Richard II
ACT V SCENE I | London. A street leading to the Tower. | |
[Enter QUEEN and 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 doom’d a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke: | ||
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth | 5 | |
Have any resting for her true king’s queen. | ||
[Enter KING RICHARD II and Guard] | ||
But soft, but see, or rather do not see, | ||
My fair rose wither: yet look up, behold, | ||
That you in pity may dissolve to dew, | ||
And wash him fresh again with true-love tears. | 10 | |
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand, | ||
Thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb, | ||
And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn, | ||
Why should hard-favour’d grief be lodged in thee, | ||
When triumph is become an alehouse guest? | 15 | |
KING RICHARD II | 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, | 20 | |
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. | 25 | |
QUEEN | What, is my Richard both in shape and mind | |
Transform’d and weaken’d? 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 | 30 | |
To be o’erpower’d; and wilt thou, pupil-like, | ||
Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod, | ||
And fawn on rage with base humility, | ||
Which art a lion and a king of beasts? | ||
KING RICHARD II | A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts, | 35 |
I had been still a happy king of men. | ||
Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France: | ||
Think I am dead and that even here thou takest, | ||
As from my death-bed, thy last living leave. | ||
In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire | 40 | |
With good old folks and let them tell thee tales | ||
Of woeful ages long ago betid; | ||
And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs, | ||
Tell thou the lamentable tale of me | ||
And send the hearers weeping to their beds: | 45 | |
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize | ||
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue | ||
And in compassion weep the fire out; | ||
And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, | ||
For the deposing of a rightful king. | 50 | |
[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND and others] | ||
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. | ||
KING RICHARD II | Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal | 55 |
The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne, | ||
The time shall not be many hours of age | ||
More than it is ere foul sin gathering head | ||
Shalt break into corruption: thou shalt think, | ||
Though he divide the realm and give thee half, | 60 | |
It is too little, helping him to all; | ||
And 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. | 65 | |
The love of wicked men converts to fear; | ||
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both | ||
To worthy danger and deserved death. | ||
NORTHUMBERLAND | My guilt be on my head, and there an end. | |
Take leave and part; for you must part forthwith. | 70 | |
KING RICHARD II | Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate | |
A twofold marriage, ‘twixt my crown and me, | ||
And then betwixt me and my married wife. | ||
Let me unkiss the oath ‘twixt thee and me; | ||
And yet not so, for with a kiss ’twas made. | 75 | |
Part us, Northumberland; I toward the north, | ||
Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; | ||
My wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp, | ||
She came adorned hither like sweet May, | ||
Sent back like Hallowmas or short’st of day. | 80 | |
QUEEN | And must we be divided? must we part? | |
KING RICHARD II | Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart. | |
QUEEN | Banish us both and send the king with me. | |
NORTHUMBERLAND | That were some love but little policy. | |
QUEEN | Then whither he goes, thither let me go. | 85 |
KING RICHARD II | So two, together weeping, make one woe. | |
Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; | ||
Better far off than near, be ne’er the near. | ||
Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans. | ||
QUEEN | So longest way shall have the longest moans. | 90 |
KING RICHARD II | 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; | 95 | |
Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart. | ||
QUEEN | Give me mine own again; ’twere no good part | |
To take on me to keep and kill thy heart. | ||
So, now I have mine own again, be gone, | ||
That I might strive to kill it with a groan. | 100 | |
KING RICHARD II | We make woe wanton with this fond delay: | |
Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. | ||
[Exeunt] |
Richard II, Act 5, Scene 2