Richard II

by William Shakespeare

  O, if you rear this house139 against this house,

  It will the woefullest division prove

  That ever fell upon this cursèd earth.

  Prevent it, resist it, and let it not be so,

  Lest child, child’s children, cry against you ‘Woe!’

  NORTHUMBERLAND Well have you argued, sir. And for your pains,

  Of capital treason we arrest you here.

  My lord of Westminster, be it your charge

  To keep him safely till his day of trial.

  May it please you, lords, to grant the commons’ suit148?

  BULLINGBROOK Fetch hither Richard, that in common view

  He may surrender150, so we shall proceed

  Without suspicion.

  YORK I will be his conduct152.

  Exit

  BULLINGBROOK Lords, you that here are under our arrest,

  Procure your sureties154 for your days of answer.

  Little are we beholding155 to your love,

  And little looked for156 at your helping hands.

  Enter Richard and York [with Officers bearing the regalia]

  KING RICHARD Alack, why am I sent for to a king,

  Before I have shook off the regal thoughts

  Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned

  To insinuate160, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.

  Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me

  To this submission. Yet I well remember

  The favours163 of these men: were they not mine?

  Did they not sometime164 cry, ‘All hail!’ to me?

  So Judas did to Christ, but he in twelve165

  Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.

  God save the king! Will no man say ‘Amen’?

  Am I both priest and clerk168? Well then, amen.

  God save the king, although I be not he.

  And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.

  To do what service171 am I sent for hither?

  YORK To do that office of thine own good will

  Which tired majesty173 did make thee offer:

  The resignation of thy state and crown

  To Henry Bullingbrook.

  KING RICHARD Give me the crown.— Here, cousin, seize176 the crown:

  Takes the crown and offers it to Bullingbrook

  Here cousin, on this side my hand, on that side thine.

  Now is this golden crown like a deep well

  That owes179 two buckets, filling one another,

  The emptier ever dancing in the air,

  The other down, unseen and full of water:

  That bucket down and full of tears am I,

  Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

  BULLINGBROOK I thought you had been willing to resign.

  KING RICHARD My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.

  You may my glories and my state depose,

  But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

  BULLINGBROOK Part of your cares you give me with your crown.

  KING RICHARD Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down189.

  My care is loss of care, by old care done190:

  Your care is gain of care, by new care won.

  The cares I give I have, though given away,

  They tend193 the crown, yet still with me they stay.

  BULLINGBROOK Are you contented to resign the crown?

  KING RICHARD Ay195, no; no, ay, for I must nothing be:

  Therefore no ‘no’, for I resign to thee.

  Now mark me197 how I will undo myself:

  I give this heavy weight from off my head,

  Bullingbrook accepts crown

  And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,

  Bullingbrook accepts sceptre

  The pride of kingly sway200 from out my heart.

  With mine own tears I wash away my balm,

  With mine own hands I give away my crown,

  With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,

  With mine own breath release all duteous oaths204.

  All pomp and majesty I do forswear205:

  My manors, rents, revenues I forgo:

  My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny.

  God pardon all oaths that are broke to me,

  God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee.

  Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved210,

  And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved.

  Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit,

  And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!

  ‘God save King Henry’, unkinged Richard says,

  ‘And send him many years of sunshine days!’ —

  What more remains?

  NORTHUMBERLAND No more, but that you read

  Gives a paper

  These accusations and these grievous crimes

  Committed by your person and your followers

  Against the state and profit of this land,

  That, by confessing them, the souls of men

  May deem that you are worthily deposed.

  KING RICHARD Must I do so? And must I ravel out223

  My weaved-up follies? Gentle224 Northumberland,

  If thy offences were upon record,

  Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop226

  To read a lecture227 of them? If thou wouldst,

  There shouldst thou find one heinous article228,

  Containing the deposing of a king

  And cracking the strong warrant230 of an oath,

  Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven.

  Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me,

  Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait233 myself,

  Though some of you with Pilate234 wash your hands

  Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates

  Have here delivered me to my sour236 cross,

  And water cannot wash away your sin.

  NORTHUMBERLAND My lord, dispatch238. Read o’er these articles.

  KING RICHARD Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see.

  And yet salt water blinds them not so much

  But they can see a sort241 of traitors here.

  Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,

  I find myself a traitor with the rest,

  For I have given here my soul’s consent

  T’undeck245 the pompous body of a king;

  Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,

  Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

  NORTHUMBERLAND My lord—

  KING RICHARD No lord of thine, thou haught249 insulting man,

  No, nor no man’s lord.— I have no name, no title;

  No, not that name was given me at the font251,

  But ’tis usurped. Alack the heavy day,

  That I have worn so many winters out,

  And know not now what name to call myself.

  O, that I were a mockery255 king of snow,

  Standing before the sun of Bullingbrook,

  To melt myself away in water-drops!

  Good king, great king — and yet not greatly good —

  An if259 my word be sterling yet in England,

  Let it command a mirror hither straight,

  That it may show me what261 a face I have,

  Since it is bankrupt of his262 majesty.

  BULLINGBROOK Go some263 of you and fetch a looking-glass.

  [Exit an Attendant]

  NORTHUMBERLAND Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.

  KING RICHARD Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!

  BULLINGBROOK Urge it no more, my lord Northumberland.

  NORTHUMBERLAND The commons will not then be satisfied.

  KING RICHARD They shall be satisfied. I’ll read enough,

  When I do see the very book indeed

  Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.

  Enter one, with a glass

  Give me that glass, and therein will I read.

  Takes t
he mirror

  No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck

  So many blows upon this face of mine,

  And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass,

  Like to my followers in prosperity,

  Thou dost beguile276 me! Was this face the face

  That every day under his household roof

  Did keep278 ten thousand men? Was this the face

  That like the sun did make beholders wink279?

  Is this the face which faced280 so many follies,

  That was at last out-faced281 by Bullingbrook?

  A brittle glory shineth in this face,

  As brittle as the glory is the face.

  Throws the mirror down against the ground

  For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers284.

  Mark, silent king, the moral285 of this sport,

  How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

  BULLINGBROOK The shadow287 of your sorrow hath destroyed

  The shadow of your face.

  KING RICHARD Say that again.

  The shadow of my sorrow? Ha? Let’s see,

  ’Tis very true, my grief lies all within,

  And these external manner292 of laments

  Are merely shadows to the unseen grief

  That swells with silence in the tortured soul.

  There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,

  For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st

  Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way

  How to lament the cause. I’ll beg one boon298,

  And then be gone and trouble you no more.

  Shall I obtain it?

  BULLINGBROOK Name it, fair cousin.

  KING RICHARD ‘Fair cousin’? I am greater than a king,

  For when I was a king, my flatterers

  Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

  I have a king here to305 my flatterer.

  Being so great, I have no need to beg.

  BULLINGBROOK Yet ask.

  KING RICHARD And shall I have?

  BULLINGBROOK You shall.

  KING RICHARD Then give me leave to go.

  BULLINGBROOK Whither?

  KING RICHARD Whither you will, so I were from your sights.

  BULLINGBROOK Go, some of you convey313 him to the Tower.

  KING RICHARD O, good! ‘Convey’? Conveyers are you all,

  That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.

  [Exeunt Richard, some Lords and a Guard]

  BULLINGBROOK On Wednesday next we solemnly set down316

  Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.

  Exeunt [all except Carlisle, the Abbot and Aumerle]

  ABBOT A woeful pageant have we here beheld.

  CARLISLE The woe’s to come. The children yet unborn

  Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

  AUMERLE You holy clergymen, is there no plot

  To rid the realm of this pernicious322 blot?

  ABBOT Before I freely speak my mind herein,

  You shall not only take the sacrament324

  To bury325 mine intents, but also to effect

  Whatever I shall happen to devise.

  I see your brows are full of discontent,

  Your heart of sorrow and your eyes of tears.

  Come home with me to supper. I’ll lay

  A plot shall show us all a merry day.

  Exeunt

  Act 5 Scene 1

  running scene 14

  Location: London, near the Tower

  Enter Queen and Ladies

  QUEEN This way the king will come. This is the way

  To Julius Caesar’s2 ill-erected tower,

  To whose flint3 bosom my condemnèd lord

  Is doomed4 a prisoner by proud Bullingbrook.

  Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth

  Have any resting for her true king’s queen.

  Enter Richard and Guard

  But soft, but see, or rather do not see,

  My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,

  That you in pity may dissolve to dew,

  And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.

  Ah, thou, the model11 where old Troy did stand,

  Thou map12 of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb,

  And not King Richard. Thou most beauteous inn13,

  Why should hard-favoured14 grief be lodged in thee,

  When triumph is become an ale-house15 guest?

