summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 05:17:44 -0700
committerRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 05:17:44 -0700
commit7139ecf263504ea62579703ef8dd3017dcc9cb99 (patch)
treea145cf80d9ed359cd31a3004e8a346fb1a5c1560
initial commit of ebook 1776HEADmain
-rw-r--r--.gitattributes3
-rw-r--r--1776.txt3486
-rw-r--r--1776.zipbin0 -> 59424 bytes
-rw-r--r--LICENSE.txt11
-rw-r--r--README.md2
5 files changed, 3502 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/1776.txt b/1776.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7290a44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1776.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3486 @@
+
+This Etext file is presented by Project Gutenberg, in
+cooperation with World Library, Inc., from their Library of the
+Future and Shakespeare CDROMS. Project Gutenberg often releases
+Etexts that are NOT placed in the Public Domain!!
+
+*This Etext has certain copyright implications you should read!*
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND
+MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES
+(1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT
+DISTRIBUTED OR USED COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL
+DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD
+TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+*Project Gutenberg is proud to cooperate with The World Library*
+in the presentation of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
+for your reading for education and entertainment. HOWEVER, THIS
+IS NEITHER SHAREWARE NOR PUBLIC DOMAIN. . .AND UNDER THE LIBRARY
+OF THE FUTURE CONDITIONS OF THIS PRESENTATION. . .NO CHARGES MAY
+BE MADE FOR *ANY* ACCESS TO THIS MATERIAL. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED!!
+TO GIVE IT AWAY TO ANYONE YOU LIKE, BUT NO CHARGES ARE ALLOWED!!
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below. We need your donations.
+
+
+The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
+King Richard the Second
+
+June, 1999 [Etext #1776]
+
+
+The Library of the Future Complete Works of William Shakespeare
+Library of the Future is a TradeMark (TM) of World Library Inc.
+******This file should be named 1776.txt or 1776.zip*****
+
+
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar, then we produce 2
+million dollars per hour this year we, will have to do four text
+files per month: thus upping our productivity from one million.
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end
+of the year 2001.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU", and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("CMU" is Carnegie
+Mellon University).
+
+Please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box 2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+You can visit our web site at promo.net for complete information
+about Project Gutenberg.
+
+When all other else fails try our Executive Director:
+dircompg@pobox.com or hart@pobox.com
+
+******
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+
+
+***** SMALL PRINT! for COMPLETE SHAKESPEARE *****
+
+THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC.,
+AND IS PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF
+CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY WITH PERMISSION.
+
+Since unlike many other Project Gutenberg-tm etexts, this etext
+is copyright protected, and since the materials and methods you
+use will effect the Project's reputation, your right to copy and
+distribute it is limited by the copyright and other laws, and by
+the conditions of this "Small Print!" statement.
+
+1. LICENSE
+
+ A) YOU MAY (AND ARE ENCOURAGED) TO DISTRIBUTE ELECTRONIC AND
+MACHINE READABLE COPIES OF THIS ETEXT, SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES
+(1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT
+DISTRIBUTED OR USED COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL
+DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD
+TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.
+
+ B) This license is subject to the conditions that you honor
+the refund and replacement provisions of this "small print!"
+statement; and that you distribute exact copies of this etext,
+including this Small Print statement. Such copies can be
+compressed or any proprietary form (including any form resulting
+from word processing or hypertext software), so long as
+*EITHER*:
+
+ (1) The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does
+ *not* contain characters other than those intended by the
+ author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and
+ underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation
+ intended by the author, and additional characters may be used
+ to indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+ (2) The etext is readily convertible by the reader at no
+ expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the
+ program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance,
+ with most word processors); OR
+
+ (3) You provide or agree to provide on request at no
+ additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in plain
+ ASCII.
+
+2. LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+
+This etext may contain a "Defect" in the form of incomplete,
+inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or
+other infringement, a defective or damaged disk, computer virus,
+or codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. But
+for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, the
+Project (and any other party you may receive this etext from as
+a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all liability to you for
+damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees, and YOU HAVE
+NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR
+BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF
+YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of receiv-
+ing it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid
+for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the
+person you received it from. If you received it on a physical
+medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you
+received it electronically, such person may choose to
+alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it
+electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not allow disclaimers of
+implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequen-
+tial damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not
+apply to you, and you may have other legal rights.
+
+3. INDEMNITY: You will indemnify and hold the Project, its
+directors, officers, members and agents harmless from all lia-
+bility, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise
+directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or
+cause: [A] distribution of this etext, [B] alteration,
+modification, or addition to the etext, or [C] any Defect.
+
+4. WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form. The Project gratefully accepts
+contributions in money, time, scanning machines, OCR software,
+public domain etexts, royalty free copyright licenses, and
+whatever else you can think of. Money should be paid to "Pro-
+ject Gutenberg Association / Carnegie Mellon University".
+
+WRITE TO US! We can be reached at:
+ Internet: hart@pobox.com
+ Mail: Prof. Michael Hart
+ P.O. Box 2782
+ Champaign, IL 61825
+
+This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney
+Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093)
+**** SMALL PRINT! FOR __ COMPLETE SHAKESPEARE ****
+["Small Print" V.12.08.93]
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+
+
+1596
+
+KING RICHARD THE SECOND
+
+by William Shakespeare
+
+
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE
+
+ KING RICHARD THE SECOND
+ JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King
+ EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King
+ HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of
+ John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV
+ DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York
+ THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk
+ DUKE OF SURREY
+ EARL OF SALISBURY
+ EARL BERKELEY
+ BUSHY - favourites of King Richard
+ BAGOT - " " " "
+ GREEN - " " " "
+ EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
+ HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son
+ LORD Ross LORD WILLOUGHBY
+ LORD FITZWATER BISHOP OF CARLISLE
+ ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER LORD MARSHAL
+ SIR STEPHEN SCROOP SIR PIERCE OF EXTON
+ CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen TWO GARDENERS
+
+ QUEEN to King Richard
+ DUCHESS OF YORK
+ DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,
+ Duke of Gloucester
+ LADY attending on the Queen
+
+ Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,
+ Groom, and other Attendants
+
+
+
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+SCENE:
+England and Wales
+
+
+ACT 1 SCENE 1
+London. The palace
+
+[Enter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants]
+
+ KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
+ Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
+ Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,
+ Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,
+ Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
+ Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
+ GAUNT. I have, my liege.
+ KING RICHARD. 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?
+ GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,
+ On some apparent danger seen in him
+ Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.
+ KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face
+ And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
+ The accuser and the accused freely speak.
+ High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,
+ In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
+
+ [Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall
+ My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
+ MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness
+ Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
+ Add an immortal title to your crown!
+ KING RICHARD. 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?
+ BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!
+ In the devotion of a subject's love,
+ Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,
+ 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.
+ Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
+ With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
+ And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,
+ What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.
+ MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.
+ 'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
+ The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
+ Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;
+ The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
+ Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
+ As to be hush'd and nought at all to say.
