King Richard The Second

1 Heralds, &c., attending.
2 Enter the Lord Marshal and the Duke of Aumerle.
3 MARSHAL.
4 My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?
5 AUMERLE.
6 Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in.
7 MARSHAL.
8 The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
9 Stays but the summons of the appelant’s trumpet.
10 AUMERLE.
11 Why then, the champions are prepared and stay
12 For nothing but his Majesty’s approach.
13 Enter King Richard, who takes his seat on his Throne; Gaunt, Bushy,
14 Bagot, Green and others, who take their places. A trumpet is sounded,
15 and answered by another trumpet within. Then enter Mowbray in armour,
16 defendant, preceded by a Herald.
17 KING RICHARD.
18 Marshal, demand of yonder champion
19 The cause of his arrival here in arms.
20 Ask him his name, and orderly proceed
21 To swear him in the justice of his cause.
22 MARSHAL.
23 In God’s name and the King’s, say who thou art,
24 And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,
25 Against what man thou com’st, and what thy quarrel.
26 Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath,
27 As so defend thee heaven and thy valour.
28 MOWBRAY.
29 My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
30 Who hither come engaged by my oath—
31 Which God defend a knight should violate!—
32 Both to defend my loyalty and truth
33 To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,
34 Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me,
35 And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
36 To prove him, in defending of myself,
37 A traitor to my God, my king, and me;
38 And as I truly fight, defend me heaven.
39 [_He takes his seat._]
40 Trumpet sounds. Enter Bolingbroke, appellant, in armour, preceded by
41 a Herald.
42 KING RICHARD.
43 Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms
44 Both who he is and why he cometh hither
45 Thus plated in habiliments of war,
46 And formally, according to our law,
47 Depose him in the justice of his cause.
48 MARSHAL.
49 What is thy name? And wherefore com’st thou hither
50 Before King Richard in his royal lists?
51 Against whom comest thou? and what’s thy quarrel?
52 Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
53 BOLINGBROKE.
54 Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
55 Am I, who ready here do stand in arms
56 To prove by God’s grace and my body’s valour,
57 In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
58 That he’s a traitor foul and dangerous,
59 To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.
60 And as I truly fight, defend me heaven.
61 MARSHAL.
62 On pain of death, no person be so bold
63 Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
64 Except the Marshal and such officers
65 Appointed to direct these fair designs.
66 BOLINGBROKE.
67 Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign’s hand
68 And bow my knee before his Majesty.
69 For Mowbray and myself are like two men
70 That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;
71 Then let us take a ceremonious leave
72 And loving farewell of our several friends.
73 MARSHAL.
74 The appellant in all duty greets your highness
75 And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
76 KING RICHARD. [_Descends from his throne_.]
77 We will descend and fold him in our arms.
78 Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
79 So be thy fortune in this royal fight.
80 Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed,
81 Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
82 BOLINGBROKE.
83 O, let no noble eye profane a tear
84 For me, if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear.
85 As confident as is the falcon’s flight
86 Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
87 My loving lord, I take my leave of you.
88 Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
89 Not sick, although I have to do with death,
90 But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
91 Lo! as at English feasts, so I regreet
92 The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
93 O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
94 Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
95 Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
96 To reach at victory above my head,
97 Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,
98 And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point,
99 That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen coat
100 And furbish new the name of John o’ Gaunt,
101 Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
102 GAUNT.
103 God in thy good cause make thee prosperous.
104 Be swift like lightning in the execution,
105 And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
106 Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
107 Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
108 Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
109 BOLINGBROKE.
110 Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
111 [_He takes his seat._]
112 MOWBRAY. [_Rising_.]
113 However God or fortune cast my lot,
114 There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne,
115 A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
116 Never did captive with a freer heart
117 Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
118 His golden uncontrolled enfranchisement,
119 More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
120 This feast of battle with mine adversary.
121 Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
122 Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
123 As gentle and as jocund as to jest
124 Go I to fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.
125 KING RICHARD.
126 Farewell, my lord. Securely I espy
127 Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
128 Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
129 [_The King and the Lords return to their seats._]
130 MARSHAL.
131 Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
132 Receive thy lance; and God defend the right.
133 BOLINGBROKE. [_Rising_.]
134 Strong as a tower in hope, I cry “Amen”!
135 MARSHAL.
136 [_To an officer_.] Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
137 FIRST HERALD.
138 Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
139 Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
140 On pain to be found false and recreant,
141 To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
142 A traitor to his God, his King, and him,
143 And dares him to set forward to the fight.
144 SECOND HERALD.
145 Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
146 On pain to be found false and recreant,
147 Both to defend himself and to approve
148 Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
149 To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,
150 Courageously and with a free desire,
151 Attending but the signal to begin.
152 MARSHAL.
153 Sound trumpets, and set forward, combatants.
154 [_A charge sounded._]
155 Stay! the King hath thrown his warder down.
156 KING RICHARD.
157 Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
158 And both return back to their chairs again.
159 Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound
160 While we return these dukes what we decree.
161 [_A long flourish._]
162 [_To the Combatants_.] Draw near,
163 And list what with our council we have done.
164 For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled
165 With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
166 And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
167 Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords;
