Richard II The Hollow Crown

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,