Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs,
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
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 deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed.
All murdered.
Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster.
Hast thou 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?
I have, my liege.
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?
As far as I could sift him on that argument,
On some apparent danger seen in the Duke
Aimed at your highness.
Then call them to our presence.
Face to face,
And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
The accuser and the accused freely speak.
Many years of happy days befall
My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
Each day still better other's happiness
Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
Add an immortal title to your crown!
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?
First - heaven be the record to my speech!
In the devotion of a subject's love,
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.
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 returned
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty, I do defy him,
And I spit at him,
Call him a slanderous coward and a villain.
What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true:
I say that Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles
In name of lending for your highness' soldiers,
The which he hath detained for lewd employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,
That all the treasons for these 18 years
Complotted and contrived in this land
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
And by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall prove it, or this life be spent!
HE CHUCKLES
How high a pitch his resolution soars!
Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears.
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou.
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled 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.
To be a make-peace shall become my age.
Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
And Norfolk, throw down his.
When, Harry, when? Obedience bids I should not bid again.
Norfolk, give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame.
Yea, but not change his spots.
My dear, dear, lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation;
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one.
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Cousin, throw down your gage; do you begin?
O God defend my soul from such deep sin.
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.
Marshal,
demand of yonder knights in arms
Both who they are and why they come hither
Thus plated in habiliments of war.
In God's name and the King's, say who thou art
And why thou com'st thus knightly clad in arms.
My name is Thomas Mowbray,
Duke of Norfolk,
Who hither come engaged by my oath
Both to defend my loyalty and truth
To God, my king
and my succeeding issue
Against the Duke of Hereford
To prove him, in defending of myself,
A traitor to my God, my king and me.
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 is a traitor, foul and dangerous,
To God of heaven, King Richard and to me.
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.
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.
The appellant in all duty greets your highness
And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
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 today thou shed,
Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
O let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear.
My loving lord, I take my leave of you.
Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle.
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.
God in thy good cause make thee prosperous.
Be swift like lightning in the execution. Be valiant and live.
Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
HORSES NEIGH AND SNORT
LORD MARSHALL: Stay!
Stay! The King hath thrown his warder down.
Let them lay their helmets by.
Draw near.
For that our kingdom's earth should not be soiled
By that dear blood which it hath fostered
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours' sword
And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
Set you on,
We therefore banish you our territories
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
Till twice five summers have enriched our fields
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Your will be done.
This must my comfort be,
The 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.
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.
A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlooked for from your highness' mouth.
The language I have learnt these 40 years,
My native English, now I must forego.
Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
What is thy sentence then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
It boots thee not to be compassionate.
After our sentence, plaining comes too late.
Return again, and take an oath with me.
Lay on our royal sword your banished 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.
I swear.
And I,
to keep all this.
Norfolk,
By this time, had the King permitted us,
One of our souls had wandered in the air.
Confess thy treasons 'ere thou fly this realm.
Since thou hast far to go,
bear not along the clogging burden of a guilty soul.
No, Bolingbroke.
If ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banished as from hence!
But what thou art,
God, thou and I do know
And all too soon, I fear,
the King shall rue.
Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart.
Thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banished years
Plucked four away.
Six frozen winters spent,
Return with welcome home from banishment.
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.
I thank my liege that in regard of me
He shortens four years from my son's exile
But little vantage shall I reap thereby
For, ere the six years that he hath to spend
Have changed their moons and brought their times around
My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
Shall be extinct with age and endless night.
HE CHUCKLES
Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
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.
Cousin, farewell, and uncle, bid him so.
Six years we banish him, and he SHALL go.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus -
Think not the King did banish thee,
But thou the King.
Look what thy soul holds dear,
Imagine it to lie that way thou goest,
Not whence thou com'st.
Suppose the singing birds musicians,
The flowers fair ladies,
And thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure or a dance
For gnarling sorrow has less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
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?
No,
the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Come, come, my son,
be though on thy way.
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
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 banished,
Yet a true-born Englishman.
Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
But to the shoreline, and there I left him.
What said our cousin when you parted with him?
Farewell.
