RICHARD II

by Shakespeare · Cluster: Crown · Pride · Fortune’s Wheel

Abstract

Lyrical history play, entirely in verse, on the deposition and murder of the introverted King Richard II by Bolingbroke. Central themes: kingship and legitimacy, the divine right and fall of a king, identity, time, and the deposition’s political resonance.

Capitoli / Chapters

• Act I, Scene 1
• Act I, Scene 2
• Act I, Scene 3
• Act I, Scene 4
• Act II, Scene 1
• Act II, Scene 2
• Act II, Scene 3
• Act II, Scene 4
• Act III, Scene 1
• Act III, Scene 3
• Act III, Scene 4
• Act IV, Scene 1
• Act V, Scene 1
• Act V, Scene 2
• Act V, Scene 3
• Act V, Scene 4
• Act V, Scene 5

Connections

Topoi: Fortune’s Wheel, Great Chain of Being Archetypes: King, Usurper Motifs: Crown, Mirror, Garden Themes & Concepts: Kingship and Legitimacy, Power and Corruption, Identity, Guilt, Providence, Order vs Chaos, Grief and Loss Forms & Genres: History Play, Tragedy, Blank Verse, Lyric Historical References: Medieval England Settings: Court Characters: Richard II, Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt, Duke of York, Queen Isabel, Duke of Aumerle, Mowbray

Testo integrale / Full text

RICHARD II THE subject matter of Richard II seemed inflammatorily topical to Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Richard, who had notoriously indulged his favourites, had been compelled to yield his throne to Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Hereford: like Richard, the ageing Queen Elizabeth had no obvious successor, and she too encouraged favourites—such as the Earl of Essex—who might aspire to the throne. When Shakespeare’s play first appeared in print (in 1597), and in the two succeeding editions printed during Elizabeth’s life, the episode (4.1.145-308) showing Richard yielding the crown was omitted, and in 1601, on the day before Essex led his ill-fated rebellion against Elizabeth, his fellow conspirators commissioned a special performance in the hope of arousing popular support, even though the play was said to be ‘long out of use’—surprisingly, since it was probably written no earlier than 1595. But Shakespeare introduced no obvious topicality into his dramatization of Richard’s reign, for which he read widely while using Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577, revised and enlarged in 1587) as his main source of information. In choosing to write about Richard II (1367―1400) he was returning to the beginning of the story whose ending he had staged in Richard III; for Bolingbroke’s usurpation of the throne to which Richard’s hereditary right was indisputable had set in train the series of events finally expiated only in the union of the houses of York and Lancaster celebrated in the last speech of Richard III. Like Richard III, this is a tragical history, focusing on a single character; but Richard II is a far more introverted and morally ambiguous figure than Richard III. In this play, written entirely in verse, Shakespeare forgoes stylistic variety in favour of an intense, plangent lyricism. Our early impressions of Richard are unsympathetic. Having banished Mowbray and Bolingbroke, he behaves callously to Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, a stern upholder of the old order to whose warning against his irresponsible behaviour he pays no attention, and upon Gaunt’s death confiscates his property with no regard for Bolingbroke’s rights. During Richard’s absence on an Irish campaign, Bolingbroke returns to England and gains support in his efforts to claim his inheritance. Gradually, as the balance of power shifts, Richard makes deeper claims on the audience’s sympathy. When he confronts Bolingbroke at Flint Castle (3.1) he eloquently laments his imminent deposition even though Bolingbroke insists that he comes only to claim what is his; soon afterwards (4.1.98-103) the Duke of York announces Richard’s abdication. The transference of power is effected in a scene of lyrical expansiveness, and Richard becomes a pitiable figure as he is led to imprisonment in Pomfret (Pontefract) Castle while his former queen is banished to France. Richard’s self-exploration reaches its climax in his soliloquy spoken shortly before his murder at the hands of Piers Exton; at the end of the play, Henry, anxious and guilt-laden, denies responsibility for the murder and plans an expiatory pilgrimage to the Holy Land. THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY KING RICHARD II The QUEEN, his wife JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster, Richard’s uncle Harry BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, John of Gaunt’s son, later KING HENRY IV DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Gaunt’s and York’s brother Duke of YORK, King Richard’s uncle DUCHESS OF YORK Duke of AUMERLE, their son Thomas MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk Lord BERKELEY Lord FITZWALTER Duke of SURREY ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER Sir Piers EXTON LORD MARSHAL HERALDS CAPTAIN of the Welsh army LADIES attending the Queen GARDENER Gardener’s MEN Exton’s MEN KEEPER of the prison at Pomfret GROOM of King Richard’s stable, Lords, soldiers, attendants

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

Atto 1, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter King Richard and John of Gaunt, with the Lord Marshal, other nobles, and attendants
KING RICHARD	Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, Hast thou according to thy oath and bond 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?
JOHN OF 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?
JOHN OF GAUNT	As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some apparent danger seen in him Aimed at your highness, no inveterate malice.
KING RICHARD	Then call them to our presence. [Exit one or more] Face to face And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear The accuser and the accused freely speak. High-stomached are they both and full of ire; In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
(didascalia)	Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Hereford, and Mowbray Duke of Norfolk
BOLINGBROKE	Many years of happy days befall My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
MOWBRAY	Each day still better others’ 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 cooled for this. Yet can I not of such tame patience boast As to be hushed and naught 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 returned 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, Wherever Englishman durst set his foot. Meantime let this defend my loyalty: By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLINGBROKE	(throwing down his gage) 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 worse devise.
MOWBRAY	(taking up the gage) 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	(to Bolingbroke) 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 received eight thousand nobles In name of lendings for your highness’ soldiers, The which he hath detained for lewd employments, Like a false traitor and injurious villain. Besides I say, and will in battle prove, Or here or elsewhere, to the furthest verge That ever was surveyed 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, Sluiced 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 sayst 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 Disbursed I duly to his highness’ soldiers. The other part reserved 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 received the Sacrament I did confess it, and exactly begged Your grace’s pardon, and I hope I had it. This is my fault. As for the rest appealed, It issues from the rancour of a villain, A recreant and most degenerate traitor, Which in myself I boldly will defend, He throws down his gage And interchangeably hurl down my gage Upon this overweening traitor’s foot, To prove myself a loyal gentleman Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom; In haste whereof most heartily I pray Your highness to assign our trial day.
(didascalia)	Bolingbroke takes up the gage
KING RICHARD	Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me. Let’s purge this choler without letting blood. This we prescribe, though no physician: Deep malice makes too deep incision; Forget, forgive, conclude, and be agreed; Our doctors say this is no time to bleed. Good uncle, let this end where it begun. We’ll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
JOHN OF 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	When, Harry, when? Obedience bids I should not bid again.
KING RICHARD	Norfolk, throw down! We bid; there is no boot.
MOWBRAY	(kneeling) 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 disgraced, impeached, and baffled here, Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear, The which no balm can cure but his heart blood Which breathed this poison.
KING RICHARD	Rage must be withstood. Give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame.
(didascalia)	MOWBRAY standing
KING RICHARD	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 barred-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 down 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 out-dared 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.
(didascalia)	Exit John of 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 cannot 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 1, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, with the Duchess of Gloucester
JOHN OF GAUNT	Alas, the part I had in Gloucester’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 OF GLOUCESTER	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 cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt; Is hacked 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 fashioned thee, Made him a man; and though thou liv‘st 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 slaughtered Thou show’st 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	God’s is the quarrel; for God’s substitute, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caused his death; the which if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift An angry arm against his minister.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER	Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
JOHN OF GAUNT	To God, the widow’s champion and defence.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER	Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight. O, set 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	Sister, farewell. I must to Coventry. As much good stay with thee as go with me.
DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER	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 Pleshey visit me. Alack, and what shall good old York there see But empty lodgings and unfurnished 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 everywhere. Desolate, desolate will I hence and die. The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally

