The Life and Death of Richard the Second

1Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,

2Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,

3Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,

4Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,

5Which then our leisure would not let us hear,

6Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

7I have, my liege.

8Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,

9If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;

10Or worthily, as a good subject should,

11On some known ground of treachery in him?

12As near as I could sift him on that argument,

13On some apparent danger seen in him

14Aim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice.

15Then call them to our presence; face to face,

16And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear

17The accuser and the accused freely speak:

18High-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,

19In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

20Many years of happy days befal

21My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

22Each day still better other's happiness;

23Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,

24Add an immortal title to your crown!

25We thank you both: yet one but flatters us,

26As well appeareth by the cause you come;

27Namely to appeal each other of high treason.

28Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object

29Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

30First, heaven be the record to my speech!

31In the devotion of a subject's love,

32Tendering the precious safety of my prince,

33And free from other misbegotten hate,

34Come I appellant to this princely presence.

35Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,

36And mark my greeting well; for what I speak

37My body shall make good upon this earth,

38Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.

39Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,

40Too good to be so and too bad to live,

41Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,

42The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.

43Once more, the more to aggravate the note,

44With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;

45And wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,

46What my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.

47Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:

48'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,

49The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,

50Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;

51The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this:

52Yet can I not of such tame patience boast

53As to be hush'd and nought at all to say:

54First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me

55From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;

56Which else would post until it had return'd

57These terms of treason doubled down his throat.

58Setting aside his high blood's royalty,

59And let him be no kinsman to my liege,

60I do defy him, and I spit at him;

61Call him a slanderous coward and a villain:

62Which to maintain I would allow him odds,

63And meet him, were I tied to run afoot

64Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,

65Or any other ground inhabitable,

66Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.

67Mean time let this defend my loyalty,

68By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

69Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,

70Disclaiming here the kindred of the king,

71And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

72Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.

73If guilty dread have left thee so much strength

74As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:

75By that and all the rites of knighthood else,

76Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,

77What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.

78I take it up; and by that sword I swear

79Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,

80I'll answer thee in any fair degree,

81Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:

82And when I mount, alive may I not light,

83If I be traitor or unjustly fight!

84What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?

85It must be great that can inherit us

86So much as of a thought of ill in him.

87Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;

88That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles

89In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,

90The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,

91Like a false traitor and injurious villain.

92Besides I say and will in battle prove,

93Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge

94That ever was survey'd by English eye,

95That all the treasons for these eighteen years

96Complotted and contrived in this land

97Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.

98Further I say and further will maintain

99Upon his bad life to make all this good,

100That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,

101Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,

102And consequently, like a traitor coward,

103Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:

104Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,

105Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,

106To me for justice and rough chastisement;

107And, by the glorious worth of my descent,

108This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

109How high a pitch his resolution soars!

110Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?

111O, let my sovereign turn away his face

112And bid his ears a little while be deaf,

113Till I have told this slander of his blood,

114How God and good men hate so foul a liar.

115Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:

116Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,

117As he is but my father's brother's son,

118Now, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,

119Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood

120Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize

121The unstooping firmness of my upright soul:

122He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:

123Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.

124Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,

125Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.

126Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais

127Disbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;

128The other part reserved I by consent,

129For that my sovereign liege was in my debt

130Upon remainder of a dear account,

131Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:

132Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,

133I slew him not; but to my own disgrace

134Neglected my sworn duty in that case.

135For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,

136The honourable father to my foe

137Once did I lay an ambush for your life,

138A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul

139But ere I last received the sacrament

140I did confess it, and exactly begg'd

141Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.

142This is my fault: as for the rest appeall'd,

143It issues from the rancour of a villain,

144A recreant and most degenerate traitor

145Which in myself I boldly will defend;

146And interchangeably hurl down my gage

147Upon this overweening traitor's foot,

148To prove myself a loyal gentleman

149Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.

150In haste whereof, most heartily I pray

151Your highness to assign our trial day.

152Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;

153Let's purge this choler without letting blood:

154This we prescribe, though no physician;

155Deep malice makes too deep incision;

156Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;

157Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.

158Good uncle, let this end where it begun;

159We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.

160To be a make-peace shall become my age:

161Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.

162And, Norfolk, throw down his.

163When, Harry, when?

164Obedience bids I should not bid again.

165Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.

166Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.

167My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:

168The one my duty owes; but my fair name,

169Despite of death that lives upon my grave,

170To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.

171I am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,

172Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,

173The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood

174Which breathed this poison.

175Rage must be withstood:

176Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame.

177Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame.

178And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,

179The purest treasure mortal times afford

180Is spotless reputation: that away,

181Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.

182A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest

183Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

184Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:

185Take honour from me, and my life is done:

186Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;

187In that I live and for that will I die.

188Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.

189O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!

190Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight?

191Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height

192Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue

193Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,

194Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear

195The slavish motive of recanting fear,

196And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,

197Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.

198We were not born to sue, but to command;

199Which since we cannot do to make you friends,

200Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,

201At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:

202There shall your swords and lances arbitrate

203The swelling difference of your settled hate:

204Since we can not atone you, we shall see

205Justice design the victor's chivalry.

206Lord marshal, command our officers at arms

207Be ready to direct these home alarms.

1Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood

2Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,

3To stir against the butchers of his life!

4But since correction lieth in those hands

5Which made the fault that we cannot correct,

6Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;

7Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,

8Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

9Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?

10Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?

11Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,

12Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,

13Or seven fair branches springing from one root:

14Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,

15Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;

16But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,

17One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,

18One flourishing branch of his most royal root,

19Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,

20Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,

21By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.

22Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb,

23That metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee

24Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,

25Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent

26In some large measure to thy father's death,

27In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,

28Who was the model of thy father's life.

29Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:

30In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,

31Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,

32Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:

33That which in mean men we intitle patience

34Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

35What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,

36The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.

37God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,

38His deputy anointed in His sight,

39Hath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,

40Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift

41An angry arm against His minister.

42Where then, alas, may I complain myself?

43To God, the widow's champion and defence.

44Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.

45Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold

46Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:

47O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,

48That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!

49Or, if misfortune miss the first career,

50Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,

51They may break his foaming courser's back,

52And throw the rider headlong in the lists,

53A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!

54Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife

55With her companion grief must end her life.

56Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry:

57As much good stay with thee as go with me!

58Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,

59Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:

60I take my leave before I have begun,

61For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.

62Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.

63Lo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not so;

64Though this be all, do not so quickly go;

65I shall remember more. Bid him--ah, what?--

66With all good speed at Plashy visit me.

67Alack, and what shall good old York there see

68But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,

69Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?

70And what hear there for welcome but my groans?

71Therefore commend me; let him not come there,

72To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.

73Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:

74The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

1My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?

2Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.

3The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,

4Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.

5Why, then, the champions are prepared, and stay

6For nothing but his majesty's approach.

