KING RICHARD
Barkloughly Castle call they this at hand?
AUMERLE
Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air
After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
KING RICHARD
Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy
To stand upon my kingdom once again.
Dear earth, I do salute with my hand,
Though rebels wound with their horses’ hoofs.
As a long-parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
So weeping-smiling greet I , my earth,
And do favours with my royal hands.
Feed not sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
But let spiders, that suck up venom,
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
Which with usurping steps do trample .
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
And when they from bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray , with a lurking adder
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon sovereign’s enemies.
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.
This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
CARLISLE
Fear not, my lord. That Power that made you king
power to keep you king in spite of all.
The means that heaven yields must be embraced
And not neglected; else if heaven would,
And we will not. Heaven’s offer we refuse,
The proffered means of succour and redress.
AUMERLE
He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
KING RICHARD
Discomfortable cousin, know’st not
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe that lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
In murders and in outrage boldly here;
But when from under this terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
Who all this while revelled in the night
Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
For every man that Bolingbroke pressed
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard in heavenly pay
A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
KING RICHARD
Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
SALISBURY
Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
clouded all happy days on earth.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
And have twelve thousand fighting men!
Today, today, unhappy day, too late,
O’erthrows joys, friends, fortune, and state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.
AUMERLE
Comfort, my liege. Why looks your Grace so pale?
KING RICHARD
But now, the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
And till so much blood come again
Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
All souls that will be safe, fly from my side,
For time set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE
Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
KING RICHARD
I had forgot myself. Am I not king?
Awake, coward majesty! sleepest!
Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names?
Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes
At great glory. Look not to the ground,
favourites of a king. Are we not high?
High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?
SCROOP
More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
KING RICHARD
Mine ear is open and my heart prepared.
The worst is worldly loss canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, my care,
And what loss is it to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be. If he serve God,
We’ll serve Him too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend.
They break their faith to God as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay.
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP
Glad am I that your highness is so armed
To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores
As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps
Against majesty; boys with women’s voices
Strive to speak big and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against crown;
very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against seat. Both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
KING RICHARD
Too well, too well tell’st a tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOP
Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
KING RICHARD
O villains, vipers, damned without redemption!
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? Terrible hell
Make war upon their spotted souls for this!
SCROOP
Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
Again uncurse their souls. Their peace is made
With heads, and not with hands. Those whom you curse
Have felt the worst of death’s destroying wound
And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.
AUMERLE
Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOP
Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
AUMERLE
Where is the Duke my father with his power?
KING RICHARD
No matter where. Of comfort no man speak!
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings—
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
All murdered. For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and, humoured thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while.
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?
CARLISLE
My lord, wise men sit and wail their woes,
But prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear and be slain—no worse can come to fight;
And fight and die is death destroying death,
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
AUMERLE
My father a power. Enquire of him,
And learn to make a body of a limb.
KING RICHARD
chid’st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with for our day of doom.
This ague fit of fear is overblown;
An easy task it is to win our own.
Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although looks be sour.
SCROOP
Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state in inclination of the day;
So may you by my dull and heavy eye.
My tongue but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer by small and small
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
Your uncle York is joined with Bolingbroke,
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.
KING RICHARD
said enough.
Beshrew , cousin, which lead me forth
Of that sweet way I was in to despair.
What say you now? What comfort have we now?
By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly
That bids me be of comfort any more.
Go to Flint Castle. There I’ll pine away;
A king, woe’s slave, shall kingly woe obey.
That power I have, discharge, and let them go
To ear the land that some hope to grow,
For I have none. Let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
AUMERLE
My liege, one word.
KING RICHARD
He does me double wrong
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers. Let them away,
From Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day.