Enter King Richard, John of Gaunt, with other Nobles
and Attendants.

KING RICHARD
Old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster,
Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,
Here to make good the boist’rous late appeal,
Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
GAUNT I have, my liege.
KING RICHARD
Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him
If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice
Or worthily, as a good subject should,
On some known ground of treachery in him?
GAUNT
As near as I could sift him on that argument,
On some apparent danger seen in him
Aimed at your Highness, no inveterate malice.
KING RICHARD
Then call them to our presence.
An Attendant exits.
Face to face
And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear

---

The accuser and the accusèd freely speak.
High stomached are they both and full of ire,
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Enter Bolingbroke and Mowbray.

BOLINGBROKE
Many years of happy days befall
My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege.
MOWBRAY
Each day still better other’s happiness
Until the heavens, envying earth’s good hap,
Add an immortal title to your crown.
KING RICHARD
We thank you both. Yet one but flatters us,
As well appeareth by the cause you come:
Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.
Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
BOLINGBROKE
First—heaven be the record to my speech!—
In the devotion of a subject’s love,
Tend’ring the precious safety of my prince
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.—
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee;
And mark my greeting well, for what I speak
My body shall make good upon this earth
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,
Too good to be so and too bad to live,
Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor’s name stuff I thy throat,
And wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,

---

What my tongue speaks my right-drawn sword may
prove.
MOWBRAY
Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.
’Tis not the trial of a woman’s war,
The bitter clamor of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain.
The blood is hot that must be cooled for this.
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
As to be hushed and naught at all to say.
First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech,
Which else would post until it had returned
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood’s royalty,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
I do defy him, and I spit at him,
Call him a slanderous coward and a villain,
Which to maintain I would allow him odds
And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps
Or any other ground inhabitable
Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
Meantime let this defend my loyalty:
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLINGBROKE , throwing down a gage
Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
Disclaiming here the kindred of the King,
And lay aside my high blood’s royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honor’s pawn, then stoop.
By that and all the rites of knighthood else
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke or thou canst worse devise.

---

MOWBRAY , picking up the gage
I take it up, and by that sword I swear
Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
I’ll answer thee in any fair degree
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;
And when I mount, alive may I not light
If I be traitor or unjustly fight.
KING RICHARD
What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray’s charge?
It must be great that can inherit us
So much as of a thought of ill in him.
BOLINGBROKE
Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true:
That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles
In name of lendings for your Highness’ soldiers,
The which he hath detained for lewd employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,
Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge
That ever was surveyed by English eye,
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrivèd in this land
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and
spring.
Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s death,
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of
blood,
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth
To me for justice and rough chastisement.
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

---

KING RICHARD
How high a pitch his resolution soars!—
Thomas of Norfolk, what sayst thou to this?
MOWBRAY
O, let my sovereign turn away his face
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood
How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
KING RICHARD
Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears.
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom’s heir,
As he is but my father’s brother’s son,
Now by my scepter’s awe I make a vow:
Such neighbor nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou.
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
MOWBRAY
Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
Disbursed I duly to his Highness’ soldiers;
The other part reserved I by consent,
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
Upon remainder of a dear account
Since last I went to France to fetch his queen.
Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester’s death,
I slew him not, but to my own disgrace
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.—
For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
The honorable father to my foe,
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grievèd soul.
But ere I last received the sacrament,
I did confess it and exactly begged

---

Your Grace’s pardon, and I hope I had it.—
This is my fault. As for the rest appealed,
It issues from the rancor of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor,
Which in myself I boldly will defend,
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening traitor’s foot,
He throws down a gage.
To prove myself a loyal gentleman,
Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom;
In haste whereof most heartily I pray
Your Highness to assign our trial day.
Bolingbroke picks up the gage.
KING RICHARD
Wrath-kindled gentlemen , be ruled by me.
Let’s purge this choler without letting blood.
This we prescribe, though no physician.
Deep malice makes too deep incision.
Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed.
Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.—
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We’ll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
GAUNT
To be a make-peace shall become my age.—
Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk’s gage.
KING RICHARD
And, Norfolk, throw down his.
GAUNT When, Harry, when?
Obedience bids I should not bid again.
KING RICHARD
Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.
MOWBRAY
Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.
Mowbray kneels.
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame.
The one my duty owes, but my fair name,

---

Despite of death that lives upon my grave,
To dark dishonor’s use thou shalt not have.
I am disgraced, impeached, and baffled here,
Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear,
The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
Which breathed this poison.
KING RICHARD Rage must be withstood.
Give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame.
MOWBRAY , standing
Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame
And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one.
Take honor from me and my life is done.
Then, dear my liege, mine honor let me try.
In that I live, and for that will I die.
KING RICHARD , to Bolingbroke
Cousin, throw up your gage. Do you begin.
BOLINGBROKE
O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!
Shall I seem crestfallen in my father’s sight?
Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue
Shall wound my honor with such feeble wrong
Or sound so base a parle , my teeth shall tear
The slavish motive of recanting fear
And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,
Where shame doth harbor, even in Mowbray’s face.
KING RICHARD
We were not born to sue, but to command,
Which, since we cannot do, to make you friends,
Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,

---

At Coventry upon Saint Lambert’s day.
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
The swelling difference of your settled hate.
Since we cannot atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor’s chivalry.—
Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
Be ready to direct these home alarms.
They exit.

Enter John of Gaunt with the Duchess of Gloucester.

GAUNT
Alas, the part I had in Woodstock’s blood
Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
To stir against the butchers of his life.
But since correction lieth in those hands
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven,
Who, when they see the hours ripe on Earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.
DUCHESS
Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
Edward’s seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven vials of his sacred blood
Or seven fair branches springing from one root.
Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course,
Some of those branches by the Destinies cut.
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
Is cracked and all the precious liquor spilt,
Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy’s hand and murder’s bloody ax.