7Marshal, demand of yonder champion

8The cause of his arrival here in arms:

9Ask him his name and orderly proceed

10To swear him in the justice of his cause.

11In God's name and the king's, say who thou art

12And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,

13Against what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:

14Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;

15As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!

16My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;

17Who hither come engaged by my oath--

18Which God defend a knight should violate!--

19Both to defend my loyalty and truth

20To God, my king and my succeeding issue,

21Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me

22And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,

23To prove him, in defending of myself,

24A traitor to my God, my king, and me:

25And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

26Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,

27Both who he is and why he cometh hither

28Thus plated in habiliments of war,

29And formally, according to our law,

30Depose him in the justice of his cause.

31What is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,

32Before King Richard in his royal lists?

33Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?

34Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!

35Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby

36Am I; who ready here do stand in arms,

37To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,

38In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

39That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,

40To God of heaven, King Richard and to me;

41And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

42On pain of death, no person be so bold

43Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,

44Except the marshal and such officers

45Appointed to direct these fair designs.

46Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,

47And bow my knee before his majesty:

48For Mowbray and myself are like two men

49That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;

50Then let us take a ceremonious leave

51And loving farewell of our several friends.

52The appellant in all duty greets your highness,

53And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

54We will descend and fold him in our arms.

55Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,

56So be thy fortune in this royal fight!

57Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,

58Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

59O let no noble eye profane a tear

60For me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:

61As confident as is the falcon's flight

62Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.

63My loving lord, I take my leave of you;

64Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;

65Not sick, although I have to do with death,

66But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.

67Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet

68The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:

69O thou, the earthly author of my blood,

70Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,

71Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up

72To reach at victory above my head,

73Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;

74And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,

75That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,

76And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,

77Even in the lusty havior of his son.

78God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!

79Be swift like lightning in the execution;

80And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,

81Fall like amazing thunder on the casque

82Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:

83Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.

84Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive!

85However God or fortune cast my lot,

86There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,

87A loyal, just and upright gentleman:

88Never did captive with a freer heart

89Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace

90His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,

91More than my dancing soul doth celebrate

92This feast of battle with mine adversary.

93Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,

94Take from my mouth the wish of happy years:

95As gentle and as jocund as to jest

96Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.

97Farewell, my lord: securely I espy

98Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.

99Order the trial, marshal, and begin.

100Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

101Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!

102Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.

103Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.

104Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

105Stands here for God, his sovereign and himself,

106On pain to be found false and recreant,

107To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,

108A traitor to his God, his king and him;

109And dares him to set forward to the fight.

110Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

111On pain to be found false and recreant,

112Both to defend himself and to approve

113Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,

114To God, his sovereign and to him disloyal;

115Courageously and with a free desire

116Attending but the signal to begin.

117Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.

118Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.

119Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,

120And both return back to their chairs again:

121Withdraw with us: and let the trumpets sound

122While we return these dukes what we decree.

123Draw near,

124And list what with our council we have done.

125For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd

126With that dear blood which it hath fostered;

127And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

128Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;

129And for we think the eagle-winged pride

130Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,

131With rival-hating envy, set on you

132To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle

133Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;

134Which so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,

135With harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,

136And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,

137Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace

138And make us wade even in our kindred's blood,

139Therefore, we banish you our territories:

140You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,

141Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields

142Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

143But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

144Your will be done: this must my comfort be,

145Sun that warms you here shall shine on me;

146And those his golden beams to you here lent

147Shall point on me and gild my banishment.

148Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,

149Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:

150The sly slow hours shall not determinate

151The dateless limit of thy dear exile;

152The hopeless word of 'never to return'

153Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

154A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

155And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:

156A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

157As to be cast forth in the common air,

158Have I deserved at your highness' hands.

159The language I have learn'd these forty years,

160My native English, now I must forego:

161And now my tongue's use is to me no more

162Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

163Or like a cunning instrument cased up,

164Or, being open, put into his hands

165That knows no touch to tune the harmony:

166Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,

167Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;

168And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

169Is made my gaoler to attend on me.

170I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

171Too far in years to be a pupil now:

172What is thy sentence then but speechless death,

173Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

174It boots thee not to be compassionate:

175After our sentence plaining comes too late.

176Then thus I turn me from my country's light,

177To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

178Return again, and take an oath with thee.

179Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;

180Swear by the duty that you owe to God--

181Our part therein we banish with yourselves--

182To keep the oath that we administer:

183You never shall, so help you truth and God!

184Embrace each other's love in banishment;

185Nor never look upon each other's face;

186Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

187This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;

188Nor never by advised purpose meet

189To plot, contrive, or complot any ill

190'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

191I swear.

192And I, to keep all this.

193Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:--

194By this time, had the king permitted us,

195One of our souls had wander'd in the air.

196Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,

197As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:

198Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;

199Since thou hast far to go, bear not along

200The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.

201No, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,

202My name be blotted from the book of life,

203And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!

204But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;

205And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.

206Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;

207Save back to England, all the world's my way.

208Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

209I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect

210Hath from the number of his banish'd years

211Pluck'd four away.

212Six frozen winter spent,

213Return with welcome home from banishment.

214How long a time lies in one little word!

215Four lagging winters and four wanton springs

216End in a word: such is the breath of kings.

217I thank my liege, that in regard of me

218He shortens four years of my son's exile:

219But little vantage shall I reap thereby;

220For, ere the six years that he hath to spend

221Can change their moons and bring their times about

222My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light

223Shall be extinct with age and endless night;

224My inch of taper will be burnt and done,

225And blindfold death not let me see my son.

226Why uncle, thou hast many years to live.

227But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:

228Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,

229And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;

230Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,

231But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;

232Thy word is current with him for my death,

233But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

234Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,

235Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:

236Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?

237Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

238You urged me as a judge; but I had rather

239You would have bid me argue like a father.

240O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

241To smooth his fault I should have been more mild:

242A partial slander sought I to avoid,

243And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.

244Alas, I look'd when some of you should say,

245I was too strict to make mine own away;

246But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue

247Against my will to do myself this wrong.

248Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:

249Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

250Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know,

251From where you do remain let paper show.

252My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,

253As far as land will let me, by your side.

254O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,

255That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?

256I have too few to take my leave of you,

257When the tongue's office should be prodigal

258To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

259Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.

260Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

261What is six winters? they are quickly gone.

262To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

263Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.

264My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,

265Which finds it an inforced pilgrimage.

266The sullen passage of thy weary steps

267Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set

268The precious jewel of thy home return.

269Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make

270Will but remember me what a deal of world

271I wander from the jewels that I love.

272Must I not serve a long apprenticehood

273To foreign passages, and in the end,

274Having my freedom, boast of nothing else

275But that I was a journeyman to grief?