Marry, would the word "farewell" have lengthened 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.
He is our cousin, cousin.
We did observe his courtship of 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.
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.
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.
We will ourself in person to this war,
And for our coffers are grown somewhat light,
We are enforced 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,
You shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
And send them after to supply our wants
For we will make for Ireland presently.
Scroop, what news?
Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste
To entreat your majesty to visit him.
Where lies he? At Lancaster.
Now put it, God, in the 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!
Will the King come...
That I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel
To his unstaid youth?
Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath,
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
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.
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
Yet my death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
No, it is stopped with other, flattering sounds.
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves
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 land of such dear souls,
This dear, dear land,
Is now leased out -
I die pronouncing it -
Like to a tenement on a pelting farm.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Is now bound in with shame!
DOOR OPENS
How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
How is't with aged Gaunt?
O how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
For sleeping England long time have I watched
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.
Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great King, to flatter thee.
Should dying men flatter with those that live?
Oh, no,
men living flatter those that die.
Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.
No, no,
Thou diest, though I the sicker be.
I am in health,
I breathe and see thee ill.
Now he that made me knows I see thee 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.
Landlord of England art thou now, not king.
And thou...
A lunatic lean-witted fool!
Darest 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 my father's father's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders!
Live in thy shame!
But die not shame with thee!
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.
Right, you say true. As Hereford's love, so his
As theirs, so mine and all be as it is.
My liege!
Old Gaunt commends him to your highness.
What says he?
Nay, nothing.
All is said.
His tongue now is a stringless instrument
Words, life and all old Lancaster hath spent.
Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he.
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now,
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 possessed.
How long shall I be patient?
Ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
In war was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild.
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so looked he, O Richard!
York is far too gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between...
Why, uncle, what's the matter?
O my liege, Pardon me, if you please
Seek you to seize and grip into your hands
The royalties and rights of banished Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live? Was not Gaunt just?
And is not Harry true? Did the one not deserve to have an heir?
Is not the heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away and take from time
His charters and his customary rights.
Let not tomorrow then ensue today. Be not thyself.
For how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now, afore God
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
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 can not think.
Think what you will,
We seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.
I'll not be by the while.
My liege, farewell.
What will ensue here after there's none can tell.
Tomorrow next
We will for Ireland, and 'tis time.
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York Lord Governor of England,
For he is just and always loved us well.
Tomorrow must we part.
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
NORTHUMBERLAND: Well, lords,
the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
ROSS: And living, too, for now his son is duke.
WILLOUGHBY: Barely in titles, not in revenues.
Richly in both, if justice had it right.
My heart is great, but it must break with silence
'Ere it be disburdened with a liberal tongue.
Nay, speak thy mind, and let him ne'er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm.
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.
No good at all that I can do for him
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
In him, a royal prince, and many more
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, against any of us all,
That will the King severely prosecute
'Gainst us,
Our lives, our children, and our heirs.
The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts.
The nobles hath he fined For ancient quarrels,
And quite lost their hearts.
The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.
Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
He hath not money for these Irish wars,
But by the robbing of the banished Duke.
His noble kinsman!
Most degenerate King!
But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
And 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.
We see the very wreck that we must suffer,
And unavoidable is the danger now. Not so.
Even through the hollow eyes of Death
I spy life peering, but dare not say
How near the tiding of our comfort is.
Nay, let us hear thy thoughts as thou dost ours.
Be confident to speak, Northumberland.
We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts.
Therefore, be bold.
Then thus - I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Brittany, received intelligence
That Harry, Duke of Hereford,
Is making hither with all due expedience,
And shortly means to touch our northern shore.
Perhaps he hath 'ere this, but stays upon
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 blemished crown,
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to meet him there.
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay and be secret, and myself will go.
To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
Hold out my horse and I will be first there.
Madam, your majesty is too much sad.
You promised, when you parted with the King,
To lay aside life-harming heaviness
And entertain a cheerful disposition.
To please the King I did,
To please myself I cannot do it.
The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself,
And with uplifted arms is safe arrived
At Ravenspurgh. Now God in heaven forbid!