Atto 1, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Lord Marshal [with officers setting out chairs], and the Duke of Aumerle
LORD MARSHAL	My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?
AUMERLE	Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in.
LORD MARSHAL	The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold, Stays but the summons of the appellant’s trumpet.
AUMERLE	Why then, the champions are prepared, and stay For nothing but his majesty’s approach.
(didascalia)	The trumpets sound, and King Richard enters, with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Bushy, Bagot, Green,] and other nobles. When they are set, enter Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, defendant, in arms, Fand 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.
LORD MARSHAL	(to Mowbray) In God’s name and the King‘s, say who thou art, And why thou com’st 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!
(didascalia)	He sits.
(didascalia)	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.
LORD MARSHAL	(to Bolingbroke) 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!
(didascalia)	He sits
LORD 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.
(didascalia)	BOLINGBROKE standing
LORD MARSHAL	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.
LORD MARSHAL	(to King Richard) 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. He descends from his seat and embraces Bolingbroke Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is just, So be thy fortune in this royal fight. Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed, Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
BOLINGBROKE	O, let no noble eye profane a tear For me if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear. As confident as is the falcon’s flight Against a bird do I with Mowbray fight. (To the Lord Marshal) My loving lord, I take my leave of you; (To Aumerle) 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.
(didascalia)	(To Gaunt, kneeling O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
BOLINGBROKE	Whose youthful spirit in me regenerate Doth with a two-fold 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 a Gaunt Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
JOHN OF 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.
(didascalia)	BOLINGBROKE standing
JOHN OF GAUNT	Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
(didascalia)	MOWBRAY standing
JOHN OF GAUNT	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 uncontrolled 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.
LORD MARSHAL	Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!
(didascalia)	An officer bears a lance to Bolingbroke
BOLINGBROKE	Strong as a tower in hope, I cry ‘Amen!’
LORD MARSHAL	(to an officer) Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
(didascalia)	An officer bears a lance to Mowbray
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.
(didascalia)	Sound trumpets, and set forward combatants!
(didascalia)	A charge is sounded.
LORD MARSHAL	King Richard throws down his warder 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.
(didascalia)	Bolingbroke and Mowbray disarm and sit
KING RICHARD	(To the nobles) Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound While we return these dukes what we decree.
(didascalia)	A long flourish, during which King Richard and his nobles withdraw and hold council, then come forward]. King Richard addresses Bolingbroke and Mowbray
KING RICHARD	Draw near, and list what with our council we have done. For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled With that dear blood which it hath fostered, And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords, Which, so roused up with boist’rous untuned 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 enriched 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 unlooked-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 unstringèd viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
(didascalia)	Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
MOWBRAY	Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips, And dull unfeeling barren ignorance Is made my jailer 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 country’s light, To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
KING RICHARD	Return again, and take an oath with thee. (To both) Lay on our royal sword your banished hands. Swear by the duty that you owe to God— Our part therein we banish with yourselves— To keep the oath that we administer. You never shall, so help you truth and God, Embrace each other’s love in banishment, Nor never look upon each other’s face, Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile This low‘ring 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 wandered in the air, Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh, As now our flesh is banished 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 banished 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, all the world’s my way.
(didascalia)	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 banished years Plucked 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.
JOHN OF 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	But not a minute, King, that thou canst give. Shorten my days thou canst with sudden sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow. Thou canst 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 banished upon good advice, Whereto thy tongue a party verdict gave. Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour?
JOHN OF GAUNT	Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour. You urged me as a judge, but I had rather You would have bid me argue like a father. Alas, I looked 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.
(didascalia)	Flourish. Exeunt all but Aumerle, the Lord Marshal, John of Gaunt, and Bolingbroke
AUMERLE	(to Bolingbroke) Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know, From where you do remain let paper show. [Exit]
LORD MARSHAL	(to Bolingbroke) My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride As far as land will let me by your side.
JOHN OF GAUNT	(to Bolingbroke) O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return’st 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE	Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
JOHN OF GAUNT	What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE	To men in joy, but grief makes one hour ten.
JOHN OF 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home return.
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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way. Had I thy youth 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 banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 1, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter King Richard with Green and Bagot at one door, and the Lord 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 highway, 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 grew bitterly against our faces, Awaked 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 seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave. Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened hours And added years to his short banishment, He should have had a volume of farewells; But since it would not, he had none of me.
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 Observed 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 oysterwench. 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 yield 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 enforced to farm our royal realm, The revenue whereof shall furnish us For our affairs in hand. If that come short, Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters, Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich, They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold, And send them after to supply our wants; For we will make for Ireland presently.
(didascalia)	Enter Bushy
KING RICHARD	Bushy, what news?
BUSHY	Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord, Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste To entreat your majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD	Where lies he?
BUSHY	At Ely House.
KING RICHARD	Now put it, God, in his 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!
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 2, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, sick, carried in a chair, with the Duke of York
JOHN OF 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.
JOHN OF 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 listened more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose. More are men’s ends marked 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 stopped with other, flattering sounds, As praises of whose taste the wise are feared, 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 buzzed 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.
JOHN OF GAUNT	Methinks I am a prophet new-inspired, 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 sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Feared 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 leased 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!
(didascalia)	Enter King Richard and the Queen; the Duke of Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Lord Ross, and Lord Willoughby
YORK	The King is come. Deal mildly with his youth, For young hot colts, being reined, do rage the more.
QUEEN	How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
KING RICHARD	What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt?
JOHN OF GAUNT	O, how that name befits my composition I Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
(didascalia)	Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
JOHN OF GAUNT	And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt? For sleeping England long time have I watched. Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt. The pleasure that some fathers feed upon Is my strict fast: I mean my children’s looks. And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt. Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whose hollow womb inherits naught but bones.
KING RICHARD	Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
JOHN OF 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?
JOHN OF GAUNT	No, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD	Thou now a-dying sayst thou flatt’rest me.
JOHN OF GAUNT	O no: thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD	I am in health; I breathe, and see thee ill.
JOHN OF GAUNT	Now He that made me knows I see thee ill: Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. Thy deathbed is no lesser than thy land, Wherein thou liest in reputation sick; And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Committ’st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head, And yet, encagèd 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 possessed, Which art possessed 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—
KING RICHARD	And thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague’s privilege, Dar’st 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.
JOHN OF 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 tapped out and drunkenly caroused. 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. (To attendants) Convey me to my bed, then to my grave. Love they to live that love and honour have.
(didascalia)	Exit, [carried in the chair]
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.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of 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 movables Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.
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 raged more fierce, In peace was never gentle lamb more mild, Than was that young and princely gentleman. His face thou hast, for even so looked he, Accomplished with the number of thy hours. But when he frowned 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, pleased Not to be pardoned, am content withal. Seek you to seize and grip into your hands The royalties and rights of banished Hereford? Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live? Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry true? Did 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 tomorrow then ensue today; 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 offered 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.
(didascalia)	Exit
KING RICHARD	Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight. Bid him repair to us to Ely House To see this business. Tomorrow 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 loved us well.— Come on, our Queen; tomorrow must we part. Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
(didascalia)	Flourish. Exeunt Bushy at one door; King Richard, the Queen, Aumerle, Green, and Bagot at another door. Northumberland, Willoughby, and Ross remain
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 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 more Of noble blood in this declining land. The King is not himself, but basely led By flatterers; and what they will inform Merely in hate ’gainst any of us all, That will the King severely prosecute ’Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
ROSS	The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes, And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
WILLOUGHBY	And daily new exactions are devised, 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 warred he hath not, But basely yielded upon compromise That which his ancestors achieved 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 banished 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 Port le Blanc, A bay in Brittaine, received intelligence That Harry Duke of Hereford, Reinold Lord Cobham, Thomas son and heir to the Earl of Arundel That late broke from the Duke of Exeter, His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury, Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir Thomas Ramston, Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Coint, All these well furnished by the Duke of Brittaine 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 blemished 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 2, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter the Queen, Bushy, and Bagot
BUSHY	Madam, your majesty is too much sad. You promised when you parted with the King To lay aside life-harming heaviness And entertain a cheerful disposition.
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 At nothing trembles. With something 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 gazed upon, Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry, Distinguish form. So your sweet majesty, Looking awry upon your lord’s departure, Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail, Which, looked on as it is, is naught 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 thought—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 derived 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Green
GREEN	God save your majesty, and well met, gentlemen. I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.
QUEEN	Why hop‘st thou so? ’Tis better hope he is, For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope. Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped?
GREEN	That he, our hope, might have retired his power, And driven into despair an enemy’s hope, Who strongly hath set footing in this land. The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself, And with uplifted arms is safe arrived At Ravenspurgh.
QUEEN	Now God in heaven forbid!
GREEN	Ah madam, ’tis too true! And, that is worse, The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy, The Lords of Ross, Beaumont, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
BUSHY	Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland, And all the rest, revolted faction-traitors?
GREEN	We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester Hath broke his staff, resigned 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-delivered mother, Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.
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 bonds of life, Which false hope lingers in extremity.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of York, wearing a gorget
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 flattered him.
(didascalia)	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 Pleshey, 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, Today 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 provoked him to it, The King had cut off my head with my brother’s. What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland? How shall we do for money for these wars? (To the Queen) Come, sister—cousin, I would say; pray pardon me. (To the Servingman) Go, fellow, get thee home. Provide some carts, And bring away the armour that is there.
(didascalia)	Exit Servingman
YORK	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 wronged, Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. Well, somewhat we must do. (To the Queen) Come, cousin, I’ll dispose of you.— Gentlemen, go muster up your men, And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle. I should to Pleshey too, but time will not permit. All is uneven, And everything is left at six and seven.
(didascalia)	Exeunt the Duke of York and the Queen. Bushy, Bagot, and Green remain
BUSHY	The wind sits fair for news to go for Ireland, But none returns. For us to levy power Proportionable to the enemy Is all unpossible.
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 condemned.
BAGOT	If judgement lie in them, then so do we, Because we ever have been near the King.
GREEN	Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle. The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
BUSHY	Thither will I with you; for little office Will the hateful commoners perform for us, Except like curs to tear us all to pieces. (To Bagot) 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.
(didascalia)	BAGOT
GREEN	Farewell at once, for once, for all and ever.
BUSHY	Well, we may meet again.
BAGOT	I fear me never.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Bushy and Green at one door, and Bagot at another door