+ 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 return'd
+ These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
+ Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
+ And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
+ I do defy him, and I spit at him,
+ Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;
+ Which to maintain, I would allow him odds
+ And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
+ Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
+ Or any other ground inhabitable
+ Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
+ Meantime let this defend my loyalty-
+ By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie
+ BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
+ Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;
+ And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
+ Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
+ If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
+ As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.
+ By that and all the rites of knighthood else
+ Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
+ What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.
+ MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear
+ Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder
+ I'll answer thee in any fair degree
+ Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;
+ And when I mount, alive may I not light
+ If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
+ KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
+ It must be great that can inherit us
+ So much as of a thought of ill in him.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-
+ That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles
+ In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,
+ The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments
+ Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
+ Besides, I say and will in battle prove-
+ Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge
+ That ever was survey'd by English eye-
+ That all the treasons for these eighteen years
+ Complotted and contrived in this land
+ Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
+ Further I say, and further will maintain
+ Upon his bad life to make all this good,
+ That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
+ Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
+ And consequently, like a traitor coward,
+ Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;
+ Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
+ Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
+ To me for justice and rough chastisement;
+ And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
+ This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
+ KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!
+ Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
+ MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face
+ And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
+ Till I have told this slander of his blood
+ How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
+ KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears.
+ Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
+ As he is but my father's brother's son,
+ Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
+ Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
+ Should nothing privilege him nor partialize
+ The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
+ He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
+ Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
+ MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
+ Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
+ Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
+ Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;
+ The other part reserv'd I by consent,
+ For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
+ Upon remainder of a dear account
+ Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:
+ Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-
+ I slew him not, but to my own disgrace
+ Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
+ For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
+ The honourable father to my foe,
+ Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
+ A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
+ But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament
+ I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
+ Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.
+ This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,
+ It issues from the rancour of a villain,
+ A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
+ Which in myself I boldly will defend,
+ And interchangeably hurl down my gage
+ Upon this overweening traitor's foot
+ To prove myself a loyal gentleman
+ Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
+ In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
+ Your Highness to assign our trial day.
+ KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd 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.
+ GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.
+ Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
+ KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
+ GAUNT. When, Harry, when?
+ Obedience bids I should not bid again.
+ KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.
+ There is no boot.
+ MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;
+ My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:
+ The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
+ Despite of death, that lives upon my grave
+ To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
+ I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;
+ Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
+ The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
+ Which breath'd this poison.
+ KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:
+ Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.
+ MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,
+ And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
+ The purest treasure mortal times afford
+ Is spotless reputation; that away,
+ Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
+ A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest
+ Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
+ Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
+ Take honour from me, and my life is done:
+ Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
+ In that I live, and for that will I die.
+ KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.
+ BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!
+ Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
+ Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
+ Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue
+ Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong
+ Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
+ The slavish motive of recanting fear,
+ And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,
+ Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.
+ [Exit GAUNT]
+ KING RICHARD. 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;
+ Since we can not atone you, we shall see
+ Justice design the victor's chivalry.
+ Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
+ Be ready to direct these home alarms. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 2
+London. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace
+
+[Enter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER]
+
+ GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood
+ Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
+ To stir against the butchers of his life!
+ But since correction lieth in those hands
+ Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
+ Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
+ Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
+ Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
+ DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
+ Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
+ Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
+ Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
+ Or seven fair branches springing from one root.
+ Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
+ Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
+ But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
+ One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
+ One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
+ Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
+ Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
+ By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.
+ Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,
+ That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,
+ Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,
+ Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent
+ In some large measure to thy father's death
+ In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
+ Who was the model of thy father's life.
+ Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;
+ In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,
+ Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
+ Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
+ That which in mean men we entitle patience
+ Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
+ What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life
+ The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
+ GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
+ His deputy anointed in His sight,
+ Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
+ Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
+ An angry arm against His minister.
+ DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
+ GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.
+ DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
+ Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
+ Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.
+ O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
+ That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
+ Or, if misfortune miss the first career,
+ Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom
+ That they may break his foaming courser's back
+ And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
+ A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
+ Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,
+ With her companion, Grief, must end her life.
+ GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.
+ As much good stay with thee as go with me!
+ DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,
+ Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.
+ I take my leave before I have begun,
+ For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
+ Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
+ Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;
+ Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
+ I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-
+ With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
+ Alack, and what shall good old York there see
+ But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
+ Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
+ And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
+ Therefore commend me; let him not come there
+ To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
+ Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;
+ The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 3
+The lists at Coventry
+
+[Enter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE]
+
+ MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?
+ AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
+ MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,
+ Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.
+ AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay
+ For nothing but his Majesty's approach.
+
+ [The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,
+ GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,
+ enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk, in arms, defendant, and
+ a HERALD]
+
+ KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion
+ The cause of his arrival here in arms;
+ Ask him his name; and orderly proceed
+ To swear him in the justice of his cause.
+ MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,
+ And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;
+ Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.
+ Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;
+ As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!
+ MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;
+ Who hither come engaged by my oath-
+ Which God defend a knight should violate!-
+ Both to defend my loyalty and truth
+ To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,
+ Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;
+ And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
+ To prove him, in defending of myself,
+ A traitor to my God, my King, and me.
+ And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
+
+ [The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,
+ appellant, in armour, and a HERALD]
+
+ KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,
+ Both who he is and why he cometh hither
+ Thus plated in habiliments of war;
+ And formally, according to our law,
+ Depose him in the justice of his cause.
+ MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither
+ Before King Richard in his royal lists?
+ Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?
+ Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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.
+ And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
+ MARSHAL. 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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.
+ Then let us take a ceremonious leave
+ And loving farewell of our several friends.
+ MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,
+ And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
+ KING RICHARD. 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 to-day thou shed,
+ Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
+ BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
+ For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.
+ As confident as is the falcon's flight
+ Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
+ My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
+ Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
+ Not sick, although I have to do with death,
+ But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
+ Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
+ The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
+ 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,
+ And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
+ That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat
+ And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,
+ Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
+ GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
+ Be swift like lightning in the execution,
+ And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
+ Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
+ Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
+ Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
+ MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,
+ There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,
+ A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
+ Never did captive with a freer heart
+ Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace
+ His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
+ More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
+ This feast of battle with mine adversary.
+ Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
+ Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
+ As gentle and as jocund as to jest
+ Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.
+ KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy
+ Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
+ Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
+ MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
+ Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!
+ BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.
+ MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,
+ Duke of Norfolk.
+ FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
+ Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
+ On pain to be found false and recreant,
+ To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
+ A traitor to his God, his King, and him;
+ And dares him to set forward to the fight.
+ SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
+ On pain to be found false and recreant,
+ Both to defend himself, and to approve
+ Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
+ To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,
+ Courageously and with a free desire
+ Attending but the signal to begin.
+ MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.
+ [A charge sounded]
+ Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.
+ KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
+ And both return back to their chairs again.
+ Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound
+ While we return these dukes what we decree.
+
+ [A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council]
+
+ Draw near,
+ And list what with our council we have done.
+ For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
+ With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
+ And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
+ Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;
+ And for we think the eagle-winged pride
+ Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
+ With rival-hating envy, set on you
+ To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
+ Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
+ Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,
+ With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
+ And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
+ Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
+ And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-
+ Therefore we banish you our territories.
+ You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
+ Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields
+ Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
+ But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-
+ That 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.
+ KING RICHARD. 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.
+ MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
+ And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.
+ A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
+ As to be cast forth in the common air,
+ Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.