Madam, 'tis too true. Despair not, madam.
Who shall hinder me?
Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.
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.
I know not what to do!
Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
Come, cousin, I'll dispose of you.
The wind sits fair for news to go for Ireland,
But none returns.
For us to levy power
Proportionable to the enemy is all unpossible.
Besides, our nearness to the King in love
Is near the hate of those love not the King.
And that's the wavering commons, for their love
Lies in their purses and whoso empties them,
By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
Wherein the King stands generally condemned.
If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
Because we ever have been near the King.
Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle.
Thither will I with you,
Will you go along with us?
No,
I will to Wales to rouse the troops.
The men there will stay loyal to his majesty.
Farewell.
If heart's presages be not vain,
We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.
That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
Alas, poor Duke!
The task he undertakes
Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry.
Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
Farewell at once - for once, for all, and ever.
Well, we may meet again.
I fear me, never.
How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
Believe me, noble lord, I am a stranger here.
These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
Draw out our miles and make them wearisome.
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
Of much less value is my company than your good words.
But who comes here?
My noble uncle!
You show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
Whose duty is deceivable and false.
My gracious uncle...
Tut, tut! You grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
Why have those banished and forbidden legs
Dared once to touch a dust of England's ground?
But then, more why - why have they dared to march
So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
Frighting her pale-faced 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 the 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 chastise thee
And minister correction to thy fault!
My gracious uncle, let me know my fault.
On what condition stands it and wherein?
Even in condition of the worst degree,
In gross rebellion and detested treason.
Thou art a banished man, and here art come,
Before the expiration of thy time,
In braving arms against thy sovereign.
As I was banished, I was banished 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 condemned
A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties
Plucked from my arms perforce and given away
To upstart unthrifts?
Wherefore was I born?
If that my cousin king be King of 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 would have found his uncle Gaunt a father
To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
What would you have me do?
I am a subject, And I challenge law.
Attorneys are denied me,
And therefore, personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.
The noble Duke hath been much abused.
It stands your grace upon to do him right.
Base men by his endowments are made great.
My lords of England, let me tell you this.
I have had feelings of my cousin's wrongs
And laboured 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.
The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is
But for his own
And for the right of that
We are all strongly sworn to give him aid.
And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!
Well, well. HE CHUCKLES
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.
But we must win your grace to go with us
To my father's seat
To see those lands I must again call mine.
Nor friends nor foes to me welcome you are.
Things past redress are now with me past care.
My lord, we have stayed ten days
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the King.
Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman.
The King reposes all his confidence in thee.
'Tis thought the King is dead.
We will not stay.
The bay trees in our country are all withered,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-looked 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 assured Richard, their king,
Is dead.
Ah, Richard,
With the eyes of heavy mind
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest.
The friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.
FIRE CRACKLES
SOBBING
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 disfigured 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 stained 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 stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own window torn my household coat,
Rased out my imprese, 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 delivered over
To execution and the hand of death.
More welcome is the stroke of death to me
Than Bolingbroke to England.
Lords,
farewell.
HE SOBS No!
My only comfort is that heaven will take our souls
And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
Come, lords, away.
How brooks your grace the air
After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
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
That 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.
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.
Fear not, my lord.
That power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
Discomfortable cousin,
Knowest 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?
But when, from over 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
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.
So, when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke -
Who all the while hath revelled 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 all the water in the rough, rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
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.
Welcome, my lord.
How far off lies your power?
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!
Today, today, unhappy day, too late,
O'er throws thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state.
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, fled.
Comfort, my liege.
Why looks thou so pale?
But now the blood of twenty thousand men did triumph in my face,
And they are fled.
And till such 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.
Comfort, my liege.
WHISPERS: Remember who you are.
I had forgot myself.
THEY BOTH LAUGH
Am I not king?
Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?
HE LAUGHS
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?
More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
Mine ear is open and my heart prepared.
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.
Revolt, our subjects? That we cannot mend.
They break their faith to God as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay.
The worst is death, and Death will have his day.