---

Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that
womb,
That metal, that self mold that fashioned thee
Made him a man; and though thou livest and
breathest,
Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father’s death
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father’s life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt. It is despair.
In suff’ring thus thy brother to be slaughtered,
Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
That which in mean men we entitle patience
Is pale, cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to venge my Gloucester’s death.
GAUNT
God’s is the quarrel; for God’s substitute,
His deputy anointed in His sight,
Hath caused his death, the which if wrongfully
Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift
An angry arm against His minister.
DUCHESS
Where, then, alas, may I complain myself?
GAUNT
To God, the widow’s champion and defense.
DUCHESS
Why then I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.
O, sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast!
Or if misfortune miss the first career,
Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom

---

That they may break his foaming courser’s back
And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt. Thy sometime brother’s wife
With her companion, grief, must end her life.
GAUNT
Sister, farewell. I must to Coventry.
As much good stay with thee as go with me.
DUCHESS
Yet one word more. Grief boundeth where it falls,
Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.
I take my leave before I have begun,
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
Lo, this is all. Nay, yet depart not so!
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
I shall remember more. Bid him—ah, what?—
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack, and what shall good old York there see
But empty lodgings and unfurnished walls,
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
Therefore commend me; let him not come there
To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere.
Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die.
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
They exit.

Enter Lord Marshal and the Duke of Aumerle.

MARSHAL
My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?
AUMERLE
Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in.

---

MARSHAL
The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
Stays but the summons of the appellant’s trumpet.
AUMERLE
Why then, the champions are prepared and stay
For nothing but his Majesty’s approach.

The trumpets sound and the King enters with his Nobles
and Officers; when they are set, enter Mowbray , the
Duke of Norfolk in arms, defendant, with a Herald.

KING RICHARD
Marshal, demand of yonder champion
The cause of his arrival here in arms,
Ask him his name, and orderly proceed
To swear him in the justice of his cause.
MARSHAL , to Mowbray
In God’s name and the King’s, say who thou art
And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,
Against what man thou com’st, and what thy quarrel.
Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath,
As so defend thee heaven and thy valor.
MOWBRAY
My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
Who hither come engagèd by my oath—
Which God defend a knight should violate!—
Both to defend my loyalty and truth
To God, my king, and my succeeding issue,
Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me,
And by the grace of God and this mine arm
To prove him, in defending of myself,
A traitor to my God, my king, and me;
And as I truly fight, defend me heaven.

The trumpets sound. Enter Bolingbroke , Duke of
Hereford, appellant, in armor, with a Herald.

KING RICHARD Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms

---

Both who he is and why he cometh hither
Thus plated in habiliments of war,
And formally, according to our law,
Depose him in the justice of his cause.
MARSHAL , to Bolingbroke
What is thy name? And wherefore com’st thou hither,
Before King Richard in his royal lists?
Against whom comest thou? And what’s thy quarrel?
Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven.
BOLINGBROKE
Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby
Am I, who ready here do stand in arms
To prove, by God’s grace and my body’s valor,
In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
That he is a traitor foul and dangerous
To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.
And as I truly fight, defend me heaven.
MARSHAL
On pain of death, no person be so bold
Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
Except the Marshal and such officers
Appointed to direct these fair designs.
BOLINGBROKE
Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign’s hand
And bow my knee before his Majesty;
For Mowbray and myself are like two men
That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.
Then let us take a ceremonious leave
And loving farewell of our several friends.
MARSHAL , to King Richard
The appellant in all duty greets your Highness
And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
KING RICHARD , coming down
We will descend and fold him in our arms.
He embraces Bolingbroke.
Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,

---

So be thy fortune in this royal fight.
Farewell, my blood—which, if today thou shed,
Lament we may but not revenge thee dead.
BOLINGBROKE
O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear.
As confident as is the falcon’s flight
Against a bird do I with Mowbray fight.
My loving lord, I take my leave of you.—
Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
Not sick, although I have to do with death,
But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.—
Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
O, thou the earthly author of my blood,
Whose youthful spirit in me regenerate
Doth with a twofold vigor lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,
Add proof unto mine armor with thy prayers,
And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point
That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen coat
And furbish new the name of John o’ Gaunt,
Even in the lusty havior of his son.
GAUNT
God in thy good cause make thee prosperous.
Be swift like lightning in the execution,
And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
BOLINGBROKE
Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
MOWBRAY
However God or fortune cast my lot,
There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne,
A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.

---

Never did captive with a freer heart
Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
His golden uncontrolled enfranchisement
More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
This feast of battle with mine adversary.
Most mighty liege and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
As gentle and as jocund as to jest
Go I to fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.
KING RICHARD
Farewell, my lord. Securely I espy
Virtue with valor couchèd in thine eye.—
Order the trial, marshal, and begin.
MARSHAL
Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
Receive thy lance; and God defend the right.
He presents a lance to Bolingbroke.
BOLINGBROKE
Strong as a tower in hope, I cry “Amen!”
MARSHAL , to an Officer
Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
An Officer presents a lance to Mowbray.
FIRST HERALD
Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby
Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
On pain to be found false and recreant,
To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him,
And dares him to set forward to the fight.
SECOND HERALD
Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby
To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,

---

Courageously and with a free desire
Attending but the signal to begin.
MARSHAL
Sound, trumpets, and set forward, combatants.
Trumpets sound. Richard throws down his warder.
Stay! The King hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD
Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
And both return back to their chairs again.
To his council. Withdraw with us, and let the
trumpets sound
While we return these dukes what we decree.
Trumpets sound while Richard consults with Gaunt
and other Nobles.
To Bolingbroke and Mowbray. Draw near,
And list what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled
With that dear blood which it hath fosterèd;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds plowed up with neighbor’s sword;
And for we think the eagle-wingèd pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set on you
To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep,
Which, so roused up with boist’rous untuned
drums,
With harsh resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray,
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood:
Therefore we banish you our territories.
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
Till twice five summers have enriched our fields
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

---

BOLINGBROKE
Your will be done. This must my comfort be:
That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
And those his golden beams to you here lent
Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
KING RICHARD
Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The sly, slow hours shall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile.
The hopeless word of “never to return”
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
MOWBRAY
A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlooked-for from your Highness’ mouth.
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deservèd at your Highness’ hands.
The language I have learnt these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo;
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringèd viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
Is made my jailor to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now.
What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native
breath?
KING RICHARD
It boots thee not to be compassionate.
After our sentence plaining comes too late.