+ The language I have learnt these forty years,
+ My native English, now I must forgo;
+ And now my tongue's use is to me no more
+ Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
+ Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up
+ Or, being open, put into his hands
+ That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
+ Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
+ Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
+ And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
+ Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
+ I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
+ Too far in years to be a pupil now.
+ What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
+ Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
+ KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;
+ After our sentence plaining comes too late.
+ MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,
+ To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
+ KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
+ Lay on our royal sword your banish'd 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. I swear.
+ MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.
+ By this time, had the King permitted us,
+ One of our souls had wand'red in the air,
+ Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
+ As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-
+ Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;
+ Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
+ The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
+ MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
+ My name be blotted from the book of life,
+ And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!
+ But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;
+ And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.
+ Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:
+ Save back to England, an the world's my way. [Exit]
+ KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
+ I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
+ Hath from the number of his banish'd years
+ Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,
+ Return with welcome home from banishment.
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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.
+ GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me
+ He shortens four years of my son's exile;
+ But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
+ For ere the six years that he hath to spend
+ Can change their moons and bring their times about,
+ My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
+ Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
+ My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
+ And blindfold death not let me see my son.
+ KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
+ GAUNT. 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;
+ Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,
+ But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
+ Thy word is current with him for my death,
+ But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
+ KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
+ Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
+ Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?
+ GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
+ You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather
+ You would have bid me argue like a father.
+ O, had it been a stranger, not my child,
+ To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
+ A partial slander sought I to avoid,
+ And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
+ Alas, I look'd when some of you should say
+ I was too strict to make mine own away;
+ But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
+ Against my will to do myself this wrong.
+ KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.
+ Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
+ [Flourish. Exit KING with train]
+ AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,
+ From where you do remain let paper show.
+ MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
+ As far as land will let me by your side.
+ GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
+ That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?
+ BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,
+ When the tongue's office should be prodigal
+ To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
+ GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
+ GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
+ BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
+ GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.
+ BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
+ Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
+ GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
+ Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
+ The precious jewel of thy home return.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
+ Will but remember me what a deal of world
+ I wander from the jewels that I love.
+ Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
+ To foreign passages; and in the end,
+ Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
+ But that I was a journeyman to grief?
+ GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits
+ Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
+ Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
+ There is no virtue like necessity.
+ Think not the King did banish thee,
+ But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
+ Where it perceives it is but faintly home.
+ Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
+ And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose
+ Devouring pestilence hangs in our air
+ And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
+ 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 grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
+ The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
+ Than a delightful measure or a dance;
+ For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
+ The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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?
+ O, no! the apprehension of the good
+ Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
+ Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
+ Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
+ GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.
+ Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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 banish'd, yet a trueborn English man. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 4
+London. The court
+
+[Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door;
+and the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another]
+
+ KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,
+ How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
+ AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
+ But to the next high way, and there I left him.
+ KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
+ AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,
+ Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
+ Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
+ Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
+ KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?
+ AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'
+ And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
+ Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
+ To counterfeit oppression of such grief
+ That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
+ Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned 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.
+ KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
+ When time shall call him home from banishment,
+ Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
+ Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,
+ Observ'd his courtship to 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,
+ Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
+ And patient underbearing of his fortune,
+ As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
+ 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,
+ And he our subjects' next degree in hope.
+ GREEN. 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 yicld them further means
+ For their advantage and your Highness' loss.
+ KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;
+ And, for our coffers, with too great a court
+ And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
+ We are enforc'd 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,
+ They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
+ And send them after to supply our wants;
+ For we will make for Ireland presently.
+
+ [Enter BUSHY]
+
+ Bushy, what news?
+ BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
+ Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste
+ To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
+ KING RICHARD. Where lies he?
+ BUSHY. At Ely House.
+ KING RICHARD. 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!
+ ALL. Amen. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+ACT 2 SCENE 1
+London. Ely House
+
+[Enter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.]
+
+ GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
+ In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
+ YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
+ For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
+ GAUNT. 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.
+ He that no more must say is listen'd more
+ Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
+ More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.
+ The setting sun, and music at the close,
+ As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
+ Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
+ Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
+ My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
+ YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
+ As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
+ Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
+ The open ear of youth doth always listen;
+ Report of fashions in proud Italy,
+ Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
+ Limps after in base imitation.
+ Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-
+ So it be new, there's no respect how vile-
+ That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
+ Then all too late comes counsel to be heard
+ Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
+ Direct not him whose way himself will choose.
+ 'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
+ GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,
+ And thus expiring do foretell of him:
+ His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
+ For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
+ Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
+ He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
+ With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
+ Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
+ Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
+ This royal throne of kings, this scept'red 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 nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
+ Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,
+ Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
+ For Christian service and true chivalry,
+ As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
+ Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;
+ This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
+ Dear for her reputation through the world,
+ Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-
+ Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
+ England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
+ Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
+ Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
+ With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;
+ That England, that was wont to conquer others,
+ Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
+ Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
+ How happy then were my ensuing death!
+
+ [Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,
+ Ross, and WILLOUGHBY]
+
+ YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,
+ For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.
+ QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
+ KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?
+ GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!
+ Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.
+ Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
+ And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
+ For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
+ Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an 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.
+ Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
+ Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
+ KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
+ GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
+ Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
+ I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
+ KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
+ GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.
+ KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.
+ GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.
+ KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
+ GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
+ Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
+ Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
+ Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
+ And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
+ Commit'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;
+ And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
+ The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
+ O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
+ Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
+ From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
+ Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
+ Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
+ Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
+ It were a shame to let this land by lease;
+ But for thy world enjoying but this land,
+ Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
+ Landlord of England art thou now, not King.
+ Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
+ And thou-
+ KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,
+ Presuming on an ague's privilege,
+ 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 brother to great Edward's son,
+ This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
+ Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
+ GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
+ For that I was his father Edward's son;
+ That blood already, like the pelican,
+ Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.
+ My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-
+ Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-
+ May be a precedent and witness good
+ That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
+ Join with the present sickness that I have;
+ And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
+ To crop at once a too long withered flower.
+ Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
+ These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
+ Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
+ Love they to live that love and honour have.
+ [Exit, borne out by his attendants]
+ KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;
+ For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
+ YORK. 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.
+ KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
+ As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.
+
+ [Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your
+Majesty.
+ KING RICHARD. What says he?
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.
+ His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
+ Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
+ YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
+ Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
+ KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
+ His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
+ So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.
+ 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 possess'd.
+ YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
+ Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
+ Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
+ Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
+ Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
+ About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
+ Have ever made me sour my patient cheek
+ Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
+ I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
+ Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
+ In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
+ In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
+ Than was that young and princely gentleman.
+ His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
+ Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
+ But when he frown'd, it was against the French
+ And not against his friends. His noble hand
+ Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
+ Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
+ His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
+ But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
+ O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
+ Or else he never would compare between-
+ KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
+ YORK. O my liege,
+ Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
+ Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
+ Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
+ The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
+ Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
+ Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
+ Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
+ Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
+ Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
+ His charters and his customary rights;
+ Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
+ Be not thyself-for how art thou a king
+ But by fair sequence and succession?
+ Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-
+ If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
+ Call in the letters patents that he hath
+ By his attorneys-general to sue
+ His livery, and deny his off'red homage,
+ 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 cannot think.
+ KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands
+ His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
+ YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.