Glad am I that your highness is so armed
To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day,
So high above his limits swells the rage of Bolingbroke,
Covering your fearful land with hard, bright steel
And hearts harder than steel.
Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty.
Boys with women's voices
Strive to speak big and clap their female joints
In stiff and unwieldy arms against thy crown.
Both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
What is become of Bushy?
Where is Green?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it!
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
O, VILLAINS!
VIPERS!
Damned without redemption!
HE SOBS
Dogs easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!
Judases, each one. Worse than Judas!
Would they make peace?
Terrible hell make war upon their spotted souls for this!
Again uncurse their souls.
Their peace is made with heads, and not with hands.
Are Bushy and Green dead?
Aye.
Both of them at Lancaster lost their heads.
Where's the Duke, my father, with his power?
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 call 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 deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed
All murdered.
For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court.
And there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchise
Be feared and kill with looks
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable.
And, humoured 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?
My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
My father hath a power.
Enquire of him.
And learn to make a body of a limb.
Thou chid'st me well.
HE LAUGHS
Proud Bolingbroke, I come!
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
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.
Men judge, by the complexion of the sky,
The state and 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 joined with Bolingbroke,
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms upon his party.
Thou hast said enough.
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.
My lord, one word.
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.
What, will not this castle yield?
The castle royally is manned, my lord, against thy entrance.
Royally? Why? It contains no king.
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, Bagot, Sir Stephen Scroop,
Besides a clergyman of holy reverence - who, I cannot learn.
O belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
Noble lord.
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle.
Through brazen trumpet, send the breath of parley
Into his ruined 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 repealed
And lands restored again be freely granted.
If not, I'll use the advantage of my power
And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
Rained 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.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet with no less terror
Than the elements of fire and water,
When their thundering 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.
HORSE WHINNIES
See, see.
We are amazed.
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?
No hand of blood and bone
Can grip 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.
The king of heaven forbid our lord, the king,
Should so with civil and uncivil arms be rushed 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 buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
And by the worth and honour of himself,
His coming hither hath no further scope than for his lineal royalties.
Northumberland.
Say thus the king returns.
His noble cousin
Is right welcome hither,
And all the number
Of his fair demands
Shall be accomplished
Without contradiction.
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?
No, good, my lord.
Let's fight with gentle words,
Till time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.
Oh, God. Oh, God!
Thate'er this tongue of mine,
That laid the sentence of dread banishment on yon 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.
Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
What must the king do now?
Must he submit?
The king shall do it.
Must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented.
Must he lose the name of king?
In God's name, let it go.
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My subjects for a pair of carved saints
And my large kingdom for a little grave.
HE LAUGHS
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, therein laid, "There lies two kinsmen,
"Digged 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?
My lord, he doth attend to speak with you
May it please you to come down.
THE SOLDIERS ROAR
'Down, down I come.
'Like a glistering Phaeton, 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.
Stand all apart!
And show fair duty to his majesty.
My gracious lord.
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 unpleased eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up.
Your heart is up, I know.
Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.
Well you deserve.
They well deserve to have,
That know the strong'st and the surest way to get!
YORK SOBS
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?
Yea, my good lord.
Then I must not say no.
What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
To drive away the heavy thought of care?
Madam, we'll dance.
My legs can keep no measure in delight,
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief.
Therefore, no dancing, girl.
Some other sport.
Madam, we'll tell tales.
Of sorrow or of joy?
Of either, madam.
Of neither, girl.
Madam, I'll sing.
'Tis well that thou hast cause.
But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.
I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
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.
Why should we keep law and form and due proportion,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, is full of weeds,
Her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruined,
Her knots disorder'd
And her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars?
Hold thy peace!
He that hath suffered this disordered spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
Are plucked up root and all by Bolingbroke,
I mean the favourites of the King, Bushy and Green.
What?! Are they dead?! They are.
And Bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful king.
O what pity is it
That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land
As we this garden.
We at time of year
Do wound the bark,
Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
It confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have lived to bear and he to taste
Their fruits of duty.
What, think you then the king shall be deposed?
Depressed he is already, and deposed he will be.
Thou!
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 deposed?
Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall?
Speak, thou wretch.
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 weighed
In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
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 man doth know.
And am I last that knows it?
Come, lady, go,
To meet at London, London's king in woe.
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.
Poor queen!
Great Duke of Lancaster,
I come to thee
From plume-plucked Richard;
Who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir
Ascend his throne,
Descending now from him;
And long live Henry, fourth of that name!
In God's name,
I'll ascend the regal throne.
Marry. God forbid!
Would God that any in this noble presence
Were enough noble to be upright judge
Of noble Richard!
What subject can give sentence on his king?
And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
And shall the figure of God's majesty, His captain,
Steward, deputy-elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
And he himself not present?
O forfend it, God,
That in a Christian climate souls refined
Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
Stirred 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 called
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!
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.
Fetch hither Richard,
That in common view
He may surrender.
So we shall proceed
Without suspicion.
Alack,
Why am I sent for to a king,
Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
Wherewith I reigned?
I hardly yet have learned
To insinuate,
Flatter, bow, and bend my limbs
Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
To this submission.
HE SOBS
Yet I well remember the favours of these men
Were they not mine?
Did they not sometimes 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?
HE LAUGHS
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?
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.
Give me the crown.
Here, cousin, seize the crown;
Here, cousin
On this side my hand, and on that side yours.
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.
I thought you had been willing to resign.
My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.
Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
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.
Are you contented to resign the crown?
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;
BELL CHIMES
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
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 duty's rites
All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
Make me, that nothing have,
With nothing grieved,
And thou with all pleased,
That hath all achieved!
Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!
God save King Harry,
Unkinged Richard says,
And send him many years of sunshine days!
What more remains?
No more, but that you read over
These accusations and grievous crimes
Committed by yourself and your followers
Against the state and profit of this land;
That, by confessing them, the souls of men
May deem you worthily deposed.
Must I do so?
And must I ravel out My weaved-up folly?
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.
Nay, all of you that stand and look upon,
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 delivered me to my sour cross,
And water cannot wash away your sin.
My lord, dispatch.
Read o'er these articles.
Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:
And yet salt water blinds them not so much
That 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
To undeck the pompous body of a king;
Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,
Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
My Lord...
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 usurped
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,
And 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.
Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!
Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
The commons will not be satisfied.
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.
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,
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!
For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face.
Say that again. The shadow of my sorrow! Ha!
Let's see
It is 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?
Name it, fair cousin.
"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.
Yet ask.
And shall I have?
You shall.
Then give me leave to go.
Whither?
Whither you will,
So I were from your sights.
Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.
O good!
Convey?
Conveyers are you all,
That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
On Wednesday next we solemnly set down our coronation.
Lords,
Prepare yourselves.
This way the king will come;
A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
You holy clergymen,
is there no plot
To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
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.
But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither.
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
Shall keep a league till death.
What, has my Richard both in shape and mind
Transformed and weakened?
Hath Bolingbroke deposed thine intellect?
Hath he been in thy heart?
Good sometime Queen,
prepare thee hence for France
Think I am dead and that even here though takest,
As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
Learn 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.
My lord, you must straight to the Tower.
And, madam, there is orders ta'en for you;
With all swift speed you must away to France.
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.
My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
Take leave and part.
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.
Banish us both and send the king with me.
That were some love but little policy.
Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
My lord
You told me you would tell the rest?
Then, as I said,
The duke,
Great Bolingbroke,
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
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.
Alack, poor Richard!
Where was he the whilst?
As in a theatre,
The eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him who 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!"
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
That had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted
But heaven hath a hand in these events,
And to Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now.
My son, Aumerle. What news from Oxford?
Jousts and triumphs?
For aught I know, my lord.
You will be there, I know.
If God prevent not, I purpose so.
What seal is that?
Yea, look'st thou pale?
Let me see the writing.
My lord, 'tis nothing. No matter, then, who see it;
I will be satisfied;
let me see the writing.
I do beseech your grace to pardon me
It is a matter of small consequence,
Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
Which for some reason, SIR,
I mean to see.
I fear. What should you fear?
Boy, let me see the writing.