---

MOWBRAY
Then thus I turn me from my country’s light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
He begins to exit.
KING RICHARD
Return again, and take an oath with thee.
To Mowbray and Bolingbroke. Lay on our royal
sword your banished hands.
They place their right hands on the hilts of
Richard’s sword.
Swear by the duty that you owe to God—
Our part therein we banish with yourselves—
To keep the oath that we administer:
You never shall, so help you truth and God,
Embrace each other’s love in banishment,
Nor never look upon each other’s face,
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
This louring tempest of your homebred hate,
Nor never by advisèd purpose meet
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill
’Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
BOLINGBROKE I swear.
MOWBRAY And I, to keep all this.
They step back.
BOLINGBROKE
Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:
By this time, had the King permitted us,
One of our souls had wandered in the air,
Banished this frail sepulcher of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banished from this land.
Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm.
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
MOWBRAY
No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,

---

And I from heaven banished as from hence.
But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know,
And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.—
Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;
Save back to England, all the world’s my way.
He exits.
KING RICHARD , to Gaunt
Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grievèd heart. Thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banished years
Plucked four away. To Bolingbroke. Six frozen
winters spent,
Return with welcome home from banishment.
BOLINGBROKE
How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
End in a word; such is the breath of kings.
GAUNT
I thank my liege that in regard of me
He shortens four years of my son’s exile.
But little vantage shall I reap thereby;
For, ere the six years that he hath to spend
Can change their moons and bring their times
about,
My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
Shall be extinct with age and endless night ;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.
KING RICHARD
Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
GAUNT
But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage.

---

Thy word is current with him for my death,
But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
KING RICHARD
Thy son is banished upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party verdict gave.
Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour?
GAUNT
Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
You urged me as a judge, but I had rather
You would have bid me argue like a father.
O, had it been a stranger, not my child,
To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
A partial slander sought I to avoid,
And in the sentence my own life destroyed.
Alas, I looked when some of you should say
I was too strict, to make mine own away.
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
Against my will to do myself this wrong.
KING RICHARD , to Bolingbroke
Cousin, farewell.—And, uncle, bid him so.
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
Flourish . King Richard exits with his Attendants.
AUMERLE , to Bolingbroke
Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know,
From where you do remain let paper show.
MARSHAL , to Bolingbroke
My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride,
As far as land will let me, by your side.
GAUNT , to Bolingbroke
O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE
I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue’s office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart.

---

GAUNT
Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE
Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
GAUNT
What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE
To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
GAUNT
Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure.
BOLINGBROKE
My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
Which finds it an enforcèd pilgrimage.
GAUNT
The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE
Nay, rather every tedious stride I make
Will but remember me what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages, and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?
GAUNT
All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the King did banish thee,
But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honor,
And not the King exiled thee; or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.

---

Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com’st.
Suppose the singing birds musicians,
The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence
strewed,
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
BOLINGBROKE
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
O no, the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more
Than when he bites but lanceth not the sore.
GAUNT
Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way.
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
BOLINGBROKE
Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu,
My mother and my nurse that bears me yet.
Where’er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.
They exit.

Enter the King with Green and Bagot, at one door,
and the Lord Aumerle at another.

KING RICHARD We did observe.—Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Hereford on his way?

---

AUMERLE
I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
But to the next highway, and there I left him.
KING RICHARD
And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
AUMERLE
Faith, none for me, except the northeast wind,
Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awaked the sleeping rheum and so by chance
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD
What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE “Farewell.”
And, for my heart disdainèd that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppression of such grief
That words seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave.
Marry, would the word “farewell” have lengthened
hours
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells.
But since it would not, he had none of me.
KING RICHARD
He is our cousin , cousin, but ’tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,
Observed his courtship to the common people,
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
And patient underbearing of his fortune,
As ’twere to banish their affects with him.
Off goes his bonnet to an oysterwench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well

---

And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With “Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends,”
As were our England in reversion his
And he our subjects’ next degree in hope.
GREEN
Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means
For their advantage and your Highness’ loss.
KING RICHARD
We will ourself in person to this war.
And, for our coffers, with too great a court
And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
We are enforced to farm our royal realm,
The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters,
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold
And send them after to supply our wants,
For we will make for Ireland presently.

Enter Bushy.

Bushy, what news?
BUSHY
Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent posthaste
To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD Where lies he?
BUSHY At Ely House.
KING RICHARD
Now put it, God, in the physician’s mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
The lining of his coffers shall make coats

---

To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him.
Pray God we may make haste and come too late.
ALL Amen!
They exit.

Enter John of Gaunt sick, with the Duke of York, and
Attendants.

