King Richard The Second

1 Enter the Queen and ladies.
2 QUEEN.
3 This way the King will come. This is the way
4 To Julius Caesar’s ill-erected tower,
5 To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
6 Is doomed a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
7 Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
8 Have any resting for her true king’s queen.
9 Enter King Richard and Guard.
10 But soft, but see, or rather do not see
11 My fair rose wither; yet look up, behold,
12 That you in pity may dissolve to dew
13 And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
14 Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand,
15 Thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb,
16 And not King Richard! Thou most beauteous inn,
17 Why should hard-favoured grief be lodged in thee,
18 When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
19 KING RICHARD.
20 Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
21 To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
22 To think our former state a happy dream,
23 From which awaked, the truth of what we are
24 Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,
25 To grim Necessity, and he and I
26 Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
27 And cloister thee in some religious house.
28 Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown,
29 Which our profane hours here have thrown down.
30 QUEEN.
31 What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
32 Transformed and weakened! Hath Bolingbroke
33 Deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
34 The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
35 And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
36 To be o’erpowered; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
37 Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,
38 And fawn on rage with base humility,
39 Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
40 KING RICHARD.
41 A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,
42 I had been still a happy king of men.
43 Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
44 Think I am dead, and that even here thou tak’st,
45 As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
46 In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
47 With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
48 Of woeful ages long ago betid;
49 And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs,
50 Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
51 And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
52 For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
53 The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
54 And in compassion weep the fire out;
55 And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
56 For the deposing of a rightful king.
57 Enter Northumberland, attended.
58 NORTHUMBERLAND.
59 My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed.
60 You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
61 And, madam, there is order ta’en for you:
62 With all swift speed you must away to France.
63 KING RICHARD.
64 Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
65 The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
66 The time shall not be many hours of age
67 More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head,
68 Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,
69 Though he divide the realm and give thee half
70 It is too little, helping him to all.
71 And he shall think that thou, which knowst the way
72 To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
73 Being ne’er so little urged, another way
74 To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
75 The love of wicked men converts to fear,
76 That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
77 To worthy danger and deserved death.
78 NORTHUMBERLAND.
79 My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
80 Take leave and part, for you must part forthwith.
81 KING RICHARD.
82 Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate
83 A twofold marriage, ’twixt my crown and me,
84 And then betwixt me and my married wife.
85 Let me unkiss the oath ’twixt thee and me;
86 And yet not so, for with a kiss ’twas made.
87 Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,
88 Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
89 My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
90 She came adorned hither like sweet May,
91 Sent back like Hallowmas or short’st of day.
92 QUEEN.
93 And must we be divided? Must we part?
94 KING RICHARD.
95 Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
96 QUEEN.
97 Banish us both, and send the King with me.
98 NORTHUMBERLAND.
99 That were some love, but little policy.
100 QUEEN.
101 Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
102 KING RICHARD.
103 So two, together weeping, make one woe.
104 Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
105 Better far off than near, be ne’er the near.
106 Go, count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.
107 QUEEN.
108 So longest way shall have the longest moans.
109 KING RICHARD.
110 Twice for one step I’ll groan, the way being short,
111 And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
112 Come, come, in wooing sorrow let’s be brief,
113 Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
114 One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
115 Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
116 [_They kiss._]
117 QUEEN.
118 Give me mine own again; ’twere no good part
119 To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
120 [_They kiss again._]
121 So, now I have mine own again, be gone,
122 That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
123 KING RICHARD.
124 We make woe wanton with this fond delay:
125 Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.
126 [_Exeunt._]