Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  We’ll keep him here: then what is that to him?

  Duke Of York

  Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son,

  I would appeach him.

  Duchess Of York

  Hadst thou groan’d for him

  As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.

  But now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect

  That I have been disloyal to thy bed,

  And that he is a bastard, not thy son:

  Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind:

  He is as like thee as a man may be,

  Not like to me, or any of my kin,

  And yet I love him.

  Duke Of York

  Make way, unruly woman!

  Exit

  Duchess Of York

  After, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse;

  Spur post, and get before him to the king,

  And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.

  I’ll not be long behind; though I be old,

  I doubt not but to ride as fast as York:

  And never will I rise up from the ground

  Till Bolingbroke have pardon’d thee. Away, be gone!

  Exeunt

  SCENE III. A ROYAL PALACE.

  Enter Henry Bolingbroke, Henry Percy, and other Lords

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?

  ’Tis full three months since I did see him last;

  If any plague hang over us, ’tis he.

  I would to God, my lords, he might be found:

  Inquire at London, ’mongst the taverns there,

  For there, they say, he daily doth frequent,

  With unrestrained loose companions,

  Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,

  And beat our watch, and rob our passengers;

  Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,

  Takes on the point of honour to support

  So dissolute a crew.

  Henry Percy

  My lord, some two days since I saw the prince,

  And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  And what said the gallant?

  Henry Percy

  His answer was, he would unto the stews,

  And from the common’st creature pluck a glove,

  And wear it as a favour; and with that

  He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  As dissolute as desperate; yet through both

  I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years

  May happily bring forth. But who comes here?

  Enter Duke Of Aumerle

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Where is the king?

  Henry Bolingbroke

  What means our cousin, that he stares and looks

  So wildly?

  Duke Of Aumerle

  God save your grace! I do beseech your majesty,

  To have some conference with your grace alone.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.

  Exeunt Henry Percy and Lords

  What is the matter with our cousin now?

  Duke Of Aumerle

  For ever may my knees grow to the earth,

  My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth

  Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Intended or committed was this fault?

  If on the first, how heinous e’er it be,

  To win thy after-love I pardon thee.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Then give me leave that I may turn the key,

  That no man enter till my tale be done.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Have thy desire.

  Duke Of York

  [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;

  Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Villain, I’ll make thee safe.

  Drawing

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.

  Duke Of York

  [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy king:

  Shall I for love speak treason to thy face?

  Open the door, or I will break it open.

  Enter Duke Of York

  Henry Bolingbroke

  What is the matter, uncle? speak;

  Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,

  That we may arm us to encounter it.

  Duke Of York

  Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know

  The treason that my haste forbids me show.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Remember, as thou read’st, thy promise pass’d:

  I do repent me; read not my name there

  My heart is not confederate with my hand.

  Duke Of York

  It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.

  I tore it from the traitor’s bosom, king;

  Fear, and not love, begets his penitence:

  Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove

  A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  O heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!

  O loyal father of a treacherous son!

  Thou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,

  From when this stream through muddy passages

  Hath held his current and defiled himself!

  Thy overflow of good converts to bad,

  And thy abundant goodness shall excuse

  This deadly blot in thy digressing son.

  Duke Of York

  So shall my virtue be his vice’s bawd;

  And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,

  As thriftless sons their scraping fathers’ gold.

  Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,

  Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies:

  Thou kill’st me in his life; giving him breath,

  The traitor lives, the true man’s put to death.

  Duchess Of York

  [Within] What ho, my liege! for God’s sake, let me in.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?

  Duchess Of York

  A woman, and thy aunt, great king; ’tis I.

  Speak with me, pity me, open the door.

  A beggar begs that never begg’d before.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Our scene is alter’d from a serious thing,

  And now changed to ‘The Beggar and the King.’

  My dangerous cousin, let your mother in:

  I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.

  Duke Of York

  If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,

  More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.

  This fester’d joint cut off, the rest rest sound;

  This let alone will all the rest confound.

  Enter Duchess Of York

  Duchess Of York

  O king, believe not this hard-hearted man!

  Love loving not itself none other can.

  Duke Of York

  Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?

  Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?

  Duchess Of York

  Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.

  Kneels

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Rise up, good aunt.

  Duchess Of York

  Not yet, I thee beseech:

  For ever will I walk upon my knees,

  And never see day that the happy sees,

  Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy,

  By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.

  Duke Of York

  Against them both my true joints bended be.

  Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!
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  Duchess Of York

  Pleads he in earnest? look upon his face;

  His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;

  His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:

  He prays but faintly and would be denied;

  We pray with heart and soul and all beside:

  His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;

  Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:

  His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;

  Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.

  Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have

  That mercy which true prayer ought to have.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Good aunt, stand up.

  Duchess Of York

  Nay, do not say, ‘stand up;’

  Say, ‘pardon’ first, and afterwards ‘stand up.’

  And if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,

  ‘Pardon’ should be the first word of thy speech.