GAUNT
Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
YORK
Vex not yourself nor strive not with your breath,
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
GAUNT
O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony.
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in
vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in
pain.
He that no more must say is listened more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to
gloze.
More are men’s ends marked than their lives before.
The setting sun and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear,
My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

---

YORK
No, it is stopped with other flattering sounds,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond ;
Lascivious meters, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity—
So it be new, there’s no respect how vile—
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard
Where will doth mutiny with wit’s regard.
Direct not him whose way himself will choose.
’Tis breath thou lack’st, and that breath wilt thou
lose.
GAUNT
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are
short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,

---

Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this
England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renownèd for their deeds as far from home
For Christian service and true chivalry
As is the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out—I die pronouncing it—
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of wat’ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds.
That England that was wont to conquer others
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter King and Queen, Aumerle , Bushy, Green, Bagot,
Ross, Willoughby, etc.

YORK
The King is come. Deal mildly with his youth,
For young hot colts being reined do rage the more.
QUEEN , to Gaunt
How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
KING RICHARD , to Gaunt
What comfort, man? How is ’t with agèd Gaunt?
GAUNT
O, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed and gaunt in being old.
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?

---

For sleeping England long time have I watched;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
Is my strict fast—I mean my children’s looks—
And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits naught but bones.
KING RICHARD
Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
GAUNT
No, misery makes sport to mock itself.
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
KING RICHARD
Should dying men flatter with those that live?
GAUNT
No, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD
Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.
GAUNT
O, no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD
I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
GAUNT
Now He that made me knows I see thee ill,
Ill in myself to see, and in thee, seeing ill.
Thy deathbed is no lesser than thy land,
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless-patient as thou art,
Commit’st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee.
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head,
And yet encagèd in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.

---

O, had thy grandsire with a prophet’s eye
Seen how his son’s son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possessed,
Which art possessed now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease;
But, for thy world enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king.
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law,
And thou—
KING RICHARD A lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague’s privilege,
Darest with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence.
Now, by my seat’s right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward’s son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
GAUNT
O, spare me not, my brother Edward’s son,
For that I was his father Edward’s son!
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly caroused.
My brother Gloucester—plain, well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befall in heaven ’mongst happy souls—
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect’st not spilling Edward’s blood.
Join with the present sickness that I have,
And thy unkindness be like crooked age
To crop at once a too-long withered flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!—

---

Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
Love they to live that love and honor have.
He exits, carried off by Attendants.
KING RICHARD
And let them die that age and sullens have,
For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
YORK
I do beseech your Majesty, impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him.
He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry, Duke of Hereford, were he here.
KING RICHARD
Right, you say true: as Hereford’s love, so his;
As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter Northumberland.

NORTHUMBERLAND
My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
KING RICHARD
What says he?
NORTHUMBERLAND Nay, nothing; all is said.
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
YORK
Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
KING RICHARD
The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:
We must supplant those rough rugheaded kern,
Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have privilege to live.
And, for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us

---

The plate, coin, revenues, and movables
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.
YORK
How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester’s death, nor Hereford’s banishment,
Nor Gaunt’s rebukes, nor England’s private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign’s face.
I am the last of noble Edward’s sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
In war was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so looked he,
Accomplished with the number of thy hours;
But when he frowned, it was against the French
And not against his friends. His noble hand
Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
Which his triumphant father’s hand had won.
His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
KING RICHARD
Why, uncle, what’s the matter?
YORK O, my liege,
Pardon me if you please. If not, I, pleased
Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
The royalties and rights of banished Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?

---

Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford’s rights away, and take from time
His charters and his customary rights;
Let not tomorrow then ensue today;
Be not thyself; for how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now afore God—God forbid I say true!—
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford’s rights,
Call in the letters patents that he hath
By his attorneys general to sue
His livery, and deny his offered homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposèd hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honor and allegiance cannot think.
KING RICHARD
Think what you will, we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
YORK
I’ll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.
What will ensue hereof there’s none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood
That their events can never fall out good. He exits.
KING RICHARD
Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight.
Bid him repair to us to Ely House
To see this business. Tomorrow next
We will for Ireland, and ’tis time, I trow.
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York Lord Governor of England,
For he is just and always loved us well.—
Come on, our queen. Tomorrow must we part.
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
King and Queen exit with others;
Northumberland, Willoughby , and Ross remain.

---

NORTHUMBERLAND
Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
ROSS
And living too, for now his son is duke.
WILLOUGHBY
Barely in title, not in revenues.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Richly in both, if justice had her right.
ROSS
My heart is great, but it must break with silence
Ere ’t be disburdened with a liberal tongue.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Nay, speak thy mind, and let him ne’er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
WILLOUGHBY , to Ross
Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of
Hereford?
If it be so, out with it boldly, man.
Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
ROSS
No good at all that I can do for him,
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Now, afore God, ’tis shame such wrongs are borne
In him, a royal prince, and many more
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The King is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform
Merely in hate ’gainst any of us all,
That will the King severely prosecute
’Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
ROSS
The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

---

WILLOUGHBY
And daily new exactions are devised,
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what.
But what i’ God’s name doth become of this?
NORTHUMBERLAND
Wars hath not wasted it, for warred he hath not,
But basely yielded upon compromise
That which his noble ancestors achieved with blows.
More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
ROSS
The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
WILLOUGHBY
The King grown bankrupt like a broken man.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
ROSS
He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banished duke.
NORTHUMBERLAND
His noble kinsman. Most degenerate king!
But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
ROSS
We see the very wrack that we must suffer,
And unavoided is the danger now
For suffering so the causes of our wrack.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Not so. Even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy life peering; but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is.
WILLOUGHBY
Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

---

ROSS
Be confident to speak, Northumberland.
We three are but thyself, and speaking so
Thy words are but as thoughts. Therefore be bold.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc ,
A bay in Brittany, received intelligence
That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord
Cobham,
That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
His brother, archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis
Coint—
All these well furnished by the Duke of Brittany
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience
And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.
Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
The first departing of the King for Ireland.
If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country’s broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemished crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our scepter’s gilt,
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh.
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay and be secret, and myself will go.
ROSS
To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
WILLOUGHBY
Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
They exit.

