Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:
This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armed soldiers ere her native king
25
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
CARLISLE
Fear not, my lord. That Power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
The means that heaven yields must be imbrac’d
And not neglected; else, heaven would,
30
And we will not; heavens 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.
35
RICHARD Discomfortable cousin! know’st thou not
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
In murthers and in outrage boldly here;
40
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 murthers, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck’d from off their backs,
45
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath revell’d in the night,
Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne the east,
50
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;
55
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord;
For every man that Bolingbroke hath press’d
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
60
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
Enter SALISBURY.
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,
65
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
70
To-day, to-day, unhappy day too late,
O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers’d and fled.
AUMERLE
Comfort, my liege, why looks your grace so pale?
75
RICHARD But now the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
And till so much blood thither come again,
Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
All souls that will be safe, fly from my side,
80
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE Comfort, my liege, remember who you are.
RICHARD I had forgot myself, am I not king?
Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
Is not the king’s name twenty thousand names?
85
Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes
At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
Ye favourites of a king, are we not high?
High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?
90
Enter SCROOPE.
SCROOPE More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tun’d tongue deliver him.
RICHARD Mine ear is open and my heart prepar’d.
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? why, ’twas my care,
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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;
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They break their faith to God as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay –
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOPE Glad am I that your Highness is so arm’d
To bear the tidings of calamity.
105
Like an unseasonable stormy day,
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolv’d to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
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With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
White-beards have arm’d their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; boys, with women’s voices,
Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
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Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
120
RICHARD Too well, too well thou tell’st tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Greene?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
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If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOPE
Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
RICHARD
O villains, vipers, damn’d without redemption!
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
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Snakes, in my heart-blood warm’d, 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!
SCROOPE Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
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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, grav’d in the hollow ground.
140
AUMERLE
Is Bushy, Greene, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOPE Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.
AUMERLE
Where is the Duke my father with his power?
RICHARD No matter where – of comfort no man speak.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
145
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 th
e ground?
150
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
155
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,
All murthered – for within the hollow crown
160
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 fear’d, and kill with looks;
165
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores thorough his castle wall, and farewell king!
170
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,
175
Taste grief, need friends – subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
CARLISLE
My lord, wise men ne’er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
180
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.
185
AUMERLE My father hath a power; inquire of him,
And learn to make a body of a limb.
RICHARD
Thou chid’st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague fit of fear is overblown;
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An easy task it is to win our own.
Say, Scroope, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
SCROOPE Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day;
195
So may you by my dull and heavy eye:
My tongue hath 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 join’d with Bolingbroke,
200
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.
RICHARD Thou hast said enough.
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
[to Aumerle] Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
205
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.
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That power I have, discharge, and let them go
To ear the land that hath 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.
RICHARD He does me double wrong
215
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
From Richard’s night, to Bolingbroke’s fair day.
Exeunt.
3.3 Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, attendants.
BOLINGBROKE So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispers’d; and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The news is very fair and good, my lord;
5
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say ‘King Richard’. Alack the heavy day,
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND
Your grace mistakes; only to be brief,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 298