276All places that the eye of heaven visits

277Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.

278Teach thy necessity to reason thus;

279There is no virtue like necessity.

280Think not the king did banish thee,

281But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,

282Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.

283Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour

284And not the king exiled thee; or suppose

285Devouring pestilence hangs in our air

286And thou art flying to a fresher clime:

287Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

288To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest:

289Suppose the singing birds musicians,

290The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,

291The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more

292Than a delightful measure or a dance;

293For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite

294The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

295O, who can hold a fire in his hand

296By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

297Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

298By bare imagination of a feast?

299Or wallow naked in December snow

300By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

301O, no! the apprehension of the good

302Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:

303Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more

304Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

305Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:

306Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

307Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;

308My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!

309Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,

310Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.

1We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,

2How far brought you high Hereford on his way?

3I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

4But to the next highway, and there I left him.

5And say, what store of parting tears were shed?

6Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,

7Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

8Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance

9Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

10What said our cousin when you parted with him?

11'Farewell:'

12And, for my heart disdained that my tongue

13Should so profane the word, that taught me craft

14To counterfeit oppression of such grief

15That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.

16Marry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours

17And added years to his short banishment,

18He should have had a volume of farewells;

19But since it would not, he had none of me.

20He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,

21When time shall call him home from banishment,

22Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.

23Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green

24Observed his courtship to the common people;

25How he did seem to dive into their hearts

26With humble and familiar courtesy,

27What reverence he did throw away on slaves,

28Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles

29And patient underbearing of his fortune,

30As 'twere to banish their affects with him.

31Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;

32A brace of draymen bid God speed him well

33And had the tribute of his supple knee,

34With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'

35As were our England in reversion his,

36And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

37Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.

38Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,

39Expedient manage must be made, my liege,

40Ere further leisure yield them further means

41For their advantage and your highness' loss.

42We will ourself in person to this war:

43And, for our coffers, with too great a court

44And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,

45We are inforced to farm our royal realm;

46The revenue whereof shall furnish us

47For our affairs in hand: if that come short,

48Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;

49Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,

50They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold

51And send them after to supply our wants;

52For we will make for Ireland presently.

53Bushy, what news?

54Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,

55Suddenly taken; and hath sent post haste

56To entreat your majesty to visit him.

57Where lies he?

58At Ely House.

59Now put it, God, in the physician's mind

60To help him to his grave immediately!

61The lining of his coffers shall make coats

62To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.

63Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:

64Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!

65Amen.

1Will the king come, that I may breathe my last

2In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?

3Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;

4For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

5O, but they say the tongues of dying men

6Enforce attention like deep harmony:

7Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,

8For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.

9He that no more must say is listen'd more

10Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;

11More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:

12The setting sun, and music at the close,

13As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

14Writ in remembrance more than things long past:

15Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,

16My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

17No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,

18As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,

19Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound

20The open ear of youth doth always listen;

21Report of fashions in proud Italy,

22Whose manners still our tardy apish nation

23Limps after in base imitation.

24Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity--

25So it be new, there's no respect how vile--

26That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?

27Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,

28Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.

29Direct not him whose way himself will choose:

30'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

31Methinks I am a prophet new inspired

32And thus expiring do foretell of him:

33His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,

34For violent fires soon burn out themselves;

35Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;

36He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;

37With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:

38Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

39Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

40This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,

41This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

42This other Eden, demi-paradise,

43This fortress built by Nature for herself

44Against infection and the hand of war,

45This happy breed of men, this little world,

46This precious stone set in the silver sea,

47Which serves it in the office of a wall,

48Or as a moat defensive to a house,

49Against the envy of less happier lands,

50This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

51This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

52Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,

53Renowned for their deeds as far from home,

54For Christian service and true chivalry,

55As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,

56Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,

57This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,

58Dear for her reputation through the world,

59Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,

60Like to a tenement or pelting farm:

61England, bound in with the triumphant sea

62Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

63Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

64With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:

65That England, that was wont to conquer others,

66Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

67Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,

68How happy then were my ensuing death!

69The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;

70For young hot colts being raged do rage the more.

71How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

72What comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?

73O how that name befits my composition!

74Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:

75Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;

76And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?

77For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;

78Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:

79The pleasure that some fathers feed upon,

80Is my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;

81And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:

82Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,

83Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

84Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

85No, misery makes sport to mock itself:

86Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,

87I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

88Should dying men flatter with those that live?

89No, no, men living flatter those that die.

90Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.

91O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

92I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

93Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;

94Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.

95Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land

96Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;

97And thou, too careless patient as thou art,

98Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure

99Of those physicians that first wounded thee:

100A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,

101Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;

102And yet, incaged in so small a verge,

103The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.

104O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye

105Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,

106From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,

107Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,

108Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.

109Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,

110It were a shame to let this land by lease;

111But for thy world enjoying but this land,

112Is it not more than shame to shame it so?

113Landlord of England art thou now, not king:

114Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--

115A lunatic lean-witted fool,

116Presuming on an ague's privilege,

117Darest with thy frozen admonition

118Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood

119With fury from his native residence.

120Now, by my seat's right royal majesty,

121Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,

122This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head

123Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

124O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,

125For that I was his father Edward's son;

126That blood already, like the pelican,

127Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:

128My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,

129Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!

130May be a precedent and witness good

131That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:

132Join with the present sickness that I have;

133And thy unkindness be like crooked age,

134To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.

135Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!

136These words hereafter thy tormentors be!

137Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:

138Love they to live that love and honour have.

139And let them die that age and sullens have;

140For both hast thou, and both become the grave.

141I do beseech your majesty, impute his words

142To wayward sickliness and age in him:

143He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear

144As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.

145Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;

146As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

147My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

148What says he?

149Nay, nothing; all is said

150His tongue is now a stringless instrument;

151Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

152Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!

153Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

154The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;

155His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.

156So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:

157We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,

158Which live like venom where no venom else

159But only they have privilege to live.

160And for these great affairs do ask some charge,

161Towards our assistance we do seize to us

162The plate, corn, revenues and moveables,

163Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

164How long shall I be patient? ah, how long

165Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?

166Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment

167Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,

168Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

169About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,

170Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,

171Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.

172I am the last of noble Edward's sons,

173Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:

174In war was never lion raged more fierce,

175In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,

176Than was that young and princely gentleman.

177His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,

178Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;

179But when he frown'd, it was against the French

180And not against his friends; his noble hand

181Did will what he did spend and spent not that

182Which his triumphant father's hand had won;

183His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,

184But bloody with the enemies of his kin.

185O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,

186Or else he never would compare between.

187Why, uncle, what's the matter?

188O my liege,

189Pardon me, if you please; if n ot, I, pleased

190Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.

191Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands

192The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?

193Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?

194Was not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?

195Did not the one deserve to have an heir?

196Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

197Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time

198His charters and his customary rights;

199Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;

200Be not thyself; for how art thou a king

201But by fair sequence and succession?

202Now, afore God--God forbid I say true!--

203If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,

204Call in the letters patent that he hath

205By his attorneys-general to sue

206His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,

207You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,

208You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts

209And prick my tender patience, to those thoughts

210Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

211Think what you will, we seize into our hands

212His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.

213I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:

214What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;

215But by bad courses may be understood

216That their events can never fall out good.

217Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:

218Bid him repair to us to Ely House

219To see this business. To-morrow next

220We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:

221And we create, in absence of ourself,

222Our uncle York lord governor of England;

223For he is just and always loved us well.

224Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;

225Be merry, for our time of stay is short

226Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

227And living too; for now his son is duke.

228Barely in title, not in revenue.

229Richly in both, if justice had her right.

230My heart is great; but it must break with silence,

231Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

232Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more

233That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

234Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?

235If it be so, out with it boldly, man;

236Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

237No good at all that I can do for him;

238Unless you call it good to pity him,

239Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

240Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne

241In him, a royal prince, and many moe

242Of noble blood in this declining land.

243The king is not himself, but basely led

244By flatterers; and what they will inform,

245Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,

246That will the king severely prosecute

247'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

248The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,

249And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined

250For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

251And daily new exactions are devised,

252As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:

253But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

254Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,

255But basely yielded upon compromise

256That which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:

257More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

258The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

259The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.

260Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.

261He hath not money for these Irish wars,

262His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,

263But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

264His noble kinsman: most degenerate king!

265But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,

266Yet see no shelter to avoid the storm;

267We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,

268And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

269We see the very wreck that we must suffer;

270And unavoided is the danger now,

271For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

272Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death

273I spy life peering; but I dare not say

274How near the tidings of our comfort is.

275Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

276Be confident to speak, Northumberland:

277We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,

278Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.

279Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay

280In Brittany, received intelligence

281That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,

282That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,

283His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,

284Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,

285Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,

286All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne

287With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,

288Are making hither with all due expedience

289And shortly mean to touch our northern shore:

290Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay

291The first departing of the king for Ireland.

292If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,

293Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,

294Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,

295Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt

296And make high majesty look like itself,

297Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;

298But if you faint, as fearing to do so,

299Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

300To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.

301Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

1Madam, your majesty is too much sad:

2You promised, when you parted with the king,

3To lay aside life-harming heaviness

4And entertain a cheerful disposition.

5To please the king I did; to please myself

6I cannot do it; yet I know no cause

7Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,

8Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest

9As my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,

10Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,

11Is coming towards me, and my inward soul

12With nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,

13More than with parting from my lord the king.

14Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,

15Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;

16For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,

17Divides one thing entire to many objects;

18Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon

19Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry

20Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty,

21Looking awry upon your lord's departure,

22Find shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;

23Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows

24Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,

25More than your lord's departure weep not: more's not seen;

26Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,

27Which for things true weeps things imaginary.

28It may be so; but yet my inward soul

29Persuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,

30I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad

31As, though on thinking on no thought I think,

32Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.

33'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.

34'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived

35From some forefather grief; mine is not so,

36For nothing had begot my something grief;

37Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:

38'Tis in reversion that I do possess;

39But what it is, that is not yet known; what

40I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

41God save your majesty! and well met, gentlemen:

42I hope the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.

43Why hopest thou so? 'tis better hope he is;

44For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:

45Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?

46That he, our hope, might have retired his power,

47And driven into despair an enemy's hope,

48Who strongly hath set footing in this land:

49The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,

50And with uplifted arms is safe arrived

51At Ravenspurgh.

52Now God in heaven forbid!

53Ah, madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse,

54The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,

55The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,

56With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

57Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland

58And all the rest revolted faction traitors?

59We have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester

60Hath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship,

61And all the household servants fled with him

62To Bolingbroke.

63So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,

64And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:

65Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,

66And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,

67Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.

68Despair not, madam.

69Who shall hinder me?

70I will despair, and be at enmity

71With cozening hope: he is a flatterer,

72A parasite, a keeper back of death,

73Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,

74Which false hope lingers in extremity.

75Here comes the Duke of York.

76With signs of war about his aged neck:

77O, full of careful business are his looks!

78Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.

79Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts:

80Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,

81Where nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief.

82Your husband, he is gone to save far off,

83Whilst others come to make him lose at home:

84Here am I left to underprop his land,

85Who, weak with age, cannot support myself:

86Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;

87Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

88My lord, your son was gone before I came.

89He was? Why, so! go all which way it will!

90The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,

91And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.

92Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;

93Bid her send me presently a thousand pound:

94Hold, take my ring.

95My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,

96To-day, as I came by, I called there;

97But I shall grieve you to report the rest.

98What is't, knave?

99An hour before I came, the duchess died.

100God for his mercy! what a tide of woes

101Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!

102I know not what to do: I would to God,

103So my untruth had not provoked him to it,

104The king had cut off my head with my brother's.

105What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?

106How shall we do for money for these wars?

107Come, sister,--cousin, I would say--pray, pardon me.

108Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts

109And bring away the armour that is there.

110Gentlemen, will you go muster men?

111If I know how or which way to order these affairs

112Thus thrust disorderly into my hands,

113Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen:

114The one is my sovereign, whom both my oath

115And duty bids defend; the other again

116Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,

117Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.

118Well, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll

119Dispose of you.

120Gentlemen, go, muster up your men,

121And meet me presently at Berkeley.

122I should to Plashy too;

123But time will not permit: all is uneven,

124And every thing is left at six and seven.

125The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,

126But none returns. For us to levy power

127Proportionable to the enemy

128Is all unpossible.

129Besides, our nearness to the king in love

130Is near the hate of those love not the king.

131And that's the wavering commons: for their love

132Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them

133By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.

134Wherein the king stands generally condemn'd.

135If judgement lie in them, then so do we,

136Because we ever have been near the king.

137Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol castle:

138The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.

139Thither will I with you; for little office

140The hateful commons will perform for us,

141Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.

142Will you go along with us?

143No; I will to Ireland to his majesty.

144Farewell: if heart's presages be not vain,

145We three here art that ne'er shall meet again.

146That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.

147Alas, poor duke! the task he undertakes

148Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry:

149Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.

150Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.

151Well, we may meet again.

152I fear me, never.

1How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?

2Believe me, noble lord,

3I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire:

4These high wild hills and rough uneven ways

5Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome,

6And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,

7Making the hard way sweet and delectable.

8But I bethink me what a weary way

9From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found

10In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,

11Which, I protest, hath very much beguiled

12The tediousness and process of my travel:

13But theirs is sweetened with the hope to have

14The present benefit which I possess;

15And hope to joy is little less in joy

16Than hope enjoy'd: by this the weary lords

17Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done

18By sight of what I have, your noble company.