Enter the Queen, Bushy, and Bagot.

BUSHY
Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
You promised, when you parted with the King,
To lay aside life-harming heaviness
And entertain a cheerful disposition.
QUEEN
To please the King I did; to please myself
I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause
Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks
Some unborn sorrow ripe in Fortune’s womb
Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves
More than with parting from my lord the King.
BUSHY
Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows
Which shows like grief itself but is not so;
For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects,
Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon
Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry
Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,
Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,
Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail,
Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows
Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,
More than your lord’s departure weep not. More is
not seen,
Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,
Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
QUEEN
It may be so, but yet my inward soul
Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be,

---

I cannot but be sad—so heavy sad
As thought, on thinking on no thought I think,
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
BUSHY
’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
QUEEN
’Tis nothing less. Conceit is still derived
From some forefather grief. Mine is not so,
For nothing hath begot my something grief—
Or something hath the nothing that I grieve.
’Tis in reversion that I do possess,
But what it is that is not yet known what,
I cannot name. ’Tis nameless woe, I wot.

Enter Green.

GREEN
God save your Majesty!—And well met, gentlemen.
I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.
QUEEN
Why hopest thou so? ’Tis better hope he is,
For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped?
GREEN
That he, our hope, might have retired his power
And driven into despair an enemy’s hope,
Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself
And with uplifted arms is safe arrived
At Ravenspurgh.
QUEEN Now God in heaven forbid!
GREEN
Ah, madam, ’tis too true. And that is worse,
The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry
Percy,
The Lords of Ross, Beaumont, and Willoughby,
With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

---

BUSHY
Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland
And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
GREEN
We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester
Hath broken his staff, resigned his stewardship,
And all the Household servants fled with him
To Bolingbroke.
QUEEN
So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
And Bolingbroke my sorrow’s dismal heir.
Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,
And I, a gasping new-delivered mother,
Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.
BUSHY
Despair not, madam.
QUEEN Who shall hinder me?
I will despair and be at enmity
With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
Who gently would dissolve the bands of life
Which false hope lingers in extremity.

Enter York.

GREEN Here comes the Duke of York.
QUEEN
With signs of war about his agèd neck.
O, full of careful business are his looks!—
Uncle, for God’s sake speak comfortable words.
YORK
Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the Earth,
Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.
Your husband, he is gone to save far off
Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
Here am I left to underprop his land,

---

Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
Now shall he try his friends that flattered him.

Enter a Servingman.

SERVINGMAN
My lord, your son was gone before I came.
YORK
He was? Why, so go all which way it will.
The nobles they are fled; the commons they are
cold
And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford’s side.
Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;
Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
Hold, take my ring.
SERVINGMAN
My lord, I had forgot to tell your Lordship:
Today as I came by I callèd there—
But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
YORK What is ’t, knave?
SERVINGMAN
An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
YORK
God for His mercy, what a tide of woes
Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
I know not what to do. I would to God,
So my untruth had not provoked him to it,
The King had cut off my head with my brother’s!
What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland?
How shall we do for money for these wars?—
Come, sister—cousin I would say, pray pardon
me.—
Go, fellow, get thee home. Provide some carts
And bring away the armor that is there.
Servingman exits.
Gentlemen, will you go muster men?

---

If I know how or which way to order these affairs
Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.
T’ one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
And duty bids defend; t’ other again
Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged,
Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
Well, somewhat we must do. To Queen. Come,
cousin,
I’ll dispose of you.—Gentlemen, go muster up your
men
And meet me presently at Berkeley.
I should to Plashy too,
But time will not permit. All is uneven,
And everything is left at six and seven.
Duke of York and Queen exit.
Bushy, Green, and Bagot remain.
BUSHY
The wind sits fair for news to go for Ireland,
But none returns. For us to levy power
Proportionable to the enemy
Is all unpossible.
GREEN
Besides, our nearness to the King in love
Is near the hate of those love not the King.
BAGOT
And that is the wavering commons, for their love
Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them
By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
BUSHY
Wherein the King stands generally condemned.
BAGOT
If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
Because we ever have been near the King.
GREEN
Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.
The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.

---

BUSHY
Thither will I with you, for little office
Will the hateful commons perform for us,
Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.—
Will you go along with us?
BAGOT
No, I will to Ireland to his Majesty.
Farewell. If heart’s presages be not vain,
We three here part that ne’er shall meet again.
BUSHY
That’s as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
GREEN
Alas, poor duke, the task he undertakes
Is numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry.
Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.
BUSHY
Well, we may meet again.
BAGOT I fear me, never.
They exit.

Enter Bolingbroke , Duke of Hereford, and
Northumberland.

BOLINGBROKE
How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
NORTHUMBERLAND Believe me, noble lord,
I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.
These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
Draws out our miles and makes them wearisome.
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
But I bethink me what a weary way
From Ravenspurgh to Cotshall will be found

---

In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,
Which, I protest, hath very much beguiled
The tediousness and process of my travel.
But theirs is sweetened with the hope to have
The present benefit which I possess,
And hope to joy is little less in joy
Than hope enjoyed. By this the weary lords
Shall make their way seem short as mine hath done
By sight of what I have, your noble company.
BOLINGBROKE
Of much less value is my company
Than your good words. But who comes here?

Enter Harry Percy.

NORTHUMBERLAND It is my son, young Harry Percy,
Sent from my brother Worcester whencesoever.—
Harry, how fares your uncle?
PERCY
I had thought, my lord, to have learned his health of
you.
NORTHUMBERLAND Why, is he not with the Queen?
PERCY
No, my good lord, he hath forsook the court,
Broken his staff of office, and dispersed
The Household of the King.
NORTHUMBERLAND
What was his reason? He was not so resolved
When last we spake together.
PERCY
Because your Lordship was proclaimèd traitor.
But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh
To offer service to the Duke of Hereford,
And sent me over by Berkeley to discover
What power the Duke of York had levied there,
Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.

