King Richard The Second

1 Enter Queen, Bushy and Bagot.
2 BUSHY.
3 Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
4 You promised, when you parted with the King,
5 To lay aside life-harming heaviness
6 And entertain a cheerful disposition.
7 QUEEN.
8 To please the King I did; to please myself
9 I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause
10 Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
11 Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
12 As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks,
13 Some unborn sorrow, ripe in Fortune’s womb,
14 Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
15 With nothing trembles. At something it grieves
16 More than with parting from my lord the King.
17 BUSHY.
18 Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
19 Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
20 For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears,
21 Divides one thing entire to many objects,
22 Like perspectives which, rightly gazed upon,
23 Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry,
24 Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,
25 Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,
26 Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail,
27 Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows
28 Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,
29 More than your lord’s departure weep not. More is not seen,
30 Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,
31 Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
32 QUEEN.
33 It may be so; but yet my inward soul
34 Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be,
35 I cannot but be sad—so heavy sad
36 As thought, in thinking, on no thought I think,
37 Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
38 BUSHY.
39 ’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
40 QUEEN.
41 ’Tis nothing less. Conceit is still derived
42 From some forefather grief. Mine is not so,
43 For nothing hath begot my something grief,
44 Or something hath the nothing that I grieve.
45 ’Tis in reversion that I do possess,
46 But what it is, that is not yet known what,
47 I cannot name. ’Tis nameless woe, I wot.
48 Enter Green.
49 GREEN.
50 God save your majesty! And well met, gentlemen.
51 I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.
52 QUEEN.
53 Why hop’st thou so? ’Tis better hope he is,
54 For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
55 Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped?
56 GREEN.
57 That he, our hope, might have retired his power,
58 And driven into despair an enemy’s hope
59 Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
60 The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself,
61 And with uplifted arms is safe arrived
62 At Ravenspurgh.
63 QUEEN.
64 Now God in heaven forbid!
65 GREEN.
66 Ah, madam, ’tis too true; and that is worse,
67 The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy,
68 The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
69 With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
70 BUSHY.
71 Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland
72 And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
73 GREEN.
74 We have, whereupon the Earl of Worcester
75 Hath broken his staff, resigned his stewardship,
76 And all the household servants fled with him
77 To Bolingbroke.
78 QUEEN.
79 So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
80 And Bolingbroke my sorrow’s dismal heir.
81 Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,
82 And I, a gasping new-delivered mother,
83 Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.
84 BUSHY.
85 Despair not, madam.
86 QUEEN.
87 Who shall hinder me?
88 I will despair and be at enmity
89 With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
90 A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
91 Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
92 Which false hope lingers in extremity.
93 Enter York.
94 GREEN.
95 Here comes the Duke of York.
96 QUEEN.
97 With signs of war about his aged neck.
98 O! full of careful business are his looks!
99 Uncle, for God’s sake, speak comfortable words.
100 YORK.
101 Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
102 Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth,
103 Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.
104 Your husband, he is gone to save far off,
105 Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
106 Here am I left to underprop his land,
107 Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
108 Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
109 Now shall he try his friends that flattered him.
110 Enter a Servingman.
111 SERVINGMAN.
112 My lord, your son was gone before I came.
113 YORK.
114 He was? Why, so! Go all which way it will!
115 The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold
116 And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford’s side.
117 Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;
118 Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
119 Hold, take my ring.
120 SERVINGMAN.
121 My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship:
122 Today, as I came by, I called there—
123 But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
124 YORK.
125 What is’t, knave?
126 SERVINGMAN.
127 An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
128 YORK.
129 God for his mercy, what a tide of woes
130 Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
131 I know not what to do. I would to God,
132 So my untruth had not provoked him to it,
133 The King had cut off my head with my brother’s.
134 What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland?
135 How shall we do for money for these wars?
136 Come, sister—cousin, I would say, pray, pardon me.
137 Go, fellow, get thee home; provide some carts
138 And bring away the armour that is there.
139 [_Exit Servingman._]
140 Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
141 If I know how or which way to order these affairs
142 Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
143 Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.
144 Th’ one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
145 And duty bids defend; th’ other again
146 Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged,
147 Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
148 Well, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin,
149 I’ll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men,
150 And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle.
151 I should to Plashy too,
152 But time will not permit. All is uneven,
153 And everything is left at six and seven.
154 [_Exeunt York and Queen._]
155 BUSHY.
156 The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,
157 But none returns. For us to levy power
158 Proportionable to the enemy
159 Is all unpossible.
160 GREEN.
161 Besides, our nearness to the King in love
162 Is near the hate of those love not the King.
163 BAGOT.
164 And that is the wavering commons, for their love
165 Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,
166 By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
167 BUSHY.
168 Wherein the King stands generally condemned.
169 BAGOT.
170 If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
171 Because we ever have been near the King.
172 GREEN.
173 Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle.
174 The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
175 BUSHY.
176 Thither will I with you, for little office
177 Will the hateful commons perform for us,
178 Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.
179 Will you go along with us?
180 BAGOT.
181 No, I will to Ireland to his Majesty.
182 Farewell. If heart’s presages be not vain,
183 We three here part that ne’er shall meet again.
184 BUSHY.
185 That’s as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
186 GREEN.
187 Alas, poor Duke! The task he undertakes
188 Is numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry.
189 Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
190 Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.
191 BUSHY.
192 Well, we may meet again.
193 BAGOT.
194 I fear me, never.
195 [_Exeunt._]