Atto 2, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford, and the Earl of Northumberland
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 beguiled The tediousness and process of my travel. But theirs is sweetened with the hope to have The present benefit which I possess; And hope to joy is little less in joy Than hope enjoyed. 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Harry Percy
BOLINGBROKE	But who comes here?
NORTHUMBERLAND	It is my son, young Harry Percy, Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever. Harry, how fares your uncle?
HARRY PERCY	I had thought, my lord, to have learned his health of you.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Why, is he not with the Queen?
HARRY PERCY	No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court, Broken his staff of office, and dispersed The household of the King.
NORTHUMBERLAND	What was his reason? He was not so resolved when last we spake together.
HARRY 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?
HARRY 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.
HARRY 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. He gives Percy his hand
NORTHUMBERLAND	How far is it to Berkeley, and what stir Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
HARRY PERCY	There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees, Manned 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Lord Ross and Lord 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 banished traitor. All my treasury Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enriched, 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 thank’s the exchequer of the poor, Which till my infant fortune comes to years Stands for my bounty.
(didascalia)	Enter Berkeley
BOLINGBROKE	But who comes here?
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.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of York
BOLINGBROKE	I shall not need transport my words by you. Here comes his grace in person.—My noble uncle! He 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 banished and forbidden legs Dared once to touch a dust of England’s ground? But then more ‘why’: why have they dared to march So many miles upon her peaceful bosom, Frighting her pale-faced villages with war And ostentation of despised arms? Com’st thou because the anointed King is hence? Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind, And in my loyal bosom lies his power. Were I but now the lord of such hot youth As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men, From forth the ranks of many thousand French, O then how quickly should this arm of mine, Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee 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 banished man, and here art come Before the expiration of thy time In braving arms against thy sovereign.
(didascalia)	BOLINGBROKE standing
YORK	As I was banished, I was banished Hereford; But as I come, I come for Lancaster. And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace, Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye. You are my father, for methinks in you I see old Gaunt alive. O then, my father, Will you permit that I shall stand condemned A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties Plucked from my arms perforce and given away To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born? If that my cousin King be King in England, It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster. You have a son, Aumerle my noble kinsman. 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 distrained and sold, And these and all are all amiss employed. 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 laboured all I could to do him right. But in this kind to come, in braving arms, Be his own carver, and cut out his way To find out right with wrong—it may not be. And you that do abet him in this kind Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.
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 to 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 Bristol 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 2, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Salisbury and a Welsh Captain
WELSH CAPTAIN	My lord of Salisbury, we have stayed ten days, And hardly kept our countrymen together, And yet we hear no tidings from the King. Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
SALISBURY	Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman. The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
WELSH CAPTAIN	’Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay. The bay trees in our country are all withered, And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven. The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change. Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap; The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other to enjoy by rage and war. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled, As well assured Richard their king is dead.
(didascalia)	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. Thy 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