---

NORTHUMBERLAND
Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford , boy?
PERCY
No, my good lord, for that is not forgot
Which ne’er I did remember. To my knowledge
I never in my life did look on him.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Then learn to know him now. This is the Duke.
PERCY , to Bolingbroke
My gracious lord, I tender you my service,
Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young,
Which elder days shall ripen and confirm
To more approvèd service and desert.
BOLINGBROKE
I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure
I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends;
And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
It shall be still thy true love’s recompense.
My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.
Gives Percy his hand.
NORTHUMBERLAND , to Percy
How far is it to Berkeley, and what stir
Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
PERCY
There stands the castle by yon tuft of trees,
Manned with three hundred men, as I have heard,
And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and
Seymour,
None else of name and noble estimate.

Enter Ross and Willoughby.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,
Bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste.

---

BOLINGBROKE
Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues
A banished traitor. All my treasury
Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enriched,
Shall be your love and labor’s recompense.
ROSS
Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
WILLOUGHBY
And far surmounts our labor to attain it.
BOLINGBROKE
Evermore thank’s the exchequer of the poor,
Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

Enter Berkeley.

NORTHUMBERLAND
It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
BERKELEY , to Bolingbroke
My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.
BOLINGBROKE
My lord, my answer is—to “Lancaster”;
And I am come to seek that name in England.
And I must find that title in your tongue
Before I make reply to aught you say.
BERKELEY
Mistake me not, my lord, ’tis not my meaning
To rase one title of your honor out.
To you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,
From the most gracious regent of this land,
The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
To take advantage of the absent time,
And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.

Enter York.

BOLINGBROKE
I shall not need transport my words by you.

---

Here comes his Grace in person. He kneels.
My noble uncle.
YORK
Show me thy humble heart and not thy knee,
Whose duty is deceivable and false.
BOLINGBROKE , standing My gracious uncle—
YORK Tut, tut!
Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
I am no traitor’s uncle, and that word “grace”
In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
Why have those banished and forbidden legs
Dared once to touch a dust of England’s ground?
But then, more why: why have they dared to march
So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
Frighting her pale-faced villages with war
And ostentation of despisèd arms?
Com’st thou because the anointed king is hence?
Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind
And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
Were I but now lord of such hot youth
As when brave Gaunt thy father and myself
Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
O, then, how quickly should this arm of mine,
Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee
And minister correction to thy fault!
BOLINGBROKE
My gracious uncle, let me know my fault.
On what condition stands it and wherein?
YORK
Even in condition of the worst degree,
In gross rebellion and detested treason.
Thou art a banished man and here art come,
Before the expiration of thy time,
In braving arms against thy sovereign.

---

BOLINGBROKE
As I was banished, I was banished Hereford,
But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace
Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.
You are my father, for methinks in you
I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,
Will you permit that I shall stand condemned
A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties
Plucked from my arms perforce and given away
To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
If that my cousin king be king in England,
It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.
You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin.
Had you first died and he been thus trod down,
He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father
To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
I am denied to sue my livery here,
And yet my letters patents give me leave.
My father’s goods are all distrained and sold,
And these, and all, are all amiss employed.
What would you have me do? I am a subject,
And I challenge law. Attorneys are denied me,
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.
NORTHUMBERLAND , to York
The noble duke hath been too much abused.
ROSS , to York
It stands your Grace upon to do him right.
WILLOUGHBY , to York
Base men by his endowments are made great.
YORK
My lords of England, let me tell you this:
I have had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs
And labored all I could to do him right.
But in this kind to come, in braving arms,

---

Be his own carver and cut out his way
To find out right with wrong, it may not be.
And you that do abet him in this kind
Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The noble duke hath sworn his coming is
But for his own, and for the right of that
We all have strongly sworn to give him aid.
And let him never see joy that breaks that oath.
YORK
Well, well. I see the issue of these arms.
I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
Because my power is weak and all ill-left.
But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
I would attach you all and make you stoop
Unto the sovereign mercy of the King.
But since I cannot, be it known unto you
I do remain as neuter. So fare you well—
Unless you please to enter in the castle
And there repose you for this night.
BOLINGBROKE
An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
But we must win your Grace to go with us
To Bristow Castle, which they say is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
YORK
It may be I will go with you; but yet I’ll pause,
For I am loath to break our country’s laws.
Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.
Things past redress are now with me past care.
They exit.

Enter Earl of Salisbury and a Welsh Captain.

WELSH CAPTAIN
My Lord of Salisbury, we have stayed ten days
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the King.
Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
SALISBURY
Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman.
The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
WELSH CAPTAIN
’Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay.
The bay trees in our country are all withered,
And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the Earth,
And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assured Richard their king is dead.
He exits.
SALISBURY
Ah, Richard! With the eyes of heavy mind
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Thy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.
He exits.

Enter Bolingbroke , Duke of Hereford, York,
Northumberland, with other Lords, and Bushy and
Green prisoners.

