We’ll keep him here: then what is that to him?
Duke Of York
Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son,
I would appeach him.
Duchess Of York
Hadst thou groan’d for him
As I have done, thou wouldst 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.
Duke Of York
Make way, unruly woman!
Exit
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 pardon’d thee. Away, be gone!
Exeunt
SCENE III. A ROYAL PALACE.
Enter Henry Bolingbroke, Henry Percy, and other Lords
Henry 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.
Henry Percy
My lord, some two days since I saw the prince,
And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
Henry Bolingbroke
And what said the gallant?
Henry 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.
Henry 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 Duke Of Aumerle
Duke Of Aumerle
Where is the king?
Henry Bolingbroke
What means our cousin, that he stares and looks
So wildly?
Duke Of Aumerle
God save your grace! I do beseech your majesty,
To have some conference with your grace alone.
Henry Bolingbroke
Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
Exeunt Henry Percy and Lords
What is the matter with our cousin now?
Duke Of Aumerle
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.
Henry 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.
Duke Of Aumerle
Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
That no man enter till my tale be done.
Henry Bolingbroke
Have thy desire.
Duke Of York
[Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;
Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
Henry Bolingbroke
Villain, I’ll make thee safe.
Drawing
Duke Of Aumerle
Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.
Duke Of 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.
Enter Duke Of York
Henry Bolingbroke
What is the matter, uncle? speak;
Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,
That we may arm us to encounter it.
Duke Of York
Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
The treason that my haste forbids me show.
Duke Of 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.
Duke Of 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.
Henry Bolingbroke
O heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!
O loyal father of a treacherous son!
Thou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,
From when 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.
Duke Of 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.
Henry Bolingbroke
What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?
Duchess Of York
A woman, and thy aunt, great king; ’tis I.
Speak with me, pity me, open the door.
A beggar begs that never begg’d before.
Henry Bolingbroke
Our scene is alter’d 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.
Duke Of 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 Of York
Duchess Of York
O king, believe not this hard-hearted man!
Love loving not itself none other can.
Duke Of 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.
Kneels
Henry Bolingbroke
Rise up, good aunt.
Duchess Of York
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.
Duke Of Aumerle
Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.
Duke Of York
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 out-pray his; then let them have
That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
Henry Bolingbroke
Good aunt, stand up.
Duchess Of York
Nay, do not say, ‘stand up;’
Say, ‘pardon’ first, and afterwards ‘stand up.’
And 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.
Duke Of York
Speak it in French, king; say, ‘pardonne moi.’
Duchess Of York
Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That set’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.
Henry Bolingbroke
Good aunt, stand up.
Duchess Of York
I do not sue to stand;
Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
Henry Bolingbroke
I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
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.
Henry Bolingbroke
With all my heart
I pardon him.
Duchess Of York
A god on earth thou art.
Henry 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 too, adieu:
Your mother well hath pray’d, and prove you true.
Duchess Of York
Come, my old son: I pray God make thee new.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. THE SAME.
Enter Exton and 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 urged it twice together, did he not?
Servant
He did.
Exton
And speaking it, he wistly look’d on me,
And 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 CASTLE.
Enter King Richard
King Richard II
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 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 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 endured 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 pleased, till he be eased
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 cheque 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 II
Than
ks, noble peer;
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou? and how comest 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 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 II
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 II
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 burthen like an ass,
Spurr’d, gall’d and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.
Enter Keeper, with a dish
Keeper
Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.
King Richard II
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?
King Richard II
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 II
The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
Beats the keeper
Keeper
Help, help, help!
Enter Exton and Servants, armed
King Richard II
How now! what means death in this rude assault?
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument.
Snatching an axe from a Servant and killing him
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.
Complete Plays, The Page 165