19Of much less value is my company

20Than your good words. But who comes here?

21It is my son, young Harry Percy,

22Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.

23Harry, how fares your uncle?

24I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.

25Why, is he not with the queen?

26No, my good Lord; he hath forsook the court,

27Broken his staff of office and dispersed

28The household of the king.

29What was his reason?

30He was not so resolved when last we spake together.

31Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.

32But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,

33To offer service to the Duke of Hereford,

34And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover

35What power the Duke of York had levied there;

36Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.

37Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?

38No, my good lord, for that is not forgot

39Which ne'er I did remember: to my knowledge,

40I never in my life did look on him.

41Then learn to know him now; this is the duke.

42My gracious lord, I tender you my service,

43Such as it is, being tender, raw and young:

44Which elder days shall ripen and confirm

45To more approved service and desert.

46I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure

47I count myself in nothing else so happy

48As in a soul remembering my good friends;

49And, as my fortune ripens with thy love,

50It shall be still thy true love's recompense:

51My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.

52How far is it to Berkeley? and what stir

53Keeps good old York there with his men of war?

54There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,

55Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;

56And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour;

57None else of name and noble estimate.

58Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,

59Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.

60Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues

61A banish'd traitor: all my treasury

62Is yet but unfelt thanks, which more enrich'd

63Shall be your love and labour's recompense.

64Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.

65And far surmounts our labour to attain it.

66Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;

67Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,

68Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

69It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.

70My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.

71My lord, my answer is--to Lancaster;

72And I am come to seek that name in England;

73And I must find that title in your tongue,

74Before I make reply to aught you say.

75Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning

76To raze one title of your honour out:

77To you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,

78From the most gracious regent of this land,

79The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on

80To take advantage of the absent time

81And fright our native peace with self-born arms.

82I shall not need transport my words by you;

83Here comes his grace in person. My noble uncle!

84Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,

85Whose duty is deceiveable and false.

86My gracious uncle--

87Tut, tut!

88Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:

89I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace.'

90In an ungracious mouth is but profane.

91Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs

92Dared once to touch a dust of England's ground?

93But then more 'why?' why have they dared to march

94So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,

95Frighting her pale-faced villages with war

96And ostentation of despised arms?

97Comest thou because the anointed king is hence?

98Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind,

99And in my loyal bosom lies his power.

100Were I but now the lord of such hot youth

101As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself

102Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,

103From forth the ranks of many thousand French,

104O, then how quickly should this arm of mine.

105Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee

106And minister correction to thy fault!

107My gracious uncle, let me know my fault:

108On what condition stands it and wherein?

109Even in condition of the worst degree,

110In gross rebellion and detested treason:

111Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come

112Before the expiration of thy time,

113In braving arms against thy sovereign.

114As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;

115But as I come, I come for Lancaster.

116And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace

117Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:

118You are my father, for methinks in you

119I see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,

120Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd

121A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties

122Pluck'd from my arms perforce and given away

123To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?

124If that my cousin king be King of England,

125It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.

126You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;

127Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,

128He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,

129To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.

130I am denied to sue my livery here,

131And yet my letters-patents give me leave:

132My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold,

133And these and all are all amiss employ'd.

134What would you have me do? I am a subject,

135And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;

136And therefore, personally I lay my claim

137To my inheritance of free descent.

138The noble duke hath been too much abused.

139It stands your grace upon to do him right.

140Base men by his endowments are made great.

141My lords of England, let me tell you this:

142I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs

143And laboured all I could to do him right;

144But in this kind to come, in braving arms,

145Be his own carver and cut out his way,

146To find out right with wrong, it may not be;

147And you that do abet him in this kind

148Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.

149The noble duke hath sworn his coming is

150But for his own; and for the right of that

151We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;

152And let him ne'er see joy that breaks that oath!

153Well, well, I see the issue of these arms:

154I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,

155Because my power is weak and all ill left:

156But if I could, by Him that gave me life,

157I would attach you all and make you stoop

158Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;

159But since I cannot, be it known to you

160I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;

161Unless you please to enter in the castle

162And there repose you for this night.

163An offer, uncle, that we will accept:

164But we must win your grace to go with us

165To Bristol castle, which they say is held

166By Bushy, Bagot and their complices,

167The caterpillars of the commonwealth,

168Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.

169It may be I will go with you: but yet I'll pause;

170For I am loath to break our country's laws.

171Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:

172Things past redress are now with me past care.

1My lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days,

2And hardly kept our countrymen together,

3And yet we hear no tidings from the king;

4Therefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.

5Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:

6The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.

7'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.

8The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd

9And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;

10The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth

11And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;

12Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,

13The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,

14The other to enjoy by rage and war:

15These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.

16Farewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,

17As well assured Richard their king is dead.

18Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind

19I see thy glory like a shooting star

20Fall to the base earth from the firmament.

21Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,

22Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:

23Thy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,

24And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.

1Bring forth these men.

2Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls--

3Since presently your souls must part your bodies--

4With too much urging your pernicious lives,

5For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood

6From off my hands, here in the view of men

7I will unfold some causes of your deaths.

8You have misled a prince, a royal king,

9A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,

10By you unhappied and disfigured clean:

11You have in manner with your sinful hours

12Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,

13Broke the possession of a royal bed

14And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks

15With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.

16Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,

17Near to the king in blood, and near in love

18Till you did make him misinterpret me,

19Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,

20And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,

21Eating the bitter bread of banishment;

22Whilst you have fed upon my signories,

23Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,

24From my own windows torn my household coat,

25Razed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,

26Save men's opinions and my living blood,

27To show the world I am a gentleman.

28This and much more, much more than twice all this,

29Condemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over

30To execution and the hand of death.

31More welcome is the stroke of death to me

32Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.

33My comfort is that heaven will take our souls

34And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

35My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.

36Uncle, you say the queen is at your house;

37For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:

38Tell her I send to her my kind commends;

39Take special care my greetings be deliver'd.

40A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd

41With letters of your love to her at large.

42Thank, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away.

43To fight with Glendower and his complices:

44Awhile to work, and after holiday.

1Barkloughly castle call they this at hand?

2Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air,

3After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

4Needs must I like it well: I weep for joy

5To stand upon my kingdom once again.

6Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,

7Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:

8As a long-parted mother with her child

9Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,

10So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,

11And do thee favours with my royal hands.

12Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,

13Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;

14But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,

15And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,

16Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet

17Which with usurping steps do trample thee:

18Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;

19And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,

20Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder

21Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch

22Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.

23Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:

24This earth shall have a feeling and these stones

25Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king

26Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.

27Fear not, my lord: that Power that made you king

28Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.

