King Richard The Second

1 Enter, with drum and colours, Bolingbroke and Forces; Northumberland
2 and Others.
3 BOLINGBROKE.
4 So that by this intelligence we learn
5 The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
6 Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
7 With some few private friends upon this coast.
8 NORTHUMBERLAND.
9 The news is very fair and good, my lord:
10 Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
11 YORK.
12 It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
13 To say “King Richard”. Alack the heavy day
14 When such a sacred king should hide his head!
15 NORTHUMBERLAND.
16 Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief
17 Left I his title out.
18 YORK.
19 The time hath been,
20 Would you have been so brief with him, he would
21 Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
22 For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.
23 BOLINGBROKE.
24 Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
25 YORK.
26 Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
27 Lest you mistake. The heavens are o’er our heads.
28 BOLINGBROKE.
29 I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself
30 Against their will. But who comes here?
31 Enter Harry Percy.
32 Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
33 PERCY.
34 The castle royally is manned, my lord,
35 Against thy entrance.
36 BOLINGBROKE.
37 Royally!
38 Why, it contains no king?
39 PERCY.
40 Yes, my good lord,
41 It doth contain a king. King Richard lies
42 Within the limits of yon lime and stone,
43 And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
44 Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
45 Of holy reverence—who, I cannot learn.
46 NORTHUMBERLAND.
47 O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
48 BOLINGBROKE.
49 [_To Northumberland_.] Noble lord,
50 Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
51 Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
52 Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver:
53 Henry Bolingbroke
54 On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand
55 And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
56 To his most royal person, hither come
57 Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
58 Provided that my banishment repealed
59 And lands restored again be freely granted.
60 If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power
61 And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood
62 Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen—
63 The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
64 It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
65 The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land,
66 My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
67 Go signify as much, while here we march
68 Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
69 Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
70 That from this castle’s tottered battlements
71 Our fair appointments may be well perused.
72 Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
73 With no less terror than the elements
74 Of fire and water, when their thund’ring shock
75 At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
76 Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;
77 The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
78 My waters—on the earth, and not on him.
79 March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.
80 A parley sounded, and answered by a trumpet within. Flourish. Enter on
81 the Walls, the King, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle, Scroop and
82 Salisbury
83 See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
84 As doth the blushing discontented sun
85 From out the fiery portal of the east,
86 When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
87 To dim his glory and to stain the track
88 Of his bright passage to the occident.
89 YORK.
90 Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,
91 As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
92 Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe
93 That any harm should stain so fair a show!
94 KING RICHARD.
95 [_To Northumberland._] We are amazed, and thus long have we stood
96 To watch the fearful bending of thy knee
97 Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
98 And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
99 To pay their awful duty to our presence?
100 If we be not, show us the hand of God
101 That hath dismissed us from our stewardship;
102 For well we know no hand of blood and bone
103 Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
104 Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
105 And though you think that all, as you have done,
106 Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
107 And we are barren and bereft of friends,
108 Yet know: my master, God omnipotent,
109 Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
110 Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
111 Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
112 That lift your vassal hands against my head
113 And threat the glory of my precious crown.
114 Tell Bolingbroke—for yon methinks he stands—
115 That every stride he makes upon my land
116 Is dangerous treason. He is come to open
117 The purple testament of bleeding war;
118 But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
119 Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons
120 Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,
121 Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
122 To scarlet indignation, and bedew
123 Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.
124 NORTHUMBERLAND.
125 The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King
126 Should so with civil and uncivil arms
127 Be rushed upon! Thy thrice-noble cousin,
128 Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;
129 And by the honourable tomb he swears
130 That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones,
131 And by the royalties of both your bloods,
132 Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
133 And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
134 And by the worth and honour of himself,
135 Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
136 His coming hither hath no further scope
137 Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
138 Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;
139 Which on thy royal party granted once,
140 His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
141 His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
142 To faithful service of your Majesty.
143 This swears he, as he is a prince and just;
144 And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
145 KING RICHARD.
146 Northumberland, say, thus the King returns:
147 His noble cousin is right welcome hither,
148 And all the number of his fair demands
149 Shall be accomplished without contradiction.
150 With all the gracious utterance thou hast,
151 Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
152 [_Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke._]
153 [_To Aumerle_.] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
154 To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
155 Shall we call back Northumberland and send
156 Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
157 AUMERLE.
158 No, good my lord. Let’s fight with gentle words
159 Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
160 KING RICHARD.
161 O God, O God, that e’er this tongue of mine
162 That laid the sentence of dread banishment
163 On yon proud man should take it off again
164 With words of sooth! O, that I were as great
165 As is my grief, or lesser than my name,
166 Or that I could forget what I have been,
167 Or not remember what I must be now.
168 Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to beat,
169 Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
170 AUMERLE.
171 Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
172 KING RICHARD.
173 What must the King do now? Must he submit?
174 The King shall do it. Must he be deposed?
175 The King shall be contented. Must he lose
176 The name of King? I’ God’s name, let it go.
177 I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
178 My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
179 My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,
180 My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
181 My sceptre for a palmer’s walking-staff,
182 My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
183 And my large kingdom for a little grave,
184 A little, little grave, an obscure grave;
185 Or I’ll be buried in the King’s highway,
186 Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet
187 May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head;
188 For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,
189 And, buried once, why not upon my head?
190 Aumerle, thou weep’st, my tender-hearted cousin!
191 We’ll make foul weather with despised tears;
192 Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn
193 And make a dearth in this revolting land.
194 Or shall we play the wantons with our woes
195 And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
196 As thus, to drop them still upon one place
197 Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
198 Within the earth; and, therein laid, there lies
199 Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.
200 Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
201 I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
202 Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
203 What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
204 Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
205 You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
206 NORTHUMBERLAND.
207 My lord, in the base court he doth attend
208 To speak with you. May it please you to come down?
209 KING RICHARD.
210 Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaëthon,
211 Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
212 In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,
213 To come at traitors’ calls, and do them grace.
214 In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
215 For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
216 [_Exeunt from above._]
217 BOLINGBROKE.
218 What says his Majesty?
219 NORTHUMBERLAND.
220 Sorrow and grief of heart
221 Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man.
222 Yet he is come.
223 Enter King Richard and his attendants.
224 BOLINGBROKE.
225 Stand all apart,
226 And show fair duty to his Majesty. [_Kneeling_.]
227 My gracious lord.
228 KING RICHARD.
229 Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
230 To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
231 Me rather had my heart might feel your love
232 Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
233 Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know,
234 Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
235 BOLINGBROKE.
236 My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
237 KING RICHARD.
238 Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
239 BOLINGBROKE.
240 So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
241 As my true service shall deserve your love.
242 KING RICHARD.
243 Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
244 That know the strong’st and surest way to get.
245 Uncle, give me your hands. Nay, dry your eyes.
246 Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
247 Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
248 Though you are old enough to be my heir.
249 What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too;
250 For do we must what force will have us do.
251 Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?
252 BOLINGBROKE.
253 Yea, my good lord.
254 KING RICHARD.
255 Then I must not say no.
256 [_Flourish. Exeunt._]