+ What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;
+ But by bad courses may be understood
+ That their events can never fall out good. [Exit]
+ KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;
+ Bid him repair to us to Ely House
+ To see this business. To-morrow next
+ We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.
+ And we create, in absence of ourself,
+ Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;
+ For he is just, and always lov'd us well.
+ Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;
+ Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
+ [Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,
+ GREEN, and BAGOT]
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
+ Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.
+ WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.
+ ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
+ Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak
+more
+ That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
+ WILLOUGHBY. 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.
+ ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;
+ Unless you call it good to pity him,
+ Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are
+borne
+ In him, a royal prince, and many moe
+ 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, 'gainst any of us an,
+ That will the King severely prosecute
+ 'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
+ ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;
+ And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find
+ For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.
+ WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,
+ As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;
+ But what, a God's name, doth become of this?
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath
+not,
+ But basely yielded upon compromise
+ That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.
+ More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
+ ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
+ WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
+ ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
+ His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
+ But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!
+ But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
+ 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.
+ ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
+ And unavoided is the danger now
+ For suffering so the causes of our wreck.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
+ I spy life peering; but I dare not say
+ How near the tidings of our comfort is.
+ WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.
+ ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.
+ We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,
+ Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay
+ In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence
+ That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
+ That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
+ His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
+ Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
+ Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-
+ All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,
+ With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
+ Are making hither with all due expedience,
+ And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.
+ Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
+ 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 blemish'd crown,
+ Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
+ And make high majesty look like itself,
+ Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
+ But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
+ Stay and be secret, and myself will go.
+ ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
+ WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
+ [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 2
+Windsor Castle
+
+[Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT]
+
+ BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
+ You promis'd, when you parted with the King,
+ To lay aside life-harming heaviness
+ And entertain a cheerful disposition.
+ QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself
+ I cannot do it; yet I know no cause
+ Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
+ Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
+ As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks
+ Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
+ Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
+ With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves
+ More than with parting from my lord the King.
+ BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
+ Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
+ For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
+ Divides one thing entire to many objects,
+ Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,
+ Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,
+ Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,
+ Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
+ Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;
+ Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows
+ Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,
+ More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;
+ Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,
+ Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
+ QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul
+ Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,
+ I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad
+ As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-
+ Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
+ BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
+ QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd
+ From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
+ For nothing hath begot my something grief,
+ Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;
+ 'Tis in reversion that I do possess-
+ But what it is that is not yet known what,
+ I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.
+
+ [Enter GREEN]
+
+ GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.
+ I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.
+ QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;
+ For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
+ Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?
+ GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power
+ And driven into despair an enemy's hope
+ Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
+ The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
+ And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd
+ At Ravenspurgh.
+ QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!
+ GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,
+ The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,
+ The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
+ With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
+ BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland
+ And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
+ GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester
+ Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,
+ And all the household servants fled with him
+ To Bolingbroke.
+ QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
+ And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.
+ Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;
+ And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
+ Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.
+ BUSHY. Despair not, madam.
+ QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?
+ I will despair, and be at enmity
+ With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,
+ A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
+ Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
+ Which false hope lingers in extremity.
+
+ [Enter YORK]
+
+ GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.
+ QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.
+ O, full of careful business are his looks!
+ Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.
+ YORK. 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.
+ Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
+ Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.
+
+ [Enter a SERVINGMAN]
+
+ SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.
+ YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!
+ The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold
+ And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.
+ Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;
+ Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
+ Hold, take my ring.
+ SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,
+ To-day, as I came by, I called there-
+ But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
+ YORK. What is't, knave?
+ SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
+ YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes
+ Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
+ I know not what to do. I would to God,
+ So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,
+ The King had cut off my head with my brother's.
+ What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?
+ How shall we do for money for these wars?
+ Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.
+ Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,
+ And bring away the armour that is there.
+ [Exit SERVINGMAN]
+ Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
+ If I know how or which way to order these affairs
+ Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
+ Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.
+ T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
+ And duty bids defend; t'other again
+ Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,
+ Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
+ Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,
+ I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men
+ And meet me presently at Berkeley.
+ I should to Plashy too,
+ But time will not permit. All is uneven,
+ And everything is left at six and seven.
+ [Exeunt YORK and QUEEN]
+ BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.
+ But none returns. For us to levy power
+ Proportionable to the enemy
+ Is all unpossible.
+ GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love
+ Is near the hate of those love not the King.
+ BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love
+ Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,
+ By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
+ BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.
+ BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
+ Because we ever have been near the King.
+ GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.
+ The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
+ BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office
+ Will the hateful commons perform for us,
+ Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.
+ Will you go along with us?
+ BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.
+ Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,
+ We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.
+ BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
+ GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes
+ Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.
+ Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
+ Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.
+ BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.
+ BAGOT. I fear me, never. Exeunt
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 3
+Gloucestershire
+
+[Enter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,
+ I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.
+ These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
+ Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;
+ And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
+ Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
+ But I bethink me what a weary way
+ From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found
+ In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,
+ Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd
+ The tediousness and process of my travel.
+ But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have
+ The present benefit which I possess;
+ And hope to joy is little less in joy
+ Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords
+ Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done
+ By sight of what I have, your noble company.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company
+ Than your good words. But who comes here?
+
+ [Enter HARRY PERCY]
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,
+ Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.
+ Harry, how fares your uncle?
+ PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of
+you.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?
+ PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,
+ Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd
+ The household of the King.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?
+ He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.
+ PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.
+ But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,
+ To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;
+ And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover
+ What power the Duke of York had levied there;
+ Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?
+ PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot
+ Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,
+ I never in my life did look on him.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.
+ PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,
+ Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;
+ Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm
+ To more approved service and desert.
+ BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure
+ I count myself in nothing else so happy
+ As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
+ And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
+ It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
+ My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir
+ Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
+ PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,
+ Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;
+ And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-
+ None else of name and noble estimate.
+
+ [Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY]
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,
+ Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues
+ A banish'd traitor. All my treasury
+ Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,
+ Shall be your love and labour's recompense.
+ ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
+ WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;
+ Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
+ Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?
+
+ [Enter BERKELEY]
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
+ BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.
+ BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';
+ And I am come to seek that name in England;
+ And I must find that title in your tongue
+ Before I make reply to aught you say.
+ BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning
+ To raze one title of your honour out.
+ To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-
+ From the most gracious regent of this land,
+ The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
+ To take advantage of the absent time,
+ And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.
+
+ [Enter YORK, attended]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;
+ Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!
+ [Kneels]
+ YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
+ Whose duty is deceivable and false.
+ BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-
+ YORK. Tut, tut!
+ Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
+ I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'
+ In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
+ Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs
+ Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?
+ But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march
+ So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
+ Frighting her pale-fac'd 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 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,
+ Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the
+ And minister correction to thy fault!
+ BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;
+ On what condition stands it and wherein?
+ YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-
+ In gross rebellion and detested treason.
+ Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come
+ Before the expiration of thy time,
+ In braving arms against thy sovereign.
+ BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd 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 condemn'd
+ A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties
+ Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away
+ To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
+ If that my cousin king be King in 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 should have found his uncle Gaunt a father
+ To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
+ I am denied to sue my livery here,
+ And yet my letters patents give me leave.
+ My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;
+ And these and all are all amiss employ'd.
+ 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.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.
+ ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.
+ WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.
+ YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:
+ I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,
+ And labour'd 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.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is
+ But for his own; and for the right of that
+ We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;
+ And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!
+ YORK. Well, well, 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;
+ Unless you please to enter in the castle,
+ And there repose you for this night.
+ BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
+ But we must win your Grace to go with us
+ To Bristow Castle, which they say is held
+ By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
+ The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
+ Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
+ YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,
+ For I am loath to break our country's laws.
+ Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.
+ Things past redress are now with me past care. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 4
+A camp in Wales
+
+[Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN]
+
+ CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days
+ And hardly kept our countrymen together,
+ And yet we hear no tidings from the King;
+ Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
+ SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;
+ The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
+ CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
+ The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,
+ And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
+ The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
+ And lean-look'd 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 assur'd Richard their King is dead. [Exit
+]
+ SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,
+ I see thy glory like a shooting star
+ Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
+ The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
+ Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;
+ Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;
+ And crossly to thy good all fortune goes. [Exit]
+
+
+
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+ACT 3 SCENE 1
+BOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol
+
+[Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS,
+WILLOUGHBY,
+BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.
+ 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 stain'd 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 stoop'd my neck under your injuries
+ And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
+ Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
+ Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
+ Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,
+ From my own windows torn my household coat,
+ Raz'd 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.
+ BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me
+ Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
+ GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
+ And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
+ BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.
+ [Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners]
+ Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;
+ For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.
+ Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
+ Take special care my greetings be delivered.
+ YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd
+ With letters of your love to her at large.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
+ To fight with Glendower and his complices.
+ Awhile to work, and after holiday. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 2
+The coast of Wales. A castle in view
+
+[Drums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF
+CARLISLE,
+AUMERLE, and soldiers]
+
+ KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle call they this at hand?
+ AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air
+ After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
+ KING RICHARD. 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
+ Which 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,
+ Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
+ Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.
+ 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.
+ CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king
+ Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
+ The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd
+ And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
+ And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
+ The proffered means of succour and redress.
+ AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
+ Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
+ Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
+ KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st 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
+ In murders and in outrage boldly here;
+ But when from under 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,
+ The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
+ Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
+ So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
+ Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
+ Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,
+ Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
+ His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
+ Not able to endure the sight of day,
+ But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.
+ Not all the water in the rough rude sea
+ Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
+ The breath of worldly men cannot depose
+ The deputy elected by the Lord.
+ For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
+ 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.
+
+ [Enter SALISBURY]
+
+ Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
+ SALISBURY. 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!
+ To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,
+ O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
+ For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
+ Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.
+ AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?
+ KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men
+ Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
+ And, till so much 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.
+ AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.
+ KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?
+ Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
+ Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?
+ 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?
+
+ [Enter SCROOP]
+
+ SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege
+ Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.
+ KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.
+ 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; if he serve God,
+ We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.
+ 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.
+ SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd
+ To bear the tidings of calamity.
+ Like an unseasonable stormy day
+ Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
+ As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,
+ So high above his limits swells the rage
+ Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
+ With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
+ White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
+ Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,
+ Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
+ In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
+ Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
+ Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
+ Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
+ Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
+ And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
+ KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.
+ Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
+ What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?
+ That they have let the dangerous enemy
+ Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
+ If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
+ I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
+ SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
+ KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!
+ Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
+ Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
+ Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
+ Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war
+ Upon their spotted souls for this offence!
+ SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
+ Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
+ Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
+ With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse
+ Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound
+ And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.
+ AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
+ SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.
+ AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?
+ KING RICHARD. 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 can 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 depos'd, some slain in war,
+ Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,
+ Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,
+ All murder'd-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 monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
+ Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
+ As if this flesh which walls about our life
+ Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd 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?
+ CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
+ But presently prevent the ways to wail.
+ To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
+ Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,
+ And so your follies fight against yourself.
+ Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;
+ And fight and die is death destroying death,
+ Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
+ AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,
+ And learn to make a body of a limb.
+ KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
+ To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
+ This ague fit of fear is over-blown;
+ 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.
+ SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky
+ The state in 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 join'd with Bolingbroke;
+ And all your northern castles yielded up,
+ And all your southern gentlemen in arms
+ Upon his party.
+ KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.
+ [To AUMERLE] 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.
+ That power I have, discharge; and let them go
+ To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
+ For I have none. Let no man speak again
+ To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
+ AUMERLE. My liege, one word.
+ KING RICHARD. 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. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 3
+Wales. Before Flint Castle
+
+[Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND,
+and forces]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn
+ The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury
+ Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
+ With some few private friends upon this coast.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.
+ Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
+ YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
+ To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day
+ When such a sacred king should hide his head!
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,
+ Left I his title out.
+ YORK. The time hath been,
+ Would you have been so brief with him, he would
+ Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
+ For taking so the head, your whole head's length.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
+ YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
+ Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.
+ BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself
+ Against their will. But who comes here?
+
+ [Enter PERCY]
+
+ Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
+ PERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,
+ Against thy entrance.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Royally!
+ Why, it contains no king?
+ PERCY. 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, Lord Salisbury,
+ Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
+ Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
+ BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,
+ Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
+ Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
+ Into his ruin'd 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 repeal'd
+ And lands restor'd again be freely granted;
+ If not, I'll use the advantage of my power
+ And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
+ Rain'd 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, while here we march
+ Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
+ [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a
+trumpet]
+ Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,
+ That from this castle's tottered battlements
+ Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.
+ Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
+ With no less terror than the elements
+ Of fire and water, when their thund'ring 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.
+
+ [Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.
+ Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
+ AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY]
+
+ See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
+ As doth the blushing discontented sun
+ From out the fiery portal of the east,
+ When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
+ To dim his glory and to stain the track
+ Of his bright passage to the occident.
+ YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,
+ As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
+ Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,
+ That any harm should stain so fair a show!
+ KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; 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?
+ If we be not, show us the hand of God
+ That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;
+ For well we know no hand of blood and bone
+ Can gripe 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 yon 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.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King
+ Should so with civil and uncivil arms
+ Be rush'd 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 royalties of both your bloods,
+ Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
+ And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
+ And by the worth and honour of himself,
+ Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
+ His coming hither hath no further scope
+ Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
+ Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;
+ Which on thy royal party granted once,
+ His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
+ His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
+ To faithful service of your Majesty.
+ This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;
+ And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
+ KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:
+ His noble cousin is right welcome hither;
+ And all the number of his fair demands
+ Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.
+ With all the gracious utterance thou hast
+ Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
+ [To AUMERLE] 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?
+ AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words
+ Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
+ KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'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.
+ AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
+ KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?
+ The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?
+ The King shall be contented. Must he lose
+ The name of king? A God's name, let it go.
+ I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
+ My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
+ My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
+ My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,
+ My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
+ My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
+ And my large kingdom for a little grave,
+ A little little grave, an obscure grave-
+ Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,
+ 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 digg'd 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? Will his Majesty
+ Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
+ You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend
+ To speak with you; may it please you to come down?
+ KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,
+ 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.
+ [Exeunt from above]
+ BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart
+ Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;
+ Yet he is come.
+
+ [Enter the KING, and his attendants, below]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,
+ And show fair duty to his Majesty. [He kneels down]
+ My gracious lord-
+ KING RICHARD. 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 unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.
+ Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
+ [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your
+ knee be low.
+ BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
+ KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
+ BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
+ As my true service shall deserve your love.
+ KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
+ That know the strong'st and surest way to get.
+ Uncle, give me your hands; 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?
+ BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.
+ KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no. [Flourish. Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 4
+The DUKE OF YORK's garden
+
+[Enter the QUEEN and two LADIES]
+
+ QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden
+ To drive away the heavy thought of care?
+ LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.
+ QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
+ And that my fortune runs against the bias.
+ LADY. Madam, we'll dance.
+ QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,
+ When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;
+ Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.
+ LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.
+ QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?
+ LADY. Of either, madam.
+ QUEEN. Of neither, girl;
+ For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
+ It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
+ Or if of grief, being altogether had,
+ It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;
+ For what I have I need not to repeat,
+ And what I want it boots not to complain.
+ LADY. Madam, I'll sing.
+ QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;
+ But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
+ LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
+ QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
+ And never borrow any tear of thee.
+
+ [Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS]
+
+ But stay, here come the gardeners.
+ Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
+ My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
+ They will talk of state, for every one doth so
+ Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.
+ [QUEEN and LADIES retire]
+ GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
+ Which, like unruly children, make their sire
+ Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;
+ Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
+ 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.
+ You thus employ'd, I will go root away
+ The noisome weeds which without profit suck
+ The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
+ SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
+ Keep law and form and due proportion,
+ Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
+ When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
+ Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
+ Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
+ Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
+ Swarming with caterpillars?
+ GARDENER. Hold thy peace.
+ He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
+ Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;
+ The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
+ That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
+ Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-
+ I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
+ SERVANT. What, are they dead?
+ GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke
+ Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
+ That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
+ As we this garden! We at time of year
+ Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
+ Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
+ With too much riches it confound itself;
+ Had he done so to great and growing men,
+ They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
+ Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
+ We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
+ Had he done so, himself had home the crown,
+ Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
+ SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?
+ GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd
+ 'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
+ To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's
+ That tell black tidings.
+ QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!
+ [Coming forward]
+ Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
+ 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 depos'd?
+ Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
+ Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
+ Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.
+ GARDENER. 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 weigh'd.
+ In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
+ And some few vanities that make him light;
+ 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 one doth know.
+ QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
+ Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
+ And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
+ To serve me last, that I may longest keep
+ Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
+ To meet at London London's King in woe.
+ What, was I born to this, that my sad look
+ Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
+ Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,
+ Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!
+ [Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES]
+ GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
+ I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
+ Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
+ I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
+ Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
+ In the remembrance of a weeping queen. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+ACT 4 SCENE 1
+Westminster Hall
+
+[Enter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE,
+NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY,
+FITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF
+WESTMINSTER,
+and others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.
+ Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-
+ What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;
+ Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd
+ The bloody office of his timeless end.
+ BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
+ BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
+ Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.
+ In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted
+ I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,
+ That reacheth from the restful English Court
+ As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'
+ Amongst much other talk that very time
+ I heard you say that you had rather refuse
+ The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
+ Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
+ Adding withal, how blest this land would be
+ In this your cousin's death.
+ AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,
+ What answer shall I make to this base man?
+ Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars
+ On equal terms to give him chastisement?
+ Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd
+ With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
+ There is my gage, the manual seal of death
+ That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,
+ And will maintain what thou hast said is false
+ In thy heart-blood, through being all too base
+ To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.
+ AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best
+ In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.
+ FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,
+ There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.
+ By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
+ I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
+ That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.
+ If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;
+ And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
+ Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
+ AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.
+ FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
+ AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
+ PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
+ In this appeal as thou art an unjust;
+ And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
+ To prove it on thee to the extremest point
+ Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.
+ AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot off
+ And never brandish more revengeful steel
+ Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
+ ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
+ And spur thee on with full as many lies
+ As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear
+ From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;
+ Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.
+ AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!
+ I have a thousand spirits in one breast
+ To answer twenty thousand such as you.
+ SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
+ The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
+ FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,
+ And you can witness with me this is true.
+ SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
+ FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.
+ SURREY. Dishonourable boy!
+ That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
+ That it shall render vengeance and revenge
+ Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie
+ In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.
+ In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
+ Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.
+ FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
+ If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
+ I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,
+ And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,
+ And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,
+ To tie thee to my strong correction.
+ As I intend to thrive in this new world,
+ Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.
+ Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say
+ That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men
+ To execute the noble Duke at Calais.
+ AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage
+ That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,
+ If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.
+ BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage
+ Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be
+ And, though mine enemy, restor'd again
+ To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,
+ Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
+ CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.
+ Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
+ For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
+ Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
+ Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;
+ And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
+ To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
+ His body to that pleasant country's earth,
+ And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
+ Under whose colours he had fought so long.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
+ CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
+ Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
+ Your differences shall all rest under gage
+ Till we assign you to your days of trial
+
+ [Enter YORK, attended]
+
+ YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the
+ From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul
+ Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
+ To the possession of thy royal hand.
+ Ascend his throne, descending now from him-
+ And long live Henry, fourth of that name!
+ BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.
+ CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!
+ Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
+ Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
+ Would God that any in this noble presence
+ Were enough noble to be upright judge
+ Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would
+ Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
+ What subject can give sentence on his king?
+ And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
+ Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,
+ Although apparent guilt be seen in them;
+ And shall the figure of God's majesty,
+ His captain, steward, deputy elect,
+ Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
+ Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,
+ And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,
+ That in a Christian climate souls refin'd
+ Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
+ I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
+ Stirr'd 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 call'd
+ 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.
+ Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
+ Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. 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.
+ May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?
+ BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
+ He may surrender; so we shall proceed
+ Without suspicion.
+ YORK. I will be his conduct. [Exit]
+ BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
+ Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
+ Little are we beholding to your love,
+ And little look'd for at your helping hands.
+
+ [Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS
+ bearing the regalia]
+
+ KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,
+ Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
+ Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd
+ To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
+ Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
+ To this submission. Yet I well remember
+ The favours of these men. Were they not mine?
+ Did they not sometime 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?
+ 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?
+ YORK. 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.
+ KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
+ Here, cousin,
+ On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
+ 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.
+ KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.
+ You may my glories and my state depose,
+ But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
+ KING RICHARD. 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?
+ KING RICHARD. 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:
+ I give this heavy weight from off my head,
+ And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
+ 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 duteous oaths;
+ All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
+ My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;
+ My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.
+ God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
+ God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!
+ Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,
+ And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.
+ Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
+ And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.
+ God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,
+ And send him many years of sunshine days!
+ What more remains?
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read
+ These accusations, and these grievous crimes
+ Committed by your person and your followers
+ Against the state and profit of this land;
+ That, by confessing them, the souls of men
+ May deem that you are worthily depos'd.
+ KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out
+ My weav'd-up follies? 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
+ And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,
+ Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.
+ Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me
+ 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 deliver'd me to my sour cross,
+ And water cannot wash away your sin.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these
+ articles.
+ KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.
+ And yet salt water blinds them not so much
+ But 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
+ T'undeck the pompous body of a king;
+ Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,
+ Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-
+ KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,
+ Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title-
+ No, not that name was given me at the font-
+ But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,
+ That I have worn so many winters out,
+ And know not now what name to call myself!