  KING RICHARD Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,

  To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,

  To think our former state18 a happy dream;

  From which awaked, the truth of what we are

  Shows us but this. I am sworn brother20, sweet,

  To grim Necessity, and he and I

  Will keep a league22 till death. Hie thee to France

  And cloister23 thee in some religious house.

  Our holy lives must win a new world’s24 crown,

  Which our profane hours here have stricken down.

  QUEEN What, is my Richard both in shape26 and mind

  Transformed and weakened? Hath Bullingbrook deposed

  Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?

  The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,

  And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage

  To be31 o’erpowered. And wilt thou, pupil-like,

  Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod32,

  And fawn on rage with base humility,

  Which art a lion and a king of beasts?

  KING RICHARD A king of beasts35, indeed. If aught but beasts,

  I had been still36 a happy king of men.

  Good sometime37 queen, prepare thee hence for France:

  Think I am dead and that even here thou tak’st,

  As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.

  In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire

  With good old folks and let them tell thee tales

  Of woeful ages long ago betid42.

  And ere thou bid good night, to quit43 their grief,

  Tell thou the lamentable fall of me

  And send the hearers weeping to their beds.

  For why46 the senseless brands will sympathize

  The heavy accent47 of thy moving tongue

  And in compassion weep48 the fire out,

  And some49 will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,

  For the deposing of a rightful king.

  Enter Northumberland [and others]

  NORTHUMBERLAND My lord, the mind of Bullingbrook is changed.

  You must to Pomfret52, not unto the Tower.—

  And, madam, there is order ta’en53 for you:

  To the Queen

  With all swift speed you must away to France.

  KING RICHARD Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal55

  The mounting Bullingbrook ascends my throne,

  The time shall not be many hours of age57

  More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head58,

  Shall break into corruption59. Thou shalt think,

  Though he60 divide the realm and give thee half,

  It is too little, helping61 him to all.

  He shall think that thou, which62 know’st the way

  To plant unrightful63 kings, wilt know again,

  Being ne’er so little urged, another way

  To pluck him headlong from th’usurpèd throne.

  The love of wicked friends converts to fear;

  That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both67

  To worthy68 danger and deservèd death.

  NORTHUMBERLAND My guilt be on my head, and there an end.

  Take leave and part70, for you must part forthwith.

  KING RICHARD Doubly divorced? Bad men, ye violate

  A twofold marriage, ’twixt72 my crown and me

  And then betwixt me and my married wife.—

  Let me unkiss74 the oath ’twixt thee and me;

  To Queen
>
  And yet not so, for with a kiss ’twas made.—

  Part us, Northumberland. I towards the north,

  Where shivering cold and sickness pines77 the clime.

  My queen to France, from whence78, set forth in pomp,

  She came adornèd hither like sweet May,

  Sent back like Hallowmas80 or short’st of day.

  QUEEN And must we be divided? Must we part?

  KING RICHARD Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

  QUEEN Banish us both and send the king with me.

  NORTHUMBERLAND That were84 some love but little policy.

  QUEEN Then whither he goes, thither let me go.

  KING RICHARD So two, together weeping, make one woe.

  Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here.

  Better far off than, near88, be ne’er the near.

  Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.

  QUEEN So longest way shall have the longest moans.

  KING RICHARD Twice for one step I’ll groan, the way being short,

  And piece the way out92 with a heavy heart.

  Come, come, in wooing sorrow let’s be brief,

  Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.

  One kiss shall stop95 our mouths, and dumbly part;

  They kiss

  Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

  QUEEN Give me mine own again. ’Twere no good part

  To take on me97 to keep and kill98 thy heart.

  They kiss

  So, now I have mine own again, be gone,

  That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

  KING RICHARD We make woe wanton101 with this fond delay.

  Once more, adieu102; the rest let sorrow say.

  Exeunt

  Act 5 Scene 2

  running scene 15

  Location: the Duke of York’s house

  Enter York and his Duchess

  DUCHESS OF YORK My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,

  When weeping made you break the story off,

  Of our two cousins3 coming into London.

  YORK Where did I leave4?

  DUCHESS OF YORK At that sad stop, my lord,

  Where rude6 misgoverned hands from windows’ tops

  Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard’s head.

  YORK Then, as I said, the duke, great Bullingbrook,

  Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed

  Which10 his aspiring rider seemed to know,

  With slow but stately pace kept on his course,

  While all tongues cried ‘God save thee, Bullingbrook!’

  You would have thought the very windows spake,

  So many greedy looks of young and old

  Through casements15 darted their desiring eyes

  Upon his visage, and that all the walls