Richard II
ACT III SCENE III | Wales. Before Flint castle. | |
[ Enter, with drum and colours, HENRY BOLINGBROKE, DUKE OF YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, Attendants, and forces ] | ||
HENRY 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: | 5 |
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head. | ||
DUKE OF 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 | 10 |
Left I his title out. | ||
DUKE OF 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. | 15 | |
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | Mistake not, uncle, further than you should. | |
DUKE OF YORK | Take not, good cousin, further than you should. | |
Lest you mistake the heavens are o’er our heads. | ||
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself | |
Against their will. But who comes here? | 20 | |
[Enter HENRY PERCY] | ||
Welcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield? | ||
HENRY PERCY | The castle royally is mann’d, my lord, | |
Against thy entrance. | ||
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | Royally! | |
Why, it contains no king? | 25 | |
HENRY PERCY | Yes, my good lord, | |
It doth contain a king; King Richard lies | ||
Within the limits of yon lime and stone: | ||
And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury, | ||
Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman | 30 | |
Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn. | ||
NORTHUMBERLAND | O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle. | |
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | Noble lords, | |
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle; | ||
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley | 35 | |
Into his ruin’d ears, and thus deliver: | ||
Henry Bolingbroke | ||
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand | ||
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart | ||
To his most royal person, hither come | 40 | |
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power, | ||
Provided that my banishment repeal’d | ||
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 | 45 | |
Rain’d from the wounds of slaughter’d 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. | 50 | |
Go, signify as much, while here we march | ||
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain. | ||
Let’s march without the noise of threatening drum, | ||
That from this castle’s tatter’d battlements | ||
Our fair appointments may be well perused. | 55 | |
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet | ||
With no less terror than the elements | ||
Of fire and water, when their thundering shock | ||
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven. | ||
Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water: | 60 | |
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain | ||
My waters; on the earth, and not on him. | ||
March on, and mark King Richard how he looks. | ||
[ Parle without, and answer within. Then a flourish. Enter on the walls, KING RICHARD II, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, DUKE OF AUMERLE, SIR STEPHEN SCROOP, and EARL OF SALISBURY ] | ||
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear, | ||
As doth the blushing discontented sun | 65 | |
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. | ||
DUKE OF YORK | Yet looks he like a king: behold, his eye, | 70 |
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 II | We are amazed; and thus long have we stood | |
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee, | 75 | |
[To NORTHUMBERLAND] | ||
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king: | ||
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget | ||
To pay their awful duty to our presence? | ||
If we be not, show us the hand of God | ||
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship; | 80 | |
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone | ||
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre, | ||
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. | ||
And though you think that all, as you have done, | ||
Have torn their souls by turning them from us, | 85 | |
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, | 90 | |
That lift your vassal hands against my head | ||
And threat the glory of my precious crown. | ||
Tell Bolingbroke–for yond methinks he stands– | ||
That every stride he makes upon my land | ||
Is dangerous treason: he is come to open | 95 | |
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 | 100 | |
To scarlet indignation and bedew | ||
Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood. | ||
NORTHUMBERLAND | The king of heaven forbid our lord the king | |
Should so with civil and uncivil arms | ||
Be rush’d upon! Thy thrice noble cousin | 105 | |
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, | 110 | |
And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt, | ||
And by the worth and honour of himself, | ||
Comprising all that may be sworn or said, | ||
His coming hither hath no further scope | ||
Than for his lineal royalties and to beg | 115 | |
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. | 120 | |
This swears he, as he is a prince, is just; | ||
And, as I am a gentleman, I credit him. | ||
KING RICHARD II | Northumberland, say thus the king returns: | |
His noble cousin is right welcome hither; | ||
And all the number of his fair demands | 125 | |
Shall be accomplish’d without contradiction: | ||
With all the gracious utterance thou hast | ||
Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends. | ||
We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, | ||
[To DUKE OF AUMERLE] | ||
To look so poorly and to speak so fair? | 130 | |
Shall we call back Northumberland, and send | ||
Defiance to the traitor, and so die? | ||
DUKE OF AUMERLE | No, good my lord; let’s fight with gentle words | |
Till time lend friends and friends their helpful swords. | ||
KING RICHARD II | O God, O God! that e’er this tongue of mine, | 135 |
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, | 140 | |
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. | ||
DUKE OF AUMERLE | Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke. | |
KING RICHARD II | What must the king do now? must he submit? | 145 |
The king shall do it: must he be deposed? | ||
The king shall be contented: must he lose | ||
The name of king? o’ God’s name, let it go: | ||
I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads, | ||
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, | 150 | |
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, | 155 | |
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; | 160 | |
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. | 165 | |
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes, | ||
And make some pretty match with shedding tears? | ||
As thus, to drop them still upon one place, | ||
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves | ||
Within the earth; and, therein laid,–there lies | 170 | |
Two kinsmen digg’d their graves with weeping eyes. | ||
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see | ||
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me. | ||
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland, | ||
What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty | 175 | |
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 II | Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon, | 180 |
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! | 185 | |
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks | ||
should sing. | ||
[Exeunt from above] | ||
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | What says his majesty? | |
NORTHUMBERLAND | Sorrow and grief of heart | |
Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man | 190 | |
Yet he is come. | ||
[Enter KING RICHARD and his attendants below] | ||
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | Stand all apart, | |
And show fair duty to his majesty. | ||
[He kneels down] | ||
My gracious lord,– | ||
KING RICHARD II | Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee | 195 |
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. | 200 | |
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | My gracious lord, I come but for mine own. | |
KING RICHARD II | Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all. | |
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | So far be mine, my most redoubted lord, | |
As my true service shall deserve your love. | ||
KING RICHARD II | Well you deserve: they well deserve to have, | 205 |
That know the strong’st and surest way to get. | ||
Uncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes; | ||
Tears show their love, but want their remedies. | ||
Cousin, I am too young to be your father, | ||
Though you are old enough to be my heir. | 210 | |
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? | ||
HENRY BOLINGBROKE | Yea, my good lord. | |
KING RICHARD II | Then I must not say no. | 215 |
[Flourish. Exeunt] |
Richard II, Act 3, Scene 4