Richard II
ACT III SCENE II | The coast of Wales. A castle in view.. | |
[ Drums; flourish and colours. Enter KING RICHARD II, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, DUKE OF AUMERLE, and Soldiers ] | ||
KING RICHARD II | Barkloughly castle call they this at hand? | |
DUKE OF AUMERLE | Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air, | |
After your late tossing on the breaking seas? | ||
KING RICHARD II | Needs must I like it well: I weep for joy | |
To stand upon my kingdom once again. | 5 | |
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, | 10 | |
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, | 15 | |
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 | 20 | |
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 | 25 | |
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. | ||
The means that heaven yields must be embraced, | ||
And not neglected; else, if heaven would, | 30 | |
And we will not, heaven’s offer we refuse, | ||
The proffer’d means of succor and redress. | ||
DUKE OF AUMERLE | He means, my lord, that we are too remiss; | |
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security, | ||
Grows strong and great in substance and in power. | 35 | |
KING RICHARD II | Discomfortable cousin! know’st thou not | |
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid, | ||
Behind the globe, that lights the lower world, | ||
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen | ||
In murders and in outrage, boldly here; | 40 | |
But when from under this terrestrial ball | ||
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines | ||
And darts his light through every guilty hole, | ||
Then murders, treasons and detested sins, | ||
The cloak of night being pluck’d from off their backs, | 45 | |
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves? | ||
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke, | ||
Who all this while hath revell’d in the night | ||
Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes, | ||
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east, | 50 | |
His treasons will sit blushing in his face, | ||
Not able to endure the sight of day, | ||
But self-affrighted tremble at his sin. | ||
Not all the water in the rough rude sea | ||
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king; | 55 | |
The breath of worldly men cannot depose | ||
The deputy elected by the Lord: | ||
For every man that Bolingbroke hath press’d | ||
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, | ||
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay | 60 | |
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight, | ||
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right. | ||
[Enter EARL OF SALISBURY] | ||
Welcome, my lord how far off lies your power? | ||
EARL OF SALISBURY | Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord, | |
Than this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue | 65 | |
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! | 70 | |
To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late, | ||
O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state: | ||
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead. | ||
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled. | ||
DUKE OF AUMERLE | Comfort, my liege; why looks your grace so pale? | 75 |
KING RICHARD II | 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, | 80 | |
For time hath set a blot upon my pride. | ||
DUKE OF AUMERLE | Comfort, my liege; remember who you are. | |
KING RICHARD II | I had forgot myself; am I not king? | |
Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest. | ||
Is not the king’s name twenty thousand names? | 85 | |
Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes | ||
At thy great glory. Look not to the ground, | ||
Ye favourites of a king: are we not high? | ||
High be our thoughts: I know my uncle York | ||
Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here? | 90 | |
[Enter SIR STEPHEN SCROOP] | ||
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP | More health and happiness betide my liege | |
Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him! | ||
KING RICHARD II | 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 | 95 | |
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; | 100 | |
They break their faith to God as well as us: | ||
Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay: | ||
The worst is death, and death will have his day. | ||
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP | Glad am I that your highness is so arm’d | |
To bear the tidings of calamity. | 105 | |
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 | 110 | |
With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel. | ||
White-beards have arm’d their thin and hairless scalps | ||
Against thy majesty; boys, with women’s voices, | ||
Strive to speak big and clap their female joints | ||
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown: | 115 | |
The 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. | 120 | |
KING RICHARD II | 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? | 125 | |
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it: | ||
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke. | ||
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP | Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord. | |
KING RICHARD II | O villains, vipers, damn’d without redemption! | |
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man! | 130 | |
Snakes, in my heart-blood warm’d, that sting my heart! | ||
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas! | ||
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war | ||
Upon their spotted souls for this offence! | ||
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP | Sweet love, I see, changing his property, | 135 |
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. | 140 | |
DUKE OF AUMERLE | Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead? | |
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP | Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. | |
DUKE OF AUMERLE | Where is the duke my father with his power? | |
KING RICHARD II | No matter where; of comfort no man speak: | |
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; | 145 | |
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? | 150 | |
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s, | ||
And nothing can we call our own but death | ||
And that small model of the barren earth | ||
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. | ||
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground | 155 | |
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 poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d; | ||
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown | 160 | |
That rounds the mortal temples of a king | ||
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, | ||
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, | ||
Allowing him a breath, a little scene, | ||
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks, | 165 | |
Infusing him with self and vain conceit, | ||
As if this flesh which walls about our life, | ||
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus | ||
Comes at the last and with a little pin | ||
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! | 170 | |
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, | 175 | |
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 sit and wail their woes, | |
But presently prevent the ways to wail. | ||
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, | 180 | |
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. | 185 | |
DUKE OF AUMERLE | My father hath a power; inquire of him | |
And learn to make a body of a limb. | ||
KING RICHARD II | Thou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come | |
To change blows with thee for our day of doom. | ||
This ague fit of fear is over-blown; | 190 | |
An easy task it is to win our own. | ||
Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power? | ||
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour. | ||
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP | Men judge by the complexion of the sky | |
The state and inclination of the day: | 195 | |
So may you by my dull and heavy eye, | ||
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. | ||
I play the torturer, by small and small | ||
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken: | ||
Your uncle York is join’d with Bolingbroke, | 200 | |
And all your northern castles yielded up, | ||
And all your southern gentlemen in arms | ||
Upon his party. | ||
KING RICHARD II | Thou hast said enough. | |
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth | 205 | |
[To DUKE OF AUMERLE] | ||
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; | 210 | |
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. | 215 | |
DUKE OF AUMERLE | My liege, one word. | |
KING RICHARD II | 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. | 220 | |
[Exeunt] |
Richard II, Act 3, Scene 3