Atto 3, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford, the Duke of York, the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Ross, Harry Percy, and Lord Willoughby
BOLINGBROKE	Bring forth these men.
(didascalia)	Enter Bushy and Green, guarded as prisoners
BOLINGBROKE	Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls, Since presently your souls must part your bodies, With too much urging your pernicious lives, For ’twere no charity. Yet to wash your blood From off my hands, here in the view of men I will unfold some causes of your deaths. You have misled a prince, a royal king, A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments, By you unhappied and disfigured clean. You have, in manner, with your sinful hours Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him, Broke the possession of a royal bed, And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs. Myself—a prince by fortune of my birth, Near to the King in blood, and near in love Till you did make him misinterpret me— Have stooped my neck under your injuries, And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds, Eating the bitter bread of banishment, Whilst you have fed upon my signories, Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods, From my own windows torn my household coat, Razed 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.
GREEN	My comfort is that heaven will take our souls, And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
BOLINGBROKE	My lord Northumberland, see them dispatched.
(didascalia)	Exit Northumberland, with Bushy and Green, guarded
BOLINGBROKE	Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house. For God’s sake, fairly let her be intreated. Tell her I send to her my kind commends. Take special care my greetings be delivered.
YORK	A gentleman of mine I have dispatched With letters of your love to her at large.
BOLINGBROKE	Thanks, gentle uncle.—Come, lords, away, To fight with Glyndwr and his complices. A while to work, and after, holiday.
(didascalia)	Exeunt
(didascalia)	3.2 Flourish. Enter King Richard, the Duke of Aumerle, the Bishop of Carlisle, and soldiers, with drum and colours
KING RICHARD	Harlechly 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. He touches the ground 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.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE	Fear not, my lord. That power that made you king Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
AUMERLE	He means, my lord, that we are too remiss, Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security, Grows strong and great in substance and in friends.
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 bloody 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 plucked from off their backs, Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves? So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke, Who all this while hath revelled 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 from an anointed king. The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord. For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel. Then if angels fight, Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Salisbury
KING RICHARD	Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
SALISBURY	Nor nea’er nor farther off, my gracious lord, Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue, And bids me speak of nothing but despair. One day too late, I fear me, noble lord, Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. O, call back yesterday, bid time return, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men. Today, today, unhappy day too late, Overthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, 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 sluggard majesty, thou sleep’st! Is not the King’s name forty 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Scrope
KING RICHARD	But who comes here?
SCROPE	More health and happiness betide my liege Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
KING RICHARD	Mine ear is open and my heart prepared. The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold. Say, is my kingdom lost? Why ’twas my care, And what loss is it to be rid of care? Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we? Greater he shall not be. 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, loss, decay: The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROPE	Glad am I that your highness is so armed 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 dissolved 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. Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty. Boys with women’s voices Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints no 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.
SCROPE	Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
KING RICHARD	O villains, vipers damned without redemption! Dogs easily won to fawn on any man I Snakes in my heart-blood warmed, 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!
SCROPE	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, graved in the hollow ground.
AUMERLE	Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROPE	Ay, all of them at Bristol 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 call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
(didascalia)	Sitting For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground,
KING RICHARD	And tell sad stories of the death of kings— How some have been deposed, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, All murdered. For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall; and farewell, king. Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence. Throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread, like you; feel want, Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, How can you say to me I am a king?
BISHOP OF CARLISLE	My lord, wise men ne’er wail their present 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. Enquire of him, And learn to make a body of a limb.
(didascalia)	KING RICHARD standing
AUMERLE	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 overblown. An easy task it is to win our own. Say, Scrope, where lies our uncle with his power? Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
SCROPE	Men judge by the complexion of the sky The state and inclination of the day. So may you by my dull and heavy eye My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. I play the torturer by small and small To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken. Your uncle York is joined with Bolingbroke, And all your northern castles yielded up, And all your southern gentlemen in arms Upon his faction.
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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford, the Duke of York, the Earl of Northumberland, and soldiers, with drum and colours
BOLINGBROKE	So that by this intelligence we learn The Welshmen are dispersed, 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Harry Percy and a trumpeter
BOLINGBROKE	But who comes here? Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
HARRY PERCY	The castle royally is manned, my lord, Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE	Royally? Why, it contains no king.
HARRY PERCY	Yes, my good lord, It doth contain a king. King Richard lies
(didascalia)	Within the limits of yon lime and stone,
HARRY PERCY	And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury, Sir Stephen Scrope, 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 ruined ears, and thus deliver. Henry Bolingbroke Upon his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand, And sends allegiance and true faith of heart To his most royal person, hither come Even at his feet to lay my arms and power, Provided that my banishment repealed And lands restored again be freely granted. If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power, And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen; The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke It is such crimson tempest should bedrench The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land, My stooping duty tenderly shall show. Go, signify as much, while here we march Upon the grassy carpet of this plain. Let’s march without the noise of threat‘ning drum, That from this castle’s tottered battlements Our fair appointments may be well perused. 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.
(didascalia)	They march about the stage; then Bolingbroke, York, Percy, and soldiers stand at a distance from the walls; Northumberland and trumpeter advance to the walls. The trumpets sound Fa parley without, and an answer within; then a flourish within. King Richard appeareth on the walls, with the Bishop of Carlisle, the Duke of Aumerle, Scrope, and the Earl of Salisbury
BOLINGBROKE	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 looks he 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 amazed; and thus long have we stood To watch the fearful bending of thy knee, Because we thought ourself thy lawful king. An if we be, how dare thy joints forget To pay their aweful duty to our presence? If we be not, show us the hand of God That hath dismissed us from our stewardship. For well we know no hand of blood and bone Can grip the sacred handle of our sceptre, Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. And though you think that all—as you have done— Have torn their souls by turning them from us, And we are barren and bereft of friends, Yet know my master, God omnipotent, Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike Your children yet unborn and unbegot, That lift your vassal hands against my head And threat the glory of my precious crown. Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he is, 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.
(didascalia)	NORTHUMBERLAND kneeling
KING RICHARD	The King of heaven forbid our lord the King Should so with civil and uncivil arms Be rushed upon. Thy thrice-noble cousin Harry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand, And by the honourable tomb he swears, That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones, And by the 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, no 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 and 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 accomplished without contradiction. With all the gracious utterance thou hast, Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends. Northumberland and the trumpeter return to Bolingbroke (To Aumerle) We do debase ourself, 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. Northumberland advances to the walls
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 deposed? 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 figured 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 highway, Some way of common trade where subjects’ feet May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head, For on my heart they tread now, whilst I live, And buried once, why not upon my head? Aumerle, thou weep‘st, my tender-hearted cousin. We’ll make foul weather with despised tears. Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn, And make a dearth in this revolting land. Or shall we play the wantons with our woes, And make some pretty match with shedding tears; As thus to drop them still upon one place Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
(didascalia)	Within the earth, and therein laid? ‘There lies
KING RICHARD	Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.’ Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see I talk but idly and you mock 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt King Richard and his party
KING RICHARD	Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke
BOLINGBROKE	What says his majesty?
NORTHUMBERLAND	Sorrow and grief of heart Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man.
(didascalia)	Enter King Richard and his party below
NORTHUMBERLAND	Yet he is come.
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 unpleased eye see your courtesy. Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know, 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.
(didascalia)	Bolingbroke rises
KING RICHARD	(To York) Uncle, give me your hands. Nay, dry your eyes. Tears show their love, but want their remedies. (To Bolingbroke) 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.
(didascalia)	Flourish. Exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter the Queen, with her two Ladies
QUEEN	What sport shall we devise here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care?
(didascalia)	first 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.
(didascalia)	SECOND 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.
(didascalia)	FIRST LADY Madam, we’ll tell tales.
QUEEN	Of sorrow or of joy?
(didascalia)	FIRST 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.
(didascalia)	SECOND LADY
QUEEN	Madam, I’ll sing.
QUEEN	’Tis well that thou hast cause; But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
(didascalia)	SECOND LADY
QUEEN	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.
(didascalia)	Enter a Gardener and two Men
QUEEN	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 everyone doth so Against a change. Woe is forerun with woe. The Queen and her Ladies stand apart
(didascalia)	GARDENER to First Man
QUEEN	Go, bind thou up young dangling apricots Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight. Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
(didascalia)	To Second Man Go thou, and, like an executioner,