BOLINGBROKE Bring forth these men.—
Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls,
Since presently your souls must part your bodies,
With too much urging your pernicious lives,
For ’twere no charity; yet to wash your blood
From off my hands, here in the view of men
I will unfold some causes of your deaths:
You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments
By you unhappied and disfigured clean.
You have in manner with your sinful hours
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
Broke the possession of a royal bed,
And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the King in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me,
Have stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,

---

Whilst you have fed upon my seigniories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign,
Save men’s opinions and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman.
This and much more, much more than twice all
this,
Condemns you to the death.—See them delivered
over
To execution and the hand of death.
BUSHY
More welcome is the stroke of death to me
Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
GREEN
My comfort is that heaven will take our souls
And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
BOLINGBROKE
My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatched. Northumberland exits with Bushy and Green.
To York. Uncle, you say the Queen is at your
house.
For God’s sake, fairly let her be entreated.
Tell her I send to her my kind commends.
Take special care my greetings be delivered.
YORK
A gentleman of mine I have dispatched
With letters of your love to her at large.
BOLINGBROKE
Thanks, gentle uncle.—Come, lords, away,
To fight with Glendower and his complices.
A while to work, and after holiday.
They exit.

Drums . Flourish and colors. Enter the King, Aumerle,
Carlisle, and Soldiers.

KING RICHARD
Barkloughly Castle call they this at hand?
AUMERLE
Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air
After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
KING RICHARD
Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy
To stand upon my kingdom once again. He kneels.
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs.
As a long-parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favors with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies,
And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.
This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armèd soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
CARLISLE
Fear not, my lord. That power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.

---

The means that heavens yield must be embraced
And not neglected. Else heaven would,
And we will not—heaven’s offer we refuse,
The proffered means of succor and redress.
AUMERLE
He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
KING RICHARD
Discomfortable cousin, know’st thou not
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe that lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
In murders and in outrage boldly here?
But when from under this terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being plucked from off their
backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.
So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath reveled in the night
Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for His Richard hath in heavenly pay

---

A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.

Enter Salisbury.

Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
SALISBURY
Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men.
Today, today, unhappy day too late,
Overthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.
AUMERLE
Comfort, my liege. Why looks your Grace so pale?
KING RICHARD
But now the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
And till so much blood thither come again
Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
All souls that will be safe, fly from my side,
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE
Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
KING RICHARD
I had forgot myself. Am I not king?
Awake, thou coward majesty, thou sleepest!
Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names?
Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes
At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
You favorites of a king. Are we not high?
High be our thoughts. I know my Uncle York

---

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

Enter Scroop.

SCROOP
More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
KING RICHARD
Mine ear is open and my heart prepared.
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, ’twas my care,
And what loss is it to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be. If he serve God,
We’ll serve Him too and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend.
They break their faith to God as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay.
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP
Glad am I that your Highness is so armed
To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores
As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless
scalps
Against thy Majesty; boys with women’s voices
Strive to speak big and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state.
Yea, distaff women manage rusty bills

---

Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
KING RICHARD
Too well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? Where is Green,
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it!
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOP
Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
KING RICHARD
O villains, vipers, damned without redemption!
Dogs easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes in my heart blood warmed, that sting my
heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? Terrible hell
Make war upon their spotted souls for this!
SCROOP
Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
Again uncurse their souls. Their peace is made
With heads and not with hands. Those whom you
curse
Have felt the worst of death’s destroying wound
And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.
AUMERLE
Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOP
Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.
AUMERLE
Where is the Duke my father with his power?
KING RICHARD
No matter where. Of comfort no man speak.

---

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposèd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings—
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
All murdered. For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while.
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?
CARLISLE
My lord, wise men ne’er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.

---

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear, and be slain—no worse can come to fight;
And fight and die is death destroying death,
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
AUMERLE
My father hath a power. Inquire of him,
And learn to make a body of a limb.
KING RICHARD
Thou chid’st me well.—Proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.—
This ague fit of fear is overblown.
An easy task it is to win our own.—
Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
SCROOP
Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day;
So may you by my dull and heavy eye.
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer by small and small
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken.
Your uncle York is joined with Bolingbroke,
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.
KING RICHARD Thou hast said enough.
To Aumerle. Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst
lead me forth
Of that sweet way I was in to despair.
What say you now? What comfort have we now?
By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly
That bids me be of comfort anymore.
Go to Flint Castle. There I’ll pine away;
A king, woe’s slave, shall kingly woe obey.

---

That power I have, discharge, and let them go
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none. Let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
AUMERLE
My liege, one word.
KING RICHARD He does me double wrong
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers. Let them hence away,
From Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day.
They exit.

Enter with Drum and Colors Bolingbroke, York,
Northumberland, with Soldiers and Attendants.

BOLINGBROKE
So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The news is very fair and good, my lord:
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK
It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say “King Richard.” Alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND
Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief
Left I his title out.
YORK
The time hath been, would you have been so brief
with him,
He would have been so brief to shorten you,

---

For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.
BOLINGBROKE
Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
YORK
Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.
BOLINGBROKE
I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself
Against their will. But who comes here?

Enter Percy.

Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
PERCY
The castle royally is manned, my lord,
Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE
Royally? Why, it contains no king.
PERCY Yes, my good lord,
It doth contain a king. King Richard lies
Within the limits of yon lime and stone,
And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
Of holy reverence—who, I cannot learn.
NORTHUMBERLAND
O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
BOLINGBROKE , to Northumberland Noble lord ,
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver:
Henry Bolingbroke
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
To his most royal person, hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
Provided that my banishment repealed
And lands restored again be freely granted.

---

If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power
And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood
Rained from the wounds of slaughtered
Englishmen—
The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
Go signify as much while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
Northumberland and Trumpets
approach the battlements.
Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
That from this castle’s tottered battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perused.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water when their thund’ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters—on the earth and not on him.
March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.
Bolingbroke’s Soldiers march, the trumpets sound.
Richard appeareth on the walls with Aumerle.
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
To dim his glory and to stain the track
Of his bright passage to the occident.
YORK
Yet looks he like a king. Behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty. Alack, alack for woe
That any harm should stain so fair a show!

