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