QUEEN	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 employed, I will go root away The noisome weeds which without profit suck The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
(didascalia)	FIRST MAN
QUEEN	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-wallèd garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined, Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars?
GARDENER	Hold thy peace. He that hath suffered this disordered spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf. The weeds which his broad spreading leaves did shelter, That seemed in eating him to hold him up, Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke— I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
(didascalia)	SECOND MAN
GARDENER	What, are they dead?
GARDENER	They are; and Bolingbroke Hath seized the wasteful King. O, what pity is it That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land As we this garden! We at time of year Do wound the bark, 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 lived 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 borne the crown, Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
(didascalia)	FIRST MAN
GARDENER	What, think you then the King shall be deposed?
GARDENER	Depressed he is already, and deposed ’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 pressed to death through want of speaking! She comes 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 deposed? 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 weighed. 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 everyone 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 think‘st 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.
(didascalia)	Exit with her 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 4, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter, as to Parliament, Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford, the Duke of Aumerle, the Earl of Northumberland, Harry Percy, Lord Fitzwalter, the Duke of Surrey, the Bishop of Carlisle, and the Abbot of Westminster
BOLINGBROKE	Call forth Bagot.
(didascalia)	Enter Bagot, with officers
BOLINGBROKE	Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind: What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death, Who wrought it with the King, and who performed The bloody office of his timeless end.
BAGOT	Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
BOLINGBROKE	(to Aumerle) Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man. Aumerle stands forth
BAGOT	My lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue Scorns to unsay what once it hath delivered. 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 soiled With the attainder of his slanderous lips. He throws down his gage 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, though 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 moved me so.
FITZWALTER	If that thy valour stand on sympathy, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine. He throws down his gage 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 deny’st 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.
FITZWALTER	Now by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE	Fitzwalter, thou art damned to hell for this.
HARRY PERCY	Aumerle, thou liest. His honour is as true In this appeal as thou art all unjust; And that thou art so, there I throw my gage He throws down his 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.
SURREY	My lord Fitzwalter, I do remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
FITZWALTER	’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.
FITZWALTER	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. He throws down his gage Engage it to the trial if thou dar’st.
FITZWALTER	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 banished 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. He takes another’s gage and throws it down That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this, If he may be repealed, to try his honour.
BOLINGBROKE	These differences shall all rest under gage Till Norfolk be repealed. Repealed he shall be, And, though mine enemy, restored again To all his lands and signories. When he is returned, Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE	That honourable day shall never be seen. Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens; And, toiled with works of war, retired 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 of Carlisle, is Norfolk dead?
BISHOP OF 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.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of York
YORK	Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee From plume-plucked 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, of that name the fourth!
BOLINGBROKE	In God’s name I’ll ascend the regal throne.
BISHOP OF 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 judged 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 judged by subject and inferior breath, And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God, That in a Christian climate souls refined Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed! I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks Stirred up by God thus boldly for his king. My lord of Hereford here, whom you call king, Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford’s king; And, if you crown him, let me prophesy The blood of English shall manure the ground, And future ages groan for this foul act. Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels, And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound. Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny Shall here inhabit, and this land be called The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls. O, if you rear this house against this house It will the woefullest division prove That ever fell upon this cursed earth! Prevent, 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.
(didascalia)	Exit
BOLINGBROKE	Lords, you that here are under our arrest, Procure your sureties for your days of answer. Little are we beholden to your love, And little looked for at your helping hands.
(didascalia)	Enter Richard and the Duke of York, with attendants bearing the crown and sceptre
RICHARD	Alack, why am I sent for to a king Before I have shook off the regal thoughts Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my 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 haill’ 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.
RICHARD	(to an attendant) Give me the crown. (To Bolingbroke) Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here, cousin. On this side my hand, 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.
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.
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?
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, [Bolingbroke accepts the crown] And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
(didascalia)	Bolingbroke accepts the sceptre
RICHARD	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 grieved, And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved. Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit, And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit. ‘God save King Henry,’ unkinged Richard says, ‘And send him many years of sunshine days.’ What more remains?
NORTHUMBERLAND	(giving Richard papers) 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 deposed.
RICHARD	Must I do so? And must I ravel out My weaved-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, Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven. Nay, all of you that stand and look upon Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself, Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands, Showing an outward pity, yet you Pitates Have here delivered me to my sour cross, And water cannot wash away your sin.
NORTHUMBERLAND	My lord, dispatch. Read o’er these articles.
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—
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 usurped. Alack the heavy day, That I have worn so many winters out And know not now what name to call myself! O, that I were a mockery king of snow, Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke To melt myself away in water-drops ! Good king, great king—and yet not greatly good— An if my word be sterling yet in England, Let it command a mirror hither straight, That it may show me what a face I have, Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
BOLINGBROKE	Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
(didascalia)	Exit one or more
NORTHUMBERLAND	Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.
RICHARD	Fiend, thou torment’st me ere I come to hell.
BOLINGBROKE	Urge it no more, my lord Northumberland.
NORTHUMBERLAND	The Commons will not then be satisfied.
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.
(didascalia)	Enter one with a glass
RICHARD	Give me that glass, and therein will I read. Richard takes the glass and looks in it 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 faced so many follies, That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke? A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face, He shatters the glass For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers. Mark, silent King, the moral of this sport: How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
BOLINGBROKE	The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed The shadow of your face.
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 tortured 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.
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.
RICHARD	And shall I have?
BOLINGBROKE	You shall.
RICHARD	Then give me leave to go.
BOLINGBROKE	Whither?
RICHARD	Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
BOLINGBROKE	Go some of you, convey him to the Tower.
RICHARD	O good, ‘convey’! Conveyors are you all, That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.
(didascalia)	Exit, guarded
BOLINGBROKE	On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but the Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Aumerle
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER	A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE	The woe’s to come, the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
AUMERLE	You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER	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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter the Queen, with her Ladies
QUEEN	This way the King will come. This is the way To Julius Caesar’s ill-erected Tower, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord Is doomed a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke. Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth Have any resting for her true king’s queen.
(didascalia)	Enter Richard and guard
QUEEN	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-favoured grief be lodged in thee, When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
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 awaked, the truth of what we are Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet, To grim necessity, and he and I Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, And cloister thee in some religious house. Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown, Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
QUEEN	What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transformed and weakenèd? Hath Bolingbroke Deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart? The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage To be o’erpowered; 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 ?
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 tak’st, 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 goodnight, to quit their griefs Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds; Forwhy 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.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Northumberland
NORTHUMBERLAND	My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed. You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower. And, madam, there is order ta’en for you. With all swift speed you must away to France.
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. He shall think that thou, which know‘st the way To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, Being ne’er so little urged another way, To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. The love of wicked friends 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.
RICHARD	Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate A twofold marriage:‘twixt my crown and me, And then betwixt me and my married wife. (To the Queen) 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 queen 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?
RICHARD	Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
QUEEN	Banish us both, and send the King with me.
(didascalia)	NORTHUMBERLAND
QUEEN	That were some love, but little policy.
QUEEN	Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
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 nea’er. Go count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.
QUEEN	So longest way shall have the longest moans.
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. They kiss
QUEEN	Give me mine own again. ’Twere no good part To take on me to keep and kill thy heart. They kiss So now I have mine own again, be gone, That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
RICHARD	We make woe wanton with this fond delay. Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.
(didascalia)	Exeunt FRichard, guarded, and Northumberland at one door, the Queen and her Ladies at another door