29The means that heaven yields must be embraced,

30And not neglected; else, if heaven would,

31And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,

32The proffer'd means of succor and redress.

33He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;

34Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,

35Grows strong and great in substance and in power.

36Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not

37That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,

38Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,

39Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen

40In murders and in outrage, boldly here;

41But when from under this terrestrial ball

42He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines

43And darts his light through every guilty hole,

44Then murders, treasons and detested sins,

45The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,

46Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?

47So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,

48Who all this while hath revell'd in the night

49Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes,

50Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,

51His treasons will sit blushing in his face,

52Not able to endure the sight of day,

53But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.

54Not all the water in the rough rude sea

55Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;

56The breath of worldly men cannot depose

57The deputy elected by the Lord:

58For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd

59To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,

60God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay

61A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,

62Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.

63Welcome, my lord how far off lies your power?

64Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,

65Than this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue

66And bids me speak of nothing but despair.

67One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,

68Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:

69O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

70And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!

71To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,

72O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state:

73For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead.

74Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled.

75Comfort, my liege; why looks your grace so pale?

76But now the blood of twenty thousand men

77Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;

78And, till so much blood thither come again,

79Have I not reason to look pale and dead?

80All souls that will be safe fly from my side,

81For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

82Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.

83I had forgot myself; am I not king?

84Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.

85Is not the king's name twenty thousand names?

86Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes

87At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,

88Ye favourites of a king: are we not high?

89High be our thoughts: I know my uncle York

90Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

91More health and happiness betide my liege

92Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!

93Mine ear is open and my heart prepared;

94The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.

95Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care

96And what loss is it to be rid of care?

97Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?

98Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,

99We'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:

100Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;

101They break their faith to God as well as us:

102Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:

103The worst is death, and death will have his day.

104Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd

105To bear the tidings of calamity.

106Like an unseasonable stormy day,

107Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,

108As if the world were all dissolved to tears,

109So high above his limits swells the rage

110Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land

111With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.

112White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps

113Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,

114Strive to speak big and clap their female joints

115In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:

116The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows

117Of double-fatal yew against thy state;

118Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills

119Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,

120And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

121Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.

122Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?

123What is become of Bushy? where is Green?

124That they have let the dangerous enemy

125Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?

126If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:

127I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.

128Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.

129O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!

130Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

131Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!

132Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!

133Would they make peace? terrible hell make war

134Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

135Sweet love, I see, changing his property,

136Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate:

137Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made

138With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse

139Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound

140And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.

141Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?

142Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.

143Where is the duke my father with his power?

144No matter where; of comfort no man speak:

145Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

146Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

147Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,

148Let's choose executors and talk of wills:

149And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

150Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

151Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,

152And nothing can we call our own but death

153And that small model of the barren earth

154Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

155For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

156And tell sad stories of the death of kings;

157How some have been deposed; some slain in war,

158Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

159Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;

160All murder'd: for within the hollow crown

161That rounds the mortal temples of a king

162Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,

163Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

164Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

165To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,

166Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

167As if this flesh which walls about our life,

168Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus

169Comes at the last and with a little pin

170Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

171Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

172With solemn reverence: throw away respect,

173Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,

174For you have but mistook me all this while:

175I live with bread like you, feel want,

176Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,

177How can you say to me, I am a king?

178My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,

179But presently prevent the ways to wail.

180To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,

181Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,

182And so your follies fight against yourself.

183Fear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:

184And fight and die is death destroying death;

185Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

186My father hath a power; inquire of him

187And learn to make a body of a limb.

188Thou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come

189To change blows with thee for our day of doom.

190This ague fit of fear is over-blown;

191An easy task it is to win our own.

192Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?

193Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.

194Men judge by the complexion of the sky

195The state and inclination of the day:

196So may you by my dull and heavy eye,

197My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.

198I play the torturer, by small and small

199To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:

200Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,

201And all your northern castles yielded up,

202And all your southern gentlemen in arms

203Upon his party.

204Thou hast said enough.

205Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth

206Of that sweet way I was in to despair!

207What say you now? what comfort have we now?

208By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly

209That bids me be of comfort any more.

210Go to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;

211A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.

212That power I have, discharge; and let them go

213To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,

214For I have none: let no man speak again

215To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

216My liege, one word.

217He does me double wrong

218That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.

219Discharge my followers: let them hence away,

220From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.

1So that by this intelligence we learn

2The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury

3Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed

4With some few private friends upon this coast.

5The news is very fair and good, my lord:

6Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.

7It would beseem the Lord Northumberland

8To say 'King Richard:' alack the heavy day

9When such a sacred king should hide his head.

10Your grace mistakes; only to be brief

11Left I his title out.

12The time hath been,

13Would you have been so brief with him, he would

14Have been so brief with you, to shorten you,

15For taking so the head, your whole head's length.

16Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.

17Take not, good cousin, further than you should.

18Lest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads.

19I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself

20Against their will. But who comes here?

21Welcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?

22The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,

23Against thy entrance.

24Royally!

25Why, it contains no king?

26Yes, my good lord,

27It doth contain a king; King Richard lies

28Within the limits of yon lime and stone:

29And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,

30Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman

31Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.

32O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.

33Noble lords,

34Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;

35Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley

36Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:

37Henry Bolingbroke

38On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand

39And sends allegiance and true faith of heart

40To his most royal person, hither come

41Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,

42Provided that my banishment repeal'd

43And lands restored again be freely granted:

44If not, I'll use the advantage of my power

45And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood

46Rain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen:

47The which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke

48It is, such crimson tempest should bedrench

49The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,

50My stooping duty tenderly shall show.

51Go, signify as much, while here we march

52Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.

53Let's march without the noise of threatening drum,

54That from this castle's tatter'd battlements

55Our fair appointments may be well perused.

56Methinks King Richard and myself should meet

57With no less terror than the elements

58Of fire and water, when their thundering shock

59At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.

60Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:

61The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain

62My waters; on the earth, and not on him.

63March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.

64See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,

65As doth the blushing discontented sun

66From out the fiery portal of the east,

67When he perceives the envious clouds are bent

68To dim his glory and to stain the track

69Of his bright passage to the occident.

70Yet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,

71As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth

72Controlling majesty: alack, alack, for woe,

73That any harm should stain so fair a show!

74We are amazed; and thus long have we stood

75To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,

76Because we thought ourself thy lawful king:

77And if we be, how dare thy joints forget

78To pay their awful duty to our presence?

79If we be not, show us the hand of God

80That hath dismissed us from our stewardship;

81For well we know, no hand of blood and bone

82Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,

83Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.

84And though you think that all, as you have done,

85Have torn their souls by turning them from us,

86And we are barren and bereft of friends;

87Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,

88Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf

89Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike

90Your children yet unborn and unbegot,

91That lift your vassal hands against my head

92And threat the glory of my precious crown.