  I never long’d to hear a word till now;

  Say ‘pardon,’ king; let pity teach thee how:

  The word is short, but not so short as sweet;

  No word like ‘pardon’ for kings’ mouths so meet.

  Duke Of York

  Speak it in French, king; say, ‘pardonne moi.’

  Duchess Of York

  Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?

  Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,

  That set’st the word itself against the word!

  Speak ‘pardon’ as ’tis current in our land;

  The chopping French we do not understand.

  Thine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;

  Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;

  That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,

  Pity may move thee ‘pardon’ to rehearse.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Good aunt, stand up.

  Duchess Of York

  I do not sue to stand;

  Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.

  Duchess Of York

  O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!

  Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again;

  Twice saying ‘pardon’ doth not pardon twain,

  But makes one pardon strong.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  With all my heart

  I pardon him.

  Duchess Of York

  A god on earth thou art.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  But for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,

  With all the rest of that consorted crew,

  Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.

  Good uncle, help to order several powers

  To Oxford, or where’er these traitors are:

  They shall not live within this world, I swear,

  But I will have them, if I once know where.

  Uncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:

  Your mother well hath pray’d, and prove you true.

  Duchess Of York

  Come, my old son: I pray God make thee new.

  Exeunt

  SCENE IV. THE SAME.

  Enter Exton and Servant

  Exton

  Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,

  ‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’

  Was it not so?

  Servant

  These were his very words.

  Exton

  ‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he: he spake it twice,

  And urged it twice together, did he not?

  Servant

  He did.

  Exton

  And speaking it, he wistly look’d on me,

  And who should say, ‘I would thou wert the man’

  That would divorce this terror from my heart;’

  Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let’s go:

  I am the king’s friend, and will rid his foe.

  Exeunt

  SCENE V. POMFRET CASTLE.

  Enter King Richard

  King Richard II

  I have been studying how I may compare

  This prison where I live unto the world:

  And for because the world is populous

  And here is not a creature but myself,

  I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.

  My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,

  My soul the father; and these two beget

  A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

  And these same thoughts people this little world,

  In humours like the people of this world,

  For no thought is contented. The better sort,

  As thoughts of things divine, are intermix’d

  With scruples and do set the word itself

  Against the word:

  As thus, ‘Come, little ones,’ and then again,

  ‘It is as hard to come as for a camel

  To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.’

  Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

  Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails

  May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

  Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,

  And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.

  Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

  That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,

  Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars

  Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,

  That many have and others must sit there;

  And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

  Bearing their own misfortunes on the back

  Of such as have before endured the like.

  Thus play I in one person many people,

  And none contented: sometimes am I king;

  Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,

  And so I am: then crushing penury

  Persuades me I was better when a king;

  Then am I king’d again: and by and by

  Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke,

  And straight am nothing: but whate’er I be,

  Nor I nor any man that but man is

  With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased

  With being nothing. Music do I hear?

  Music

  Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,

  When time is broke and no proportion kept!

  So is it in the music of men’s lives.

  And here have I the daintiness of ear

  To cheque time broke in a disorder’d string;

  But for the concord of my state and time

  Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.

  I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;

  For now hath time made me his numbering clock:

  My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar

  Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,

  Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,

  Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.

  Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is

  Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,

  Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans

  Show minutes, times, and hours: but my time

  Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy,

  While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’ the clock.

  This music mads me; let it sound no more;

  For though it have holp madmen to their wits,

  In me it seems it will make wise men mad.

  Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!

  For ’tis a sign of love; and love to Richard

  Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

  Enter a Groom of the Stable

  Groom

  Hail, royal prince!

  King Richard II

  Than
ks, noble peer;

  The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.

  What art thou? and how comest thou hither,

  Where no man never comes but that sad dog

  That brings me food to make misfortune live?

  Groom

  I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,

  When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,

  With much ado at length have gotten leave

  To look upon my sometimes royal master’s face.

  O, how it yearn’d my heart when I beheld

  In London streets, that coronation-day,

  When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,

  That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,

  That horse that I so carefully have dress’d!

  King Richard II

  Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,

  How went he under him?

  Groom

  So proudly as if he disdain’d the ground.

  King Richard II

  So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

  That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;

  This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.

  Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,

  Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck

  Of that proud man that did usurp his back?

  Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,

  Since thou, created to be awed by man,

  Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;

  And yet I bear a burthen like an ass,

  Spurr’d, gall’d and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.

  Enter Keeper, with a dish

  Keeper

  Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.

  King Richard II

  If thou love me, ’tis time thou wert away.

  Groom

  What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.

  Exit

  Keeper

  My lord, will’t please you to fall to?

  King Richard II

  Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.

  Keeper

  My lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Exton, who lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

  King Richard II

  The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!

  Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

  Beats the keeper

  Keeper

  Help, help, help!

  Enter Exton and Servants, armed

  King Richard II

  How now! what means death in this rude assault?

  Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument.

  Snatching an axe from a Servant and killing him

  Go thou, and fill another room in hell.

  He kills another. Then Exton strikes him down

  That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire

  That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand

  Hath with the king’s blood stain’d the king’s own land.

  Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;

  Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.