---

KING RICHARD , to Northumberland, below
We are amazed, and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
An if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship,
For well we know no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our scepter,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends,
Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke—for yon methinks he stands—
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason. He is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons
Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation, and bedew
Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The King of heaven forbid our lord the King
Should so with civil and uncivil arms
Be rushed upon! Thy thrice-noble cousin,
Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand,
And by the honorable tomb he swears

---

That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones,
And by the royalties of both your bloods,
Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
And by the worth and honor of himself,
Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
His coming hither hath no further scope
Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;
Which on thy royal party granted once,
His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
His barbèd steeds to stables, and his heart
To faithful service of your Majesty.
This swears he, as he is a prince and just,
And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
KING RICHARD
Northumberland, say thus the King returns:
His noble cousin is right welcome hither,
And all the number of his fair demands
Shall be accomplished without contradiction.
With all the gracious utterance thou hast,
Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke.
To Aumerle. We do debase ourselves, cousin, do
we not,
To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
Shall we call back Northumberland and send
Defiance to the traitor and so die?
AUMERLE
No, good my lord, let’s fight with gentle words,
Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful
swords.
KING RICHARD
O God, O God, that e’er this tongue of mine
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yon proud man should take it off again

---

With words of sooth! O, that I were as great
As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
Or that I could forget what I have been,
Or not remember what I must be now.
Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to
beat,
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
AUMERLE
Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
KING RICHARD
What must the King do now? Must he submit?
The King shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The King shall be contented. Must he lose
The name of king? I’ God’s name, let it go.
I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My scepter for a palmer’s walking-staff,
My subjects for a pair of carvèd saints,
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little, little grave, an obscure grave;
Or I’ll be buried in the King’s highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live
And, buried once, why not upon my head?
Aumerle, thou weep’st, my tender-hearted cousin.
We’ll make foul weather with despisèd tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn
And make a dearth in this revolting land.
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes
And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus, to drop them still upon one place
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
Within the earth; and therein laid—there lies

---

Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
Northumberland approaches the battlements.
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
NORTHUMBERLAND
My lord, in the base court he doth attend
To speak with you, may it please you to come down.
KING RICHARD
Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaëton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court—base court, where kings grow
base,
To come at traitors’ calls and do them grace.
In the base court come down—down court, down
king,
For nightowls shriek where mounting larks should
sing.
Richard exits above
and Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke.
BOLINGBROKE What says his Majesty?
NORTHUMBERLAND Sorrow and grief of heart
Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man,
Yet he is come.

Richard enters below.

BOLINGBROKE Stand all apart,
And show fair duty to his Majesty. He kneels down.
My gracious lord.
KING RICHARD
Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
Me rather had my heart might feel your love

---

Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least indicating his crown, although
your knee be low.
BOLINGBROKE , standing
My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
KING RICHARD
Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
BOLINGBROKE
So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.
KING RICHARD
Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
That know the strong’st and surest way to get.—
Uncle, give me your hands. Nay, dry your eyes.
Tears show their love but want their remedies.—
Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir.
What you will have I’ll give, and willing too,
For do we must what force will have us do.
Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?
BOLINGBROKE
Yea, my good lord.
KING RICHARD Then I must not say no.
They exit.

Enter the Queen with her Ladies-in-waiting .

QUEEN
What sport shall we devise here in this garden
To drive away the heavy thought of care?
LADY Madam, we’ll play at bowls.
QUEEN
’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
And that my fortune runs against the bias.

---

LADY Madam, we’ll dance.
QUEEN
My legs can keep no measure in delight
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief.
Therefore no dancing, girl. Some other sport.
LADY Madam, we’ll tell tales.
QUEEN
Of sorrow or of joy ?
LADY Of either, madam.
QUEEN Of neither, girl,
For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
Or if of grief, being altogether had,
It adds more sorrow to my want of joy.
For what I have I need not to repeat,
And what I want it boots not to complain.
LADY
Madam, I’ll sing.
QUEEN ’Tis well that thou hast cause,
But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou
weep.
LADY
I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
QUEEN
And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.

Enter a Gardener and two Servingmen.

But stay, here come the gardeners.
Let’s step into the shadow of these trees.
My wretchedness unto a row of pins ,
They will talk of state, for everyone doth so
Against a change. Woe is forerun with woe.
Queen and Ladies step aside.
GARDENER , to one Servingman
Go, bind thou up young dangling apricokes

---

Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.—
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too -fast-growing sprays
That look too lofty in our commonwealth.
All must be even in our government.
You thus employed, I will go root away
The noisome weeds which without profit suck
The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
MAN
Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing as in a model our firm estate,
When our sea-wallèd garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,
Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?
GARDENER Hold thy peace.
He that hath suffered this disordered spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did
shelter,
That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke—
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
MAN
What, are they dead?
GARDENER They are. And Bolingbroke
Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it
That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
Lest, being overproud in sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself.
Had he done so to great and growing men,

---

They might have lived to bear and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
MAN
What, think you the King shall be deposed?
GARDENER
Depressed he is already, and deposed
’Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s
That tell black tidings.
QUEEN
O, I am pressed to death through want of speaking!
Stepping forward.
Thou old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden,
How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this
unpleasing news?
What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
To make a second fall of cursèd man?
Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall? Say where, when, and how
Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch!
GARDENER
Pardon me, madam. Little joy have I
To breathe this news, yet what I say is true.
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weighed.
In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself
And some few vanities that make him light,
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
Post you to London and you will find it so.
I speak no more than everyone doth know.

---

QUEEN
Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
To serve me last that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
To meet at London London’s king in woe.
What, was I born to this, that my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?—
Gard’ner, for telling me these news of woe,
Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow.
She exits with Ladies.
GARDENER
Poor queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
Here did she fall a tear. Here in this place
I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
Rue even for ruth here shortly shall be seen
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
They exit.