93Tell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--

94That every stride he makes upon my land

95Is dangerous treason: he is come to open

96The purple testament of bleeding war;

97But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,

98Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons

99Shall ill become the flower of England's face,

100Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace

101To scarlet indignation and bedew

102Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.

103The king of heaven forbid our lord the king

104Should so with civil and uncivil arms

105Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin

106Harry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand;

107And by the honourable tomb he swears,

108That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,

109And by the royalties of both your bloods,

110Currents that spring from one most gracious head,

111And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,

112And by the worth and honour of himself,

113Comprising all that may be sworn or said,

114His coming hither hath no further scope

115Than for his lineal royalties and to beg

116Enfranchisement immediate on his kn ees:

117Which on thy royal party granted once,

118His glittering arms he will commend to rust,

119His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart

120To faithful service of your majesty.

121This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;

122And, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.

123Northumberland, say thus the king returns:

124His noble cousin is right welcome hither;

125And all the number of his fair demands

126Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction:

127With all the gracious utterance thou hast

128Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.

129We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,

130To look so poorly and to speak so fair?

131Shall we call back Northumberland, and send

132Defiance to the traitor, and so die?

133No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words

134Till time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.

135O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,

136That laid the sentence of dread banishment

137On yon proud man, should take it off again

138With words of sooth! O that I were as great

139As is my grief, or lesser than my name!

140Or that I could forget what I have been,

141Or not remember what I must be now!

142Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,

143Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.

144Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.

145What must the king do now? must he submit?

146The king shall do it: must he be deposed?

147The king shall be contented: must he lose

148The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:

149I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,

150My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,

151My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,

152My figured goblets for a dish of wood,

153My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,

154My subjects for a pair of carved saints

155And my large kingdom for a little grave,

156A little little grave, an obscure grave;

157Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,

158Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet

159May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;

160For on my heart they tread now whilst I live;

161And buried once, why not upon my head?

162Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!

163We'll make foul weather with despised tears;

164Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,

165And make a dearth in this revolting land.

166Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,

167And make some pretty match with shedding tears?

168As thus, to drop them still upon one place,

169Till they have fretted us a pair of graves

170Within the earth; and, therein laid,--there lies

171Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.

172Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see

173I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.

174Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,

175What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty

176Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?

177You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.

178My lord, in the base court he doth attend

179To speak with you; may it please you to come down.

180Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,

181Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

182In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,

183To come at traitors' calls and do them grace.

184In the base court? Come down? Down, court!

185down, king!

186For night-owls shriek where mounting larks

187should sing.

188What says his majesty?

189Sorrow and grief of heart

190Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man

191Yet he is come.

192Stand all apart,

193And show fair duty to his majesty.

194My gracious lord,--

195Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee

196To make the base earth proud with kissing it:

197Me rather had my heart might feel your love

198Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.

199Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,

200Thus high at least, although your knee be low.

201My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.

202Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.

203So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,

204As my true service shall deserve your love.

205Well you deserve: they well deserve to have,

206That know the strong'st and surest way to get.

207Uncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes;

208Tears show their love, but want their remedies.

209Cousin, I am too young to be your father,

210Though you are old enough to be my heir.

211What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;

212For do we must what force will have us do.

213Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?

214Yea, my good lord.

215Then I must not say no.

1What sport shall we devise here in this garden,

2To drive away the heavy thought of care?

3Madam, we'll play at bowls.

4'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,

5And that my fortune rubs against the bias.

6Madam, we'll dance.

7My legs can keep no measure in delight,

8When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:

9Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.

10Madam, we'll tell tales.

11Of sorrow or of joy?

12Of either, madam.

13Of neither, girl:

14For of joy, being altogether wanting,

15It doth remember me the more of sorrow;

16Or if of grief, being altogether had,

17It adds more sorrow to my want of joy:

18For what I have I need not to repeat;

19And what I want it boots not to complain.

20Madam, I'll sing.

21'Tis well that thou hast cause

22But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.

23I could weep, madam, would it do you good.

24And I could sing, would weeping do me good,

25And never borrow any tear of thee.

26But stay, here come the gardeners:

27Let's step into the shadow of these trees.

28My wretchedness unto a row of pins,

29They'll talk of state; for every one doth so

30Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.

31Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,

32Which, like unruly children, make their sire

33Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:

34Give some supportance to the bending twigs.

35Go thou, and like an executioner,

36Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,

37That look too lofty in our commonwealth:

38All must be even in our government.

39You thus employ'd, I will go root away

40The noisome weeds, which without profit suck

41The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

42Why should we in the compass of a pale

43Keep law and form and due proportion,

44Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,

45When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,

46Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,

47Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,

48Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs

49Swarming with caterpillars?

50Hold thy peace:

51He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring

52Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:

53The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,

54That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,

55Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,

56I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

57What, are they dead?

58They are; and Bolingbroke

59Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it

60That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land

61As we this garden! We at time of year

62Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,

63Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,

64With too much riches it confound itself:

65Had he done so to great and growing men,

66They might have lived to bear and he to taste

67Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches

68We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:

69Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,

70Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.

71What, think you then the king shall be deposed?

72Depress'd he is already, and deposed

73'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night

74To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's,

75That tell black tidings.

76O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!

77Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,

78How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?

79What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee

80To make a second fall of cursed man?

81Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?

82Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth,

83Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,

84Camest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.

85Pardon me, madam: little joy have I

86To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.

87King Richard, he is in the mighty hold

88Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:

89In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,

90And some few vanities that make him light;

91But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,

92Besides himself, are all the English peers,

93And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.

94Post you to London, and you will find it so;

95I speak no more than every one doth know.

96Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,

97Doth not thy embassage belong to me,

98And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st

99To serve me last, that I may longest keep

100Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,

101To meet at London London's king in woe.

102What, was I born to this, that my sad look

103Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?

104Gardener, for telling me these news of woe,

105Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.

106Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,

107I would my skill were subject to thy curse.

108Here did she fall a tear; here in this place

109I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:

110Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,

111In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

1Call forth Bagot.

2Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;

3What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,

4Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd

5The bloody office of his timeless end.

6Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.

7Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.

8My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue

9Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.

10In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted,

11I heard you say, 'Is not my arm of length,

12That reacheth from the restful English court

13As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'

14Amongst much other talk, that very time,

15I heard you say that you had rather refuse

16The offer of an hundred thousand crowns

17Than Bolingbroke's return to England;

18Adding withal how blest this land would be

19In this your cousin's death.

20Princes and noble lords,

21What answer shall I make to this base man?

22Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars,

23On equal terms to give him chastisement?

24Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd

25With the attainder of his slanderous lips.

