Complete Plays, The

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Complete Plays, The Page 164

by William Shakespeare


  For I have given here my soul’s consent

  To 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 II

  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.

  Henry 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 II

  Fiend, thou torment’st me ere I come to hell!

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.

  Northumberland

  The commons will not then be satisfied.

  King Richard II

  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 a glass

  Give me the 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 flattering 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?

  Was this the face that faced so many follies,

  And was at last out-faced 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.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d

  The shadow or your face.

  King Richard II

  Say that again.

  The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let’s see:

  ’Tis very true, my grief lies all within;

  And these external manners 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 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?

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Name it, fair cousin.

  King Richard II

  ‘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.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Yet ask.

  King Richard II

  And shall I have?

  Henry Bolingbroke

  You shall.

  King Richard II

  Then give me leave to go.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Whither?

  King Richard II

  Whither you will, so I were from your sights.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.

  King Richard II

  O, good! convey? conveyers are you all,

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

  Exeunt King Richard II, some Lords, and a Guard

  Henry Bolingbroke

  On Wednesday next we solemnly set down

  Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.

  Exeunt all except the Bishop Of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and Duke Of Aumerle

  Abbot

  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.

  Duke Of 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; and I’ll lay

  A plot shall show us all a merry day.

  Exeunt

  ACT V

  SCENE I. LONDON. A STREET LEADING TO THE TOWER.

  Enter 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 II 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 lodged in thee,

  When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

  King Richard II

  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

  Transform’d and weaken’d? 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’erpower’d; and wilt thou, pupil-like,

  Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,

  And fawn on rage with base humility,

  Which art a lion and a king of beasts?

  King Richard II

  A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,

  I had been still a happy king of men.

  Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:

  Think I am dead and that
even here thou takest,

  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 and others

  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.

  King Richard II

  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

  Shalt 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 urged, 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 II

  Doubly divorced! Bad men, you 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 toward 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 II

  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 II

  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 II

  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.

  Queen

  Give me mine own again; ’twere no good part

  To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.

  So, now I have mine own again, be gone,

  That I might strive to kill it with a groan.

  King Richard II

  We make woe wanton with this fond delay:

  Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. THE DUKE OF YORK’S PALACE.

  Enter Duke Of York 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.

  Duke Of York

  Where did I leave?

  Duchess Of York

  At that sad stop, my lord,

  Where rude misgovern’d hands from windows’ tops

  Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard’s head.

  Duke Of 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 Of York

  Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?

  Duke Of 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, 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 Of York

  Here comes my son Aumerle.

  Duke Of 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 Duke Of Aumerle

  Duchess Of York

  Welcome, my son: who are the violets now

  That strew the green lap of the new come spring?

  Duke Of Aumerle

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

  God knows I had as lief be none as one.

  Duke Of 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?

  Duke Of Aumerle

  For aught I know, my lord, they do.

  Duke Of York

  You will be there, I know.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  If God prevent not, I purpose so.

  Duke Of York

  What seal is that, that hangs without thy bosom?

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

  Duke Of Aumerle

  My lord, ’tis nothing.

 
Duke Of York

  No matter, then, who see it;

  I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.

  Duke Of 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.

  Duke Of 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 enter’d into

  For gay apparel ’gainst the triumph day.

  Duke Of 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.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.

  Duke Of York

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

  He plucks it out of his bosom and reads it

  Treason! foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!

  Duchess Of York

  What is the matter, my lord?

  Duke Of York

  Ho! who is within there?

  Enter a Servant

  Saddle my horse.

  God for his mercy, what treachery is here!

  Duchess Of York

  Why, what is it, my lord?

  Duke Of York

  Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.

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

  I will appeach the villain.

  Duchess Of York

  What is the matter?

  Duke Of York

  Peace, foolish woman.

  Duchess Of York

  I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Good mother, be content; it is no more

  Than my poor life must answer.

  Duchess Of York

  Thy life answer!

  Duke Of York

  Bring me my boots: I will unto the king.

  Re-enter Servant with boots

  Duchess Of York

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

  Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.

  Duke Of 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?

  Duke Of 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;

 

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