.
DUCHESS OF YORK (rising) A god on earth thou art.
KING HENRY
But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,
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, so adieu.
Your mother well hath prayed; and prove you true.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Come, my old son. I pray God make thee new.
>
Exeunt ⌈King Henry at one door; York, the Duchess of York, and Aumerle at another door⌉
5.4 Enter Sir Piers Exton, and his Men
EXTON
Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?
‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’
Was it not so?
⌈FIRST⌉ MAN Those were his very words.
EXTON
‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he. He spake it twice,
And urged it twice together, did he not?
⌈SECOND⌉ MAN He did.
EXTON
And speaking it, he wishtly looked on me,
As who should say ‘I would thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart’,
Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let’s go.
I am the King’s friend, and will rid his foe.
Exeunt
5.5 Enter Richard, alone
RICHARD
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world;
And for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer it out.
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 intermixed
With scruples, and do set the faith itself
Against the faith, as thus: ‘Come, little ones’,
And then again,
‘It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.’
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,
Nor shall not be the last—like seely beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame
That many have, and others must, set there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am. Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king.
Then am I kinged again, and by and by
Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be,
Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased
With being nothing.
The music plays
Music do I hear.
Ha, ha; keep time! How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept.
So is it in the music of men’s lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me,
For now hath time made me his numb‘ring clock.
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is
Are clamorous groans that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans
Show minutes, hours, and times. But my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his jack of the clock.
This music mads me. Let it sound no more,
For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
⌈The music ceases⌉
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me,
For ’tis a sign of love, and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter a Groom of the stable
GROOM
Hail, royal Prince!
RICHARD
Thanks, noble peer.
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou, and how com’st thou hither,
Where no man never comes but that sad dog
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 erned my heart when I beheld
In London streets, that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dressed!
RICHARD
Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
GROOM
So proudly as if he disdained the ground.
RICHARD
So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back.
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
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 awed by man,
Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse,
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
Spur-galled and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke.
Enter Keeper to Richard, with meat
KEEPER (to Groom)
Fellow, give place. Here is no longer stay.
RICHARD (to Groom)
If thou love me, ’tis time thou wert away.
GROOM
What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
Exit
KEEPER
My lord, will’t please you to fall to?
RICHARD
Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
KEEPER
My lord, I dare not. Sir Piers of Exton,
Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
RICHARD (striking the Keeper)
The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee I
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
KEEPER Help, help, help!
Exton and his men rush in
RICHARD
How now! What means death in this rude assault?
He seizes a weapon from a man, and kills him
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument.
He kills another
Go thou, and fill another room in hell.
Here Exton strikes him down
RICHARD
That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
Hath with the King’s blood stained the King’s own land.
Mount, mount, my soul; thy seat is up on high,
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
He dies
EXTON
As full of valour as of royal blood.
Both have I spilt. O, would the deed were good I
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 ⌈Exton with Richard’s body at one door, and his men with the other bodies at another door⌉
5.6 ⌈Flourish.⌉ Enter King Henry and the Duke of York, ⌈with other lords and attendants⌉
KING HENRY
Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
Is that the rebels have consumed with fire
Our town of Ci’cester in Gloucestershire;
But whether they be ta’en or slain we hear not.Enter the Earl of Northumberland
Welcome, my lord. What is the news?
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.
He gives the paper to King Henry
KING HENRY
We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains,
And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
Enter Lord Fitzwalter
FITZWALTER
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.
KING HENRY
Thy pains, Fitzwalter, shall not be forgot.
Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
Enter Harry Percy, with the Bishop of Carlisle, guarded
HARRY PERCY
The grand conspirator Abbot of Westminster,
With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,
Hath yielded up his body to the grave.
But here is Carlisle living, to abide
Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.
KING HENRY Carlisle, this is your doom.
Choose out some secret place, some reverent room
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life.
So as thou liv’st in peace, die free from strife.