Enfranchisement immediate on his knees:
Which on thy royal party granted once,
His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
To faithful service of your majesty.
This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;
And, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.
K. Rich. Northumberland, say thus the king returns:—
His noble cousin is right welcome hither;
And all the number of his fair demands
Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction:
With all the gracious utterance thou hast
Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.-
We do debase ourself, cousin, do we not,
To look so poorly, and to speak so fair?
Shall we call back Northumberland, and send
Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
Aum. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords. K. Rich. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine, That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yond proud man, should take it off again
With words of sooth! O that I were as great
As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
Or that I could forget what I have been!
Or not remember what I must be now!
Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
Aum. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
K. Rich. What must the king do now? must he submit?
The king shall do it: must he be depos'd?
The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an alms-man's gown,
My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave;—
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live;
And buried once, why not upon my head?—
Aumerle, thou weep'st,-my tender-hearted cousin!-
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus; to drop them still upon one place,
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
Within the earth; and, therein laid, there lies
Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.
Would not this ill do well?-Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you mock at me.-
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
North. My lord, in the base court he doth attend
To speak with you;-may it please you to come down?
K. Rich. Down, down I come; like glistering Phaeton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
[NORTH. retires to BOLING. In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base, To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.
In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
Boling. What says his majesty?
North.
[Exeunt from above.
Sorrow and grief of heart
Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man:
Enter KING RICHARD, and his Attendants, below.
Boling. Stand all apart,
And show fair duty to his majesty.—
K. Rich. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
To make the base earth proud with kissing it:
Me rather had my heart might feel your love
Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up;--your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least [touching his own head], although your knee be low.
Boling. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
K. Rich. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
Boling. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.
K. Rich. Well you deserve:-they well deserve to have That know the strong'st and surest way to get.Uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes; Tears show their love, but want their remedies.Cousin, I am too young to be your father, Though you are old enough to be my heir. What you will have, I'll give, and willing too; For do we must what force will have us do.Set on towards London :-cousin, is it so? Boling. Yea, my good lord. K. Rich.
Then I must not say no.
[Flourish. Exeunt.
The DUKE OF YORK's Garden.
Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies.
Queen. What sport shall we devise here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care?
1 Lady. Madam, we'll play at bowls.
Queen.
The world is full of rubs, and that my fortune
Runs against the bias.
Madam, we'll dance.
Queen. My legs can keep no measure in delight,
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.
1 Lady. Madam, we'll tell tales.
Queen.
1 Lady. Of either, madam.
Queen.
Of sorrow or of joy?
Of neither, girl:
For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
Or if of grief, being altogether had,
It adds more sorrow to my want of joy:
For what I have, I need not to repeat;
And what I want, it boots not to complain.
1 Lady. Madam, I'll sing.
Queen.
'Tis well that thou hast cause;
But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
1 Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
Queen. And I could weep, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.—
But stay, here come the gardeners:
Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They'll talk of state; for every one doth so
Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.
[QUEEN and Ladies retire.
Enter a Gardener and two Servants.
Gard. Go, bind thou up yond dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.—
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
1 Serv. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?
Gard.
Hold thy peace :—
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:
The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,—
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
1 Serv. What, are they dead?
Gard.
They are; and Bolingbrok›
Hath seiz'd the wasteful king.-Oh! what pity is it
That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
1 Serv. What, think you, then, the king shall be depos'd?
Gard. Depress'd he is already; and depos'd "Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's, That tell black tidings.
Queen. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!
Thou, old Adam's likeness [coming forward with Ladies], set to dress this garden,
How dares thy harsh-rude tongue sound these unpleasing
What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
To make a second fall of cursed man?
Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?
Dar'st thou, thou little better thing thân earth,
Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how
Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.
Gard. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
To breathe these news; yet what I say is true.
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:
In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
And some few vanities that make him light;
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
Post you to London, and you'll find it so ;
I speak no more than every one doth know.
Queen. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st
To serve me last, that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast.-Come, ladies, go,
To meet at London London's king in woe.-
What, was I born to this, that my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
Gardener, for telling me this news of woe,
I would the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
[Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies.
Gard. Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,
I would my skill were subject to thy curse.-
Here did she fall a tear; here, in this place,
I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
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