26There is my gage, the manual seal of death,

27That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,

28And will maintain what thou hast said is false

29In thy heart-blood, though being all too base

30To stain the temper of my knightly sword.

31Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.

32Excepting one, I would he were the best

33In all this presence that hath moved me so.

34If that thy valour stand on sympathy,

35There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:

36By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,

37I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it

38That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.

39If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;

40And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,

41Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.

42Thou darest not, coward, live to see that day.

43Now by my soul, I would it were this hour.

44Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.

45Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true

46In this appeal as thou art all unjust;

47And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,

48To prove it on thee to the extremest point

49Of mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.

50An if I do not, may my hands rot off

51And never brandish more revengeful steel

52Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

53I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;

54And spur thee on with full as many lies

55As may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear

56From sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;

57Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.

58Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:

59I have a thousand spirits in one breast,

60To answer twenty thousand such as you.

61My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well

62The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

63'Tis very true: you were in presence then;

64And you can witness with me this is true.

65As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.

66Surrey, thou liest.

67Dishonourable boy!

68That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,

69That it shall render vengeance and revenge

70Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie

71In earth as quiet as thy father's skull:

72In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;

73Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.

74How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!

75If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,

76I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,

77And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,

78And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,

79To tie thee to my strong correction.

80As I intend to thrive in this new world,

81Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal:

82Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say

83That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men

84To execute the noble duke at Calais.

85Some honest Christian trust me with a gage

86That Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,

87If he may be repeal'd, to try his honour.

88These differences shall all rest under gage

89Till Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,

90And, though mine enemy, restored again

91To all his lands and signories: when he's return'd,

92Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.

93That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.

94Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought

95For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,

96Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross

97Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens:

98And toil'd with works of war, retired himself

99To Italy; and there at Venice gave

100His body to that pleasant country's earth,

101And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,

102Under whose colours he had fought so long.

103Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?

104As surely as I live, my lord.

105Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom

106Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,

107Your differences shall all rest under gage

108Till we assign you to your days of trial.

109Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee

110From plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul

111Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields

112To the possession of thy royal hand:

113Ascend his throne, descending now from him;

114And long live Henry, fourth of that name!

115In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.

116Marry. God forbid!

117Worst in this royal presence may I speak,

118Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.

119Would God that any in this noble presence

120Were enough noble to be upright judge

121Of noble Richard! then true noblesse would

122Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.

123What subject can give sentence on his king?

124And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?

125Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear,

126Although apparent guilt be seen in them;

127And shall the figure of God's majesty,

128His captain, steward, deputy-elect,

129Anointed, crowned, planted many years,

130Be judged by subject and inferior breath,

131And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,

132That in a Christian climate souls refined

133Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!

134I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,

135Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king:

136My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,

137Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:

138And if you crown him, let me prophesy:

139The blood of English shall manure the ground,

140And future ages groan for this foul act;

141Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,

142And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars

143Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;

144Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny

145Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd

146The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.

147O, if you raise this house against this house,

148It will the woefullest division prove

149That ever fell upon this cursed earth.

150Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,

151Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe!

152Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,

153Of capital treason we arrest you here.

154My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge

155To keep him safely till his day of trial.

156May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit.

157Fetch hither Richard, that in common view

158He may surrender; so we shall proceed

159Without suspicion.

160I will be his conduct.

161Lords, you that here are under our arrest,

162Procure your sureties for your days of answer.

163Little are we beholding to your love,

164And little look'd for at your helping hands.

165Alack, why am I sent for to a king,

166Before I have shook off the regal thoughts

167Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd

168To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs:

169Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me

170To this submission. Yet I well remember

171The favours of these men: were they not mine?

172Did they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me?

173So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,

174Found truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none.

175God save the king! Will no man say amen?

176Am I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.

177God save the king! although I be not he;

178And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.

179To do what service am I sent for hither?

180To do that office of thine own good will

181Which tired majesty did make thee offer,

182The resignation of thy state and crown

183To Henry Bolingbroke.

184Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;

185Here cousin:

186On this side my hand, and on that side yours.

187Now is this golden crown like a deep well

188That owes two buckets, filling one another,

189The emptier ever dancing in the air,

190The other down, unseen and full of water:

191That bucket down and full of tears am I,

192Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

193I thought you had been willing to resign.

194My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:

195You may my glories and my state depose,

196But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

197Part of your cares you give me with your crown.

198Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.

199My care is loss of care, by old care done;

200Your care is gain of care, by new care won:

201The cares I give I have, though given away;

202They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.

203Are you contented to resign the crown?

204Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;

205Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.

206Now mark me, how I will undo myself;

207I give this heavy weight from off my head

208And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,

209The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;

210With mine own tears I wash away my balm,

211With mine own hands I give away my crown,

212With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,

213With mine own breath release all duty's rites:

214All pomp and majesty I do forswear;

215My manors, rents, revenues I forego;

216My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:

217God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!

218God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!

219Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,

220And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!

221Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,

222And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!

223God save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,

224And send him many years of sunshine days!

225What more remains?

226No more, but that you read

227These accusations and these grievous crimes

228Committed by your person and your followers

229Against the state and profit of this land;

230That, by confessing them, the souls of men

231May deem that you are worthily deposed.

232Must I do so? and must I ravel out

233My weaved-up folly? Gentle Northumberland,

234If thy offences were upon record,

235Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop

236To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,

237There shouldst thou find one heinous article,

238Containing the deposing of a king

239And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,

240Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven:

241Nay, all of you that stand and look upon,

242Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,

243Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands

244Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates

245Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,

246And water cannot wash away your sin.

247My lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.

248Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:

249And yet salt water blinds them not so much

250But they can see a sort of traitors here.

251Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,

252I find myself a traitor with the rest;

253For I have given here my soul's consent

254To undeck the pompous body of a king;

255Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,

256Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

257My lord,--

258No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,

259Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,

260No, not that name was given me at the font,

261But 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day,

262That I have worn so many winters out,

263And know not now what name to call myself!

264O that I were a mockery king of snow,

265Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,

266To melt myself away in water-drops!

267Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,

268An if my word be sterling yet in England,

269Let it command a mirror hither straight,

270That it may show me what a face I have,

271Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.

272Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.

273Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.

274Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!

275Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.

276The commons will not then be satisfied.

277They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough,

278When I do see the very book indeed

279Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.

280Give me the glass, and therein will I read.

281No deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck

282So many blows upon this face of mine,

283And made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,

284Like to my followers in prosperity,

285Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face

286That every day under his household roof

287Did keep ten thousand men? was this the face

288That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?

289Was this the face that faced so many follies,

290And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?

291A brittle glory shineth in this face:

292As brittle as the glory is the face;

293For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.

294Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,

295How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.

296The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd

297The shadow or your face.

298Say that again.

299The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:

300'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;