+ O that I were a mockery king of snow,
+ Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke
+ To melt myself away in water drops!
+ Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,
+ 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
+ [Exit an attendant]
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
+ KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.
+ KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,
+ When I do see the very book indeed
+ Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
+
+ [Re-enter attendant with glass]
+
+ Give me that 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 flatt'ring glass,
+ Like to my followers in prosperity,
+ Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face
+ That every day under his household roof
+ Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
+ That like the sun did make beholders wink?
+ Is this the face which fac'd so many follies
+ That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?
+ A brittle glory shineth in this face;
+ As brittle as the glory is the face;
+ [Dashes the glass against the ground]
+ For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.
+ Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-
+ How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.
+ BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd
+ The shadow of your face.
+ KING RICHARD. Say that again.
+ The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.
+ 'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;
+ And these external manner of laments
+ Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
+ That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.
+ There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,
+ For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st
+ 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?
+ BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.
+ KING RICHARD. 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.
+ KING RICHARD. And shall I have?
+ BOLINGBROKE. You shall.
+ KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Whither?
+ KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.
+ KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,
+ That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
+ [Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard]
+ BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
+ Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.
+ [Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the
+ BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE]
+ ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
+ CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
+ Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
+ AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot
+ To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
+ ABBOT. My lord,
+ Before I freely speak my mind herein,
+ You shall not only take the sacrament
+ To bury mine intents, but also to effect
+ Whatever I shall happen to devise.
+ I see your brows are full of discontent,
+ Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
+ Come home with me to supper; I will lay
+ A plot shall show us all a merry day. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+ACT 5 SCENE 1
+London. A street leading to the Tower
+
+[Enter the QUEEN, with her attendants]
+
+ QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way
+ To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,
+ To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
+ Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
+ Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
+ Have any resting for her true King's queen.
+
+ [Enter KING RICHARD and Guard]
+
+ But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
+ My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,
+ That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
+ And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
+ Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
+ Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
+ And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
+ Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
+ When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
+ KING RICHARD. 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 awak'd, the truth of what we are
+ Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
+ To grim Necessity; and he and
+ Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
+ And cloister thee in some religious house.
+ Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
+ Which our profane hours here have thrown down.
+ QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
+ Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd
+ Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
+ The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
+ And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
+ To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
+ Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,
+ And fawn on rage with base humility,
+ Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
+ KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,
+ I had been still a happy king of men.
+ Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
+ Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,
+ As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
+ In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire
+ With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
+ Of woeful ages long ago betid;
+ And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs
+ Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
+ And send the hearers weeping to their beds;
+ For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
+ The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
+ And in compassion weep the fire out;
+ And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
+ For the deposing of a rightful king.
+
+ [Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended]
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;
+ You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
+ And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:
+ With all swift speed you must away to France.
+ KING RICHARD. 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
+ Shall 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 knowest the way
+ To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
+ Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
+ To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
+ The love of wicked men converts to fear;
+ That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both
+ To worthy danger and deserved death.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
+ Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.
+ KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate
+ A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,
+ And then betwixt me and my married wife.
+ Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
+ And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.
+ Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,
+ Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
+ My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
+ She came adorned hither like sweet May,
+ Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.
+ QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?
+ KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from
+heart.
+ QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.
+ QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.
+ KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.
+ Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
+ Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.
+ Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.
+ QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.
+ KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being
+short,
+ And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
+ Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
+ Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
+ One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
+ Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
+ QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part
+ To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
+ So, now I have mine own again, be gone.
+ That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
+ KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.
+ Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 2
+The DUKE OF YORK's palace
+
+[Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS]
+
+ DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
+ When weeping made you break the story off,
+ Of our two cousins' coming into London.
+ YORK. Where did I leave?
+ DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,
+ Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops
+ Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.
+ YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,
+ Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
+ Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,
+ With slow but stately pace kept on his course,
+ Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'
+ You would have thought the very windows spake,
+ So many greedy looks of young and old
+ Through casements darted their desiring eyes
+ Upon his visage; and that all the walls
+ With painted imagery had said at once
+ 'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'
+ Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,
+ Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
+ Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'
+ And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.
+ DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?
+ YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men
+ After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage
+ Are idly bent on him that enters next,
+ Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
+ Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
+ Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'
+ No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
+ But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
+ Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
+ His face still combating with tears and smiles,
+ The badges of his grief and patience,
+ That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
+ The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
+ And barbarism itself have pitied him.
+ But heaven hath a hand in these events,
+ To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
+ To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
+ Whose state and honour I for aye allow.
+ DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.
+ YORK. Aumerle that was
+ But that is lost for being Richard's friend,
+ And madam, you must call him Rudand now.
+ I am in Parliament pledge for his truth
+ And lasting fealty to the new-made king.
+
+ [Enter AUMERLE]
+
+ DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now
+ That strew the green lap of the new come spring?
+ AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.
+ God knows I had as lief be none as one.
+ YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,
+ Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.
+ What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?
+ AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.
+ YORK. You will be there, I know.
+ AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.
+ YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?
+ Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.
+ AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.
+ YORK. No matter, then, who see it.
+ I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.
+ AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;
+ It is a matter of small consequence
+ Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
+ YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.
+ I fear, I fear-
+ DUCHESS. What should you fear?
+ 'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into
+ For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.
+ YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond
+ That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.
+ Boy, let me see the writing.
+ AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.
+ YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.
+ [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]
+ Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!
+ DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?
+ YORK. Ho! who is within there?
+
+ [Enter a servant]
+
+ Saddle my horse.
+ God for his mercy, what treachery is here!
+ DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?
+ YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.
+ [Exit servant]
+ Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,
+ I will appeach the villain.
+ DUCHESS. What is the matter?
+ YORK. Peace, foolish woman.
+ DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?
+ AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more
+ Than my poor life must answer.
+ DUCHESS. Thy life answer!
+ YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.
+
+ [His man enters with his boots]
+
+ DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.
+ Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.
+ YORK. Give me my boots, I say.
+ DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?
+ Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?
+ Have we more sons? or are we like to have?
+ Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?
+ And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age
+ And rob me of a happy mother's name?
+ Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
+ YORK. Thou fond mad woman,
+ Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?
+ A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,
+ And interchangeably set down their hands
+ To kill the King at Oxford.
+ DUCHESS. He shall be none;
+ We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?
+ YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son
+ I would appeach him.
+ DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him
+ As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.
+ But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect
+ That I have been disloyal to thy bed
+ And that he is a bastard, not thy son.
+ Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.
+ He is as like thee as a man may be
+ Not like to me, or any of my kin,
+ And yet I love him.
+ YORK. Make way, unruly woman! [Exit]
+ DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;
+ Spur post, and get before him to the King,
+ And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.
+ I'll not be long behind; though I be old,
+ I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;
+ And never will I rise up from the ground
+ Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.
+ [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 3
+Windsor Castle
+
+[Enter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?
+ 'Tis full three months since I did see him last.
+ If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.
+ I would to God, my lords, he might be found.
+ Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,
+ For there, they say, he daily doth frequent
+ With unrestrained loose companions,
+ Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes
+ And beat our watch and rob our passengers,
+ Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,
+ Takes on the point of honour to support
+ So dissolute a crew.
+ PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,
+ And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
+ BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?
+ PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,
+ And from the common'st creature pluck a glove
+ And wear it as a favour; and with that
+ He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
+ BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both
+ I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years
+ May happily bring forth. But who comes here?
+
+ [Enter AUMERLE amazed]
+
+ AUMERLE. Where is the King?
+ BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks
+ So wildly?
+ AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,
+ To have some conference with your Grace alone.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
+ [Exeunt PERCY and LORDS]
+ What is the matter with our cousin now?
+ AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
+ [Kneels]
+ My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,
+ Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?
+ If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,
+ To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
+ AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
+ That no man enter till my tale be done.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.
+ [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]
+ YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;
+ Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
+ BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.
+ AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.
+ YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.
+ Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?
+ Open the door, or I will break it open.
+
+ [Enter YORK]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;
+ Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,
+ That we may arm us to encounter it.
+ YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
+ The treason that my haste forbids me show.
+ AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.
+ I do repent me; read not my name there;
+ My heart is not confederate with my hand.
+ YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
+ I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;
+ Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
+ Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove
+ A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
+ BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!
+ O loyal father of a treacherous son!
+ Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,
+ From whence this stream through muddy passages
+ Hath held his current and defil'd himself!
+ Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
+ And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
+ This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
+ YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;
+ And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
+ As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.
+ Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
+ Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.
+ Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,
+ The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
+ DUCHESS. [Within] What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me in.
+ BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?
+ DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.
+ Speak with me, pity me, open the door.
+ A beggar begs that never begg'd before.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,
+ And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'
+ My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.
+ I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.
+ YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,
+ More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
+ This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
+ This let alone will all the rest confound.
+
+ [Enter DUCHESS]
+
+ DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!
+ Love loving not itself, none other can.
+ YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?
+ Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
+ DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.
+ [Kneels]
+ BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.
+ DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.
+ For ever will I walk upon my knees,
+ And never see day that the happy sees
+ Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy
+ By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
+ AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.
+ [Kneels]
+ YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.
+ [Kneels]
+ Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!
+ DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;
+ His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;
+ His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.
+ He prays but faintly and would be denied;
+ We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.
+ His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
+ Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.
+ His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;
+ Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.
+ Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have
+ That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.
+ DUCHESS. Nay, do not say 'stand up';
+ Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'
+ An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
+ 'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.
+ I never 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.
+ YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'
+ DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
+ Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
+ That sets the word itself against the word!
+ Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;
+ The chopping French we do not understand.
+ Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;
+ Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
+ That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
+ Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.
+ DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;
+ Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
+ BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
+ DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
+ Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.
+ Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,
+ But makes one pardon strong.
+ BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart
+ I pardon him.
+ DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.
+ BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,
+ With all the rest of that consorted crew,
+ Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
+ Good uncle, help to order several powers
+ To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.
+ They shall not live within this world, I swear,
+ But I will have them, if I once know where.
+ Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;
+ Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
+ DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.
+ [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 4
+Windsor Castle
+
+[Enter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant]
+
+ EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?
+ 'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
+ Was it not so?
+ SERVANT. These were his very words.
+ EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice
+ And urg'd it twice together, did he not?
+ SERVANT. He did.
+ EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,
+ As who should say 'I would thou wert the man
+ That would divorce this terror from my heart';
+ Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.
+ I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 5
+Pomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle
+
+[Enter KING RICHARD]
+
+ KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare
+ This prison where I live unto the world
+ And, for because the world is populous
+ And here is not a creature but myself,
+ I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
+ My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
+ My soul the father; and these two beget
+ A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
+ And these same thoughts people this little world,
+ In humours like the people of this world,
+ For no thought is contented. The better sort,
+ As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
+ With scruples, and do set the word itself
+ Against the word,
+ As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,
+ 'It is as hard to come as for a camel
+ To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
+ Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
+ Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
+ May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
+ Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
+ And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
+ Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
+ That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
+ Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
+ Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,
+ That many have and others must sit there;
+ And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
+ Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
+ Of such as have before endur'd the like.
+ Thus play I in one person many people,
+ And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
+ Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
+ And so I am. Then crushing penury
+ Persuades me I was better when a king;
+ Then am I king'd again; and by and by
+ Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
+ And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,
+ Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
+ With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd
+ With being nothing. [The music plays]
+ Music do I hear?
+ Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is
+ When time is broke and no proportion kept!
+ So is it in the music of men's lives.
+ And here have I the daintiness of ear
+ To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
+ But, for the concord of my state and time,
+ Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
+ I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
+ For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
+ My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
+ Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
+ Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
+ Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
+ Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
+ Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
+ Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,
+ Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time
+ Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
+ While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.
+ This music mads me. Let it sound no more;
+ For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
+ In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
+ Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
+ For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
+ Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
+
+ [Enter a GROOM of the stable]
+
+ GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!
+ KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!
+ The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
+ What art thou? and how comest thou hither,
+ Where no man never comes but that sad dog
+ That brings me food to make misfortune live?
+ GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,
+ When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
+ With much ado at length have gotten leave
+ To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
+ O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,
+ In London streets, that coronation-day,
+ When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-
+ That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
+ That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
+ KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
+ How went he under him?
+ GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.
+ KING RICHARD. 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 aw'd by man,
+ Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
+ And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
+ Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.
+
+ [Enter KEEPER with meat]
+
+ KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.
+ KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
+ GROOM. My tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. [Exit]
+ KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?
+ KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.
+ KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,
+ Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
+ KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
+ Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
+ [Beats the KEEPER]
+ KEEPER. Help, help, help!
+ [The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed]
+ KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?
+ Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.
+ [Snatching a weapon and killing one]
+ Go thou and fill another room in hell.
+ [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]
+ That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
+ That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
+ Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.
+ Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
+ Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
+ [Dies]
+ EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.
+ Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!
+ For now the devil, that told me I did well,
+ Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
+ This dead King to the living King I'll bear.
+ Take hence the rest, and give them burial here. [Exeunt]
+
+
+
+
+SCENE 6
+Windsor Castle
+
+[Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS
+and attendants]
+
+ BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
+ Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire
+ Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;
+ But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.
+
+ [Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]
+
+ Welcome, my lord. What is the news?
+ NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all
+happiness.
+ The next news is, I have to London sent
+ The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.
+ The manner of their taking may appear
+ At large discoursed in this paper here.
+ BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;
+ And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
+
+ [Enter FITZWATER]
+
+ FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
+ The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;
+ Two of the dangerous consorted traitors
+ That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
+ Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
+
+ [Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE]
+
+ PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
+ With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,
+ Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
+ But here is Carlisle living, to abide
+ Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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 liv'st in peace, die free from strife;
+ For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
+ High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
+
+ [Enter EXTON, with attendants, bearing a coffin]
+
+ EXTON. Great King, 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.
+ BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
+ A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
+ Upon my head and all this famous land.
+ EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
+ BOLINGBROKE. 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.
+ The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
+ But neither my good word nor princely favour;
+ With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
+ And never show thy head by day nor light.
+ 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.
+ March sadly after; grace my mournings here
+ In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt]
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
+SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
+PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
+WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
+DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
+PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
+COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
+SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, King Richard the
+Second
+
diff --git a/1776.zip b/1776.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de376e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1776.zip
Binary files differ
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d48e7eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #1776 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1776)