King Richard The Second

1 Enter the Queen and two Ladies.
2 QUEEN.
3 What sport shall we devise here in this garden
4 To drive away the heavy thought of care?
5 LADY.
6 Madam, we’ll play at bowls.
7 QUEEN.
8 ’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
9 And that my fortune runs against the bias.
10 LADY.
11 Madam, we’ll dance.
12 QUEEN.
13 My legs can keep no measure in delight
14 When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief.
15 Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.
16 LADY.
17 Madam, we’ll tell tales.
18 QUEEN.
19 Of sorrow or of joy?
20 LADY.
21 Of either, madam.
22 QUEEN.
23 Of neither, girl.
24 For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
25 It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
26 Or if of grief, being altogether had,
27 It adds more sorrow to my want of joy.
28 For what I have I need not to repeat,
29 And what I want it boots not to complain.
30 LADY.
31 Madam, I’ll sing.
32 QUEEN.
33 ’Tis well that thou hast cause;
34 But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
35 LADY.
36 I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
37 QUEEN.
38 And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
39 And never borrow any tear of thee.
40 But stay, here come the gardeners.
41 Let’s step into the shadow of these trees.
42 My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
43 They will talk of state, for everyone doth so
44 Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.
45 [_Queen and Ladies retire._]
46 Enter a Gardener and two Servants.
47 GARDENER.
48 Go, bind thou up young dangling apricocks,
49 Which, like unruly children, make their sire
50 Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
51 Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
52 Go thou, and like an executioner
53 Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays
54 That look too lofty in our commonwealth.
55 All must be even in our government.
56 You thus employed, I will go root away
57 The noisome weeds which without profit suck
58 The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
59 SERVANT.
60 Why should we in the compass of a pale
61 Keep law and form and due proportion,
62 Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
63 When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
64 Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
65 Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,
66 Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
67 Swarming with caterpillars?
68 GARDENER.
69 Hold thy peace.
70 He that hath suffered this disordered spring
71 Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
72 The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
73 That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
74 Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke—
75 I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
76 SERVANT.
77 What, are they dead?
78 GARDENER.
79 They are. And Bolingbroke
80 Hath seized the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
81 That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land
82 As we this garden! We at time of year
83 Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
84 Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
85 With too much riches it confound itself.
86 Had he done so to great and growing men,
87 They might have lived to bear and he to taste
88 Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
89 We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.
90 Had he done so, himself had home the crown,
91 Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
92 SERVANT.
93 What, think you the King shall be deposed?
94 GARDENER.
95 Depressed he is already, and deposed
96 ’Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
97 To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s
98 That tell black tidings.
99 QUEEN.
100 O, I am pressed to death through want of speaking!
101 [_Coming forward._]
102 Thou, old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden,
103 How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
104 What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
105 To make a second fall of cursed man?
106 Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
107 Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
108 Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
109 Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch!
110 GARDENER.
111 Pardon me, madam. Little joy have I
112 To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.
113 King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
114 Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weighed.
115 In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself,
116 And some few vanities that make him light;
117 But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
118 Besides himself, are all the English peers,
119 And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
120 Post you to London, and you will find it so.
121 I speak no more than everyone doth know.
122 QUEEN.
123 Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
124 Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
125 And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
126 To serve me last that I may longest keep
127 Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
128 To meet at London London’s king in woe.
129 What, was I born to this, that my sad look
130 Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
131 Gard’ner, for telling me these news of woe,
132 Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow!
133 [_Exeunt Queen and Ladies._]
134 GARDENER.
135 Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
136 I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
137 Here did she fall a tear. Here in this place
138 I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
139 Rue even for ruth here shortly shall be seen
140 In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
141 [_Exeunt._]