Atto 5, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke and Duchess of York
DUCHESS OF YORK	My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off, Of our two cousins’ coming into London.
YORK	Where did I leave?
DUCHESS OF YORK	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 seemed 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, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck, Bespake them thus: ‘I thank you, countrymen’, And thus still doing, thus he passed along.
DUCHESS OF YORK	Alack, poor Richard! Where rode he the whilst?
YORK	As in a theatre the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious, Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes Did scowl on gentle Richard. No man cried ‘God save him!’ No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home; But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience, That had not God for some strong purpose steeled 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.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Aumerle
DUCHESS OF YORK	Here comes my son Aumerle.
YORK	Aumerle that was; But that is lost for being Richard’s friend, And, madam, you must call him ’Rutland’ now. I am in Parliament pledge for his truth And lasting fealty to the new-made King.
DUCHESS OF YORK	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 cropped before you come to prime. What news from Oxford? Hold these jousts and triumphs?
AUMERLE	For aught I know, my lord, they do.
YORK	You will be there, I know.
AUMERLE	If God prevent it not, I purpose so.
YORK	What seal is that that hangs 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 OF YORK	What should you fear? ‘Tis nothing but some bond that he is entered 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 Aumerle’s bosom, and reads it Treason, foul treason ! Villain, traitor, slave !
DUCHESS OF YORK	What is the matter, my lord?
YORK	Ho, who is within there? Saddle my horse.— God for his mercy, what treachery is here I
DUCHESS	of YORK Why, what is it, my lord?
YORK	Give me my boots, I say. Saddle my horse.— Now by mine honour, by my life, my troth, I will appeach the villain.
DUCHESS OF YORK	What is the matter?
YORK	Peace, foolish woman.
DUCHESS OF YORK	I will not peace. What is the matter, son?
AUMERLE	Good mother, be content. It is no more Than my poor life must answer.
DUCHESS OF YORK	Thy life answer?
YORK	Bring me my boots. I will unto the King. His man enters with his boots
DUCHESS OF YORK	Strike him, Aumerle! Poor boy, thou art amazed. (To York’s man) Hence, villain! Never more come in my sight.
YORK	Give me my boots, I say.
DUCHESS OF YORK	Why, York, what wilt thou do? Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own? Have we more sons? Or are we like to have? Is not my teeming date drunk up with time? And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age, And rob me of a happy mother’s name? Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
YORK	Thou fond, mad woman, Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy? A dozen of them here have ta’en the sacrament, And interchangeably set down their hands To kill the King at Oxford.
DUCHESS OF YORK	He shall be none. 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 OF YORK	Hadst thou groaned 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.
(didascalia)	Exit with his man
DUCHESS OF YORK	After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse. Spur, post, and get before him to the King, And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee. I’ll not be long behind—though I be old, I doubt not but to ride as fast as York— And never will I rise up from the ground Till Bolingbroke have pardoned thee. Away, be gone I
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally

Atto 5, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Bolingbroke, crowned King Henry, with Harry Percy, and other nobles
KING HENRY	Can no man tell 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. Enquire 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.
HARRY PERCY	My lord, some two days since, I saw the Prince, And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford.
KING HENRY	And what said the gallant?
HARRY 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.
KING HENRY	As dissolute as desperate. Yet through both I see some sparks of better hope, which elder days May happily bring forth.
(didascalia)	Enter the Duke of Aumerle, amazed
KING HENRY	But who comes here?
AUMERLE	Where is the King?
KING HENRY	What means our cousin that he stares and looks so wildly?
AUMERLE	(kneeling) God save your grace! I do beseech your majesty To have some conference with your grace alone.
KING HENRY	(to lords) Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but King Henry and Aumerle
KING HENRY	What is the matter with our cousin now?
AUMERLE	For ever may my knees grow to the earth, My tongue cleave to the roof within my mouth, Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
KING HENRY	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	(rising) Then give me leave that I may turn the key, That no man enter till my tale be done.
KING HENRY	Have thy desire. Aumerle locks the door. 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. King Henry draws his sword
KING HENRY	(to Aumerle) Villain, I’ll make thee safe.
AUMERLE	Stay thy revengeful hand! Thou hast no cause to fear.
YORK	(knocking 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.
(didascalia)	King Henry opens the door. Enter the Duke of York
KING HENRY	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. He gives King Henry the paper
AUMERLE	Remember, as thou read’st, thy promise past. 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 pity prove A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
KING HENRY	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 defiled 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 shamed life in his dishonour lies. Thou kill’st me in his life: giving him breath The traitor lives, the true man’s put to death.
DUCHESS OF YORK	(within) What ho, my liege, for God’s sake let me in!
KING HENRY	What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?
DUCHESS OF YORK	(within) A woman, and thy aunt, great King; ’tis I. Speak with me, pity me! Open the door! A beggar begs that never begged before.
KING HENRY	Our scene is altered from a serious thing, And now changed to ‘The Beggar and the King’. My dangerous cousin, let your mother in. I know she is come to pray for your foul sin. Aumerle opens the door. Enter the Duchess of York
YORK	If thou do pardon, whosoever pray, More sins for this forgiveness prosper may. This festered joint cut off, the rest rest sound. This let alone will all the rest confound.
DUCHESS OF YORK	(kneeling) 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 OF YORK	Sweet York, be patient.—Hear me, gentle liege.
KING HENRY	Rise up, good aunt.
DUCHESS OF YORK	Not yet, I thee beseech. Forever will I kneel 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	(kneeling) Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.
YORK	(kneeling) Against them both my true joints bended be. Ill mayst thou thrive if thou grant any grace.
DUCHESS OF YORK	Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face. His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest. His words come from his mouth; ours from our breast. He prays but faintly, and would be denied; We pray with heart and soul, and all beside. His weary joints would gladly rise, I know; Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow. His prayers are full of false hypocrisy; Ours of true zeal and deep integrity. Our prayers do outpray his; then let them have That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
(didascalia)	KING HENRY
DUCHESS OF YORK	Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK	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 longed 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 ‘Pardonnez-moi’.
DUCHESS OF YORK	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.
KING HENRY	Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK	I do not sue to stand. Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
KING HENRY	I pardon him as God shall pardon me.
(didascalia)	York and Aumerle rise
DUCHESS OF YORK	O, happy vantage of a kneeling knee! Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again. Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong.
KING HENRY	I pardon him With all my heart.
DUCHESS OF YORK	(rising) A god on earth thou art.
KING HENRY	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, so adieu. Your mother well hath prayed; and prove you true.
DUCHESS OF YORK	Come, my old son. I pray God make thee new.
(didascalia)	Exeunt King Henry at one door; York, the Duchess of York, and Aumerle at another door