168 And for we think the eagle-winged pride
169 Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
170 With rival-hating envy, set on you
171 To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle
172 Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep,
173 Which so roused up with boist’rous untuned drums,
174 With harsh-resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray,
175 And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
176 Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
177 And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood:
178 Therefore we banish you our territories.
179 You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
180 Till twice five summers have enriched our fields
181 Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
182 But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
183 BOLINGBROKE.
184 Your will be done. This must my comfort be:
185 That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
186 And those his golden beams to you here lent
187 Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
188 KING RICHARD.
189 Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
190 Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
191 The sly slow hours shall not determinate
192 The dateless limit of thy dear exile.
193 The hopeless word of “never to return”
194 Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
195 MOWBRAY.
196 A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
197 And all unlooked for from your highness’ mouth.
198 A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
199 As to be cast forth in the common air,
200 Have I deserved at your highness’ hands.
201 The language I have learnt these forty years,
202 My native English, now I must forgo;
203 And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
204 Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
205 Or like a cunning instrument cased up
206 Or, being open, put into his hands
207 That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
208 Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue,
209 Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,
210 And dull unfeeling, barren ignorance
211 Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
212 I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
213 Too far in years to be a pupil now.
214 What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
215 Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
216 KING RICHARD.
217 It boots thee not to be compassionate.
218 After our sentence plaining comes too late.
219 MOWBRAY.
220 Then thus I turn me from my country’s light,
221 To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
222 [_Retiring._]
223 KING RICHARD.
224 Return again, and take an oath with thee.
225 Lay on our royal sword your banished hands.
226 Swear by the duty that you owe to God—
227 Our part therein we banish with yourselves—
228 To keep the oath that we administer:
229 You never shall, so help you truth and God,
230 Embrace each other’s love in banishment;
231 Nor never look upon each other’s face;
232 Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
233 This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;
234 Nor never by advised purpose meet
235 To plot, contrive, or complot any ill
236 ’Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
237 BOLINGBROKE.
238 I swear.
239 MOWBRAY.
240 And I, to keep all this.
241 BOLINGBROKE.
242 Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:
243 By this time, had the King permitted us,
244 One of our souls had wandered in the air,
245 Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
246 As now our flesh is banished from this land.
247 Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm.
248 Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
249 The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
250 MOWBRAY.
251 No, Bolingbroke. If ever I were traitor,
252 My name be blotted from the book of life,
253 And I from heaven banished as from hence!
254 But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;
255 And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.
256 Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;
257 Save back to England, all the world’s my way.
258 [_Exit._]
259 KING RICHARD.
260 Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
261 I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
262 Hath from the number of his banished years
263 Plucked four away. [_To Bolingbroke_.] Six frozen winters spent,
264 Return with welcome home from banishment.
265 BOLINGBROKE.
266 How long a time lies in one little word!
267 Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
268 End in a word: such is the breath of kings.
269 GAUNT.
270 I thank my liege that in regard of me
271 He shortens four years of my son’s exile;
272 But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
273 For, ere the six years that he hath to spend
274 Can change their moons and bring their times about,
275 My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
276 Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
277 My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
278 And blindfold death not let me see my son.
279 KING RICHARD.
280 Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
281 GAUNT.
282 But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
283 Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
284 And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.
285 Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
286 But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
287 Thy word is current with him for my death,
288 But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
289 KING RICHARD.
290 Thy son is banished upon good advice,
291 Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
292 Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour?
293 GAUNT.
294 Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
295 You urged me as a judge, but I had rather
296 You would have bid me argue like a father.
297 O, had it been a stranger, not my child,
298 To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
299 A partial slander sought I to avoid,
300 And in the sentence my own life destroyed.
301 Alas, I looked when some of you should say
302 I was too strict to make mine own away;
303 But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
304 Against my will to do myself this wrong.
305 KING RICHARD.
306 Cousin, farewell, and, uncle, bid him so.
307 Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
308 [_Flourish. Exit King Richard and Train._]
309 AUMERLE.
310 Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know,
311 From where you do remain let paper show.
312 MARSHAL.
313 My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride,
314 As far as land will let me, by your side.
315 GAUNT.
316 O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
317 That thou return’st no greeting to thy friends?
318 BOLINGBROKE.
319 I have too few to take my leave of you,
320 When the tongue’s office should be prodigal
321 To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
322 GAUNT.
323 Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
324 BOLINGBROKE.
325 Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
326 GAUNT.
327 What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
328 BOLINGBROKE.
329 To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
330 GAUNT.
331 Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure.
332 BOLINGBROKE.
333 My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
334 Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
335 GAUNT.
336 The sullen passage of thy weary steps
337 Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
338 The precious jewel of thy home return.
339 BOLINGBROKE.
340 Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
341 Will but remember me what a deal of world
342 I wander from the jewels that I love.
343 Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
344 To foreign passages, and in the end,
345 Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
346 But that I was a journeyman to grief?
347 GAUNT.
348 All places that the eye of heaven visits
349 Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
350 Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
351 There is no virtue like necessity.
352 Think not the King did banish thee,
353 But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
354 Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
355 Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
356 And not the King exiled thee; or suppose
357 Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
358 And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
359 Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
360 To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com’st.
361 Suppose the singing birds musicians,
362 The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strewed,
363 The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
364 Than a delightful measure or a dance;
365 For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
366 The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
367 BOLINGBROKE.
368 O, who can hold a fire in his hand
369 By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
370 Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
371 By bare imagination of a feast?
372 Or wallow naked in December snow
373 By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
374 O no, the apprehension of the good
375 Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
376 Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more
377 Than when it bites but lanceth not the sore.
378 GAUNT.
379 Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way.
380 Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
381 BOLINGBROKE.
382 Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu,
383 My mother and my nurse that bears me yet!
384 Where’er I wander, boast of this I can,
385 Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman.
386 [_Exeunt._]