I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.
I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.
It's treason!
Foul treason!
What is the matter, my lord? Ho! Who's within there?
Saddle my horse! Give me my boots I say!
What is the matter? Peace, foolish woman!
I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?
Good mother, be content;
It is no more than my poor life must answer.
Thy life answer! I will unto the king.
Aumerle? Poor boy, thou art amazed.
Give me my boots, I say.
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?
A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,
And interchangeably set down their hand,
To kill the new-crowned king.
He shall be none;
We'll keep him here, then what is that to him?
Were he twenty times my son, I would impeach him.
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!
Make way!
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;
Away, be gone!
Who comes here?
What means our cousin that he stares and looks so wildly?
God save your grace.
I do beseech your majesty,
To have some conference with your grace alone.
Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
That no man enter till my tale be done.
Have thy desire.
KNOCKS ON DOOR
My liege, beware;
Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
Villain, I'll make thee safe.
Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.
My liege.
Open the door or I will break it open!
What is the matter, uncle? Speak.
Peruse this writing here,
And thou shalt know
The treason that my haste forbid me show.
I do repent me; read not my name there
My heart was not confederate with my hand.
It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
I tore it from the traitor's bosom, king;
Fear, not love, begets his penitence:
O heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!
O loyal father of a treacherous son!
Thy overflow of good converts to bad,
And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,
The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
KNOCK AT DOOR
What ho, my liege! For God's sake, let me in!
What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?
A woman.
And thy aunt, great king; 'tis I.
Open the door.
A beggar begs that never begged before.
Our scene is altered from a serious thing,
And now changed to The Beggar And The King.
SHE CONTINUES TO KNOCK
My dangerous cousin, let your mother in:
I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.
O king, believe not this hard-hearted man!
Love loving not itself none other can.
Thou frantic woman,
What dost thou make here?
Shall thy old dugs another traitor rear?
Sweet York, be patient.
Hear me, gentle liege.
Rise up, good aunt!
Not yet, I thee beseech, for ever will I walk upon my knees,
Until thou bid me joy,
By pardoning my transgressing boy.
Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.
Against them both my true joints bended be.
Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!
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.
Good aunt, stand up.
Nay, do not say, "stand up"
Say, "pardon" first, and afterwards "stand up".
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.
Good aunt, stand up.
I do not sue to stand;
Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
I pardon him,
As God shall pardon me.
O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I sick with fear: speak it again;
With all my heart
I pardon him.
A god on earth thou art!
But for our trusty Bishop 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,
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell.
And, cousin too, adieu:
Your mother well hath prayed,
And prove you true.
Come, my old son.
I pray God make thee new.
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? Quoth he.
He spake it twice,
And urged it twice together, did he not?
He did.
And speaking it, he wistly looked on thee,
And who should say,
"I would thou wert the man
"That would divorce this terror from my heart;"
Meaning the king in the Tower.
Come...let's go
We are the king's friends,
And will rid his foe.
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,
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 misfortune 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 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.
DISTANT MUSIC PLAYS
HE LAUGHS
Music do I hear?
HE LAUGHS
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.
I wasted time,
And now doth time waste me.
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.
Hail, royal Prince!
Thanks, noble peer;
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?
I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king;
Who, with much ado, have gotten leave
To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
O, how it yearned 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!
Rode he on Barbary?
Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?
So proudly as if he disdained the ground.
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,
Spurred, galled
and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.
DOOR CREAKS OPEN
If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
How now!
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.
HE GARGLES
HE GASPS
Go now and fill another room in hell.
Welcome, my lord. What news?
First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
The next news is, I have to London brought
The heads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent.
We thank thee for thy pains.
My Lord, I have from Oxford brought to London
The heads of Bagot and Sir Stephen Scroop.
Thy pains, Willoughby, shall not be forgot.
The Conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
Hath yielded up his body to the grave!
But here is Carlisle living.
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.
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.
Aumerle,
I thank thee not;
For thou hast wrought
A deed of slander
With thy fatal hand
Upon my head
And all this famous land.
From your own mouth, my lord,
Did I this deed.
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.
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.
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