Atto 5, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Sir Piers Exton, and his Men
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?
(didascalia)	FIRST MAN Those were his very words.
EXTON	‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he. He spake it twice, And urged it twice together, did he not?
(didascalia)	SECOND MAN He did.
EXTON	And speaking it, he wishtly looked 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 5

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Richard, alone
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 intermixed With scruples, and do set the faith itself Against the faith, 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 seely beggars, Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame That many have, and others must, set there; And in this thought they find a kind of ease, Bearing their own misfortunes on the back Of such as have before endured the like. Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented. Sometimes am I king; Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar, And so I am. Then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king. Then am I kinged again, and by and by Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be, Nor I, nor any man that but man is, With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased With being nothing. The music plays
(didascalia)	Music do I hear.
RICHARD	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 disordered 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 sounds that tell what hour it is Are clamorous groans that strike upon my heart, Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans Show minutes, hours, and times. 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.
(didascalia)	The music ceases
RICHARD	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.
(didascalia)	Enter
RICHARD	a Groom of the stable
GROOM	Hail, royal Prince!
RICHARD	Thanks, noble peer. The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. What art thou, and how com’st 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 erned my heart when I beheld In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary, That horse that thou so often hast bestrid, That horse that I so carefully have dressed!
RICHARD	Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?
GROOM	So proudly as if he disdained the ground.
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 awed by man, Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse, And yet I bear a burden like an ass, Spur-galled and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke.
(didascalia)	Enter Keeper to Richard, with meat
KEEPER	(to Groom) Fellow, give place. Here is no longer stay.
RICHARD	(to Groom) If thou love me, ’tis time thou wert away.
GROOM	What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
(didascalia)	Exit
KEEPER	My lord, will’t please you to fall to?
RICHARD	Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
KEEPER	My lord, I dare not. Sir Piers of Exton, Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
RICHARD	(striking the Keeper) The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee I Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
KEEPER	Help, help, help! Exton and his men rush in
RICHARD	How now! What means death in this rude assault? He seizes a weapon from a man, and kills him Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument. He kills another Go thou, and fill another room in hell. Here Exton strikes him down
RICHARD	That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand Hath with the King’s blood stained the King’s own land. Mount, mount, my soul; thy seat is up on high, Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die. He dies
EXTON	As full of valour as of royal blood. Both have I spilt. O, would the deed were good I 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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Exton with Richard’s body at one door, and his men with the other bodies at another door
(didascalia)	5.6 Flourish. Enter King Henry and the Duke of York, with other lords and attendants
KING HENRY	Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear Is that the rebels have consumed with fire Our town of Ci’cester in Gloucestershire; But whether they be ta’en or slain we hear not.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Northumberland
KING HENRY	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. He gives the paper to King Henry
KING HENRY	We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains, And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
(didascalia)	Enter Lord Fitzwalter
FITZWALTER	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.
KING HENRY	Thy pains, Fitzwalter, shall not be forgot. Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
(didascalia)	Enter Harry Percy, with the Bishop of Carlisle, guarded
HARRY 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.
KING HENRY	Carlisle, this is your doom. Choose out some secret place, some reverent 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Exton with his men bearing the 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.
KING HENRY	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.
KING HENRY	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 through the shades of night, And never show thy head by day nor light.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Exton and his men
KING HENRY	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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt With the coffin
ADDITIONAL PASSAGES	The following passages of four lines or more appear in the 1597 Quarto but not the Folio; Shakespeare probably deleted them as part of his limited revisions to the text. a. . AFTER 1.3.127 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, b. AFTER 1.3.235 O, had’t 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 destroyed. c. AFTER 1.3.256
BOLINGBROKE	Nay, rather every tedious stride I make Will but remember 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?
JOHN OF 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 borne. Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour, And not the King exiled 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 strewed, 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. d. AFTER 3.2.28 The means that heavens yield must be embraced And not neglected; else heaven would, And we will not: heaven’s offer we refuse, The proffered means of succour and redress. e. AFTER 4.1.50
ANOTHER LORD	I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle, And spur thee on with full as many lies As may be hollowed in thy treacherous ear From sun to sun. There is my honour’s pawn. Engage it to the trial if thou darest. He throws down his gage
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.
ON	its first appearance in print, in 1597, Romeo and Juliet was described as ‘An excellent conceited tragedy’ that had ‘been often (with great applause) played publicly’; its popularity is witnessed by the fact that this is a pirated version, put together from actors’ memories as a way of cashing in on its success. A second printing, two years later, offered a greatly superior text apparently printed from Shakespeare’s working papers. Probably he wrote it in 1594 or 1595. The story was already well known, in Italian, French, and English. Shakespeare owes most to Arthur Brooke’s long poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which had already supplied hints for The Two Gentlemen of Verona; he may also have looked at some of the other versions. In his address ‘To the Reader’, Brooke says that he has seen ‘the same argument lately set forth on stage with more commendation than I can look for’, but no earlier play survives. Shakespeare’s Prologue neatly sketches the plot of the two star-crossed lovers born of feuding families whose deaths ‘bury their parents’ strife’; and the formal verse structure of the Prologue—a sonnet—is matched by the carefully patterned layout of the action. At the climax of the first scene, Prince Escalus stills a brawl between representatives of the houses of Montague (Romeo’s family) and Capulet (Juliet’s); at the end of Act 3, Scene 1, he passes judgement on another, more serious brawl, banishing Romeo for killing Juliet’s cousin Tybalt after Tybalt had killed Romeo’s friend and the Prince’s kinsman, Mercutio; and at the end of Act 5, the Prince presides over the reconciliation of Montagues and Capulets. Within this framework of public life Romeo and Juliet act out their brief tragedy: in the first act, they meet and declare their love—in another sonnet; in the second, they arrange to marry in secret; in the third, after Romeo’s banishment, they consummate their marriage and part; in the fourth, Juliet drinks a sleeping draught prepared by Friar Laurence so that she may escape marriage to Paris and, after waking in the family tomb, run off with Romeo; in the fifth, after Romeo, believing her to be dead, has taken poison, she stabs herself to death. The play’s structural formality is offset by an astonishing fertility of linguistic invention, showing itself no less in the comic bawdiness of the servants, the Nurse, and (on a more sophisticated level) Mercutio than in the rapt and impassioned poetry of the lovers. Shakespeare’s mastery over a wide range of verbal styles combines with his psychological perceptiveness to create a richer gallery of memorable characters than in any play written up to this time; and his theatrical imagination compresses Brooke’s leisurely narrative into a dramatic masterpiece.
THE PERSONS OF THE	PLAY
ROMEO	MONTAGUE, his father
MONTAGUE’S WIFE	BENVOLIO, Montague’s nephew ABRAHAM, Montague’s servingman BALTHASAR, Romeo’s man
JULIET	CAPULET, her father
CAPULET’S WIFE	TYBALT, her nephew His page
CAPULET’S COUSIN	Juliet’s NURSE Other SERVINGMEN
MUSICIANS	Escalus, PRINCE of Verona
FRIAR JOHN	An APOTHECARY
CHIEF WATCHMAN	Other CITIZENS OF THE WATCH Masquers, guests, gentlewomen, followers of the Montague and Capulet factions