And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief,
That swells with silence in the tortur'd 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 boon,
And then be gone, and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?
K. Rich. Fair cousin? Why, 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 to my flatterer.
Being so great, I have no need to beg.
Boling. Yet ask.
K. Rich. And shall I have?
Boling. You shall.
K. Rich. Then give me leave to go.
Boling. Whither?
K. Rich. Whither you will, so I were from your sights. Boling. Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower. K. Rich. O, good! Convey?-Conveyers are you all, That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
[Exeunt K. Richard, some Lords, and a Guard. Boling. On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.
[Exeunt all but Abb. Bish. of Carlisle, and Aum,
Abbot. A woful pageant have we here beheld.
Car. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
Aum. You holy clergymen, is there no plot
To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
Abbot. Before I freely speak my mind herein,
You shall not only take the sacrament
To bury mine intents, but to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise :-
I see your brows are full of discontent,
Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears;
Come home with me to supper; I will lay
A plot, shall show us all a merry day.
SCENE I. LONDON. A Street leading to the Tower. Enter QUEEN and Ladies.
Queen. This way the king will come; this is the way To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke : Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth Have any resting for her true king's queen.
Enter KING RICHARD and Guards.
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 model where old Troy did stand;
Thou map of honour; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
When triumph is become an ale-house guest?
K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I
Will keep a league till death.
And cloister thee in some religious house :
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform'd, and weaken'd? Hath Bolingbroke
Depos'd 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 be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod;
And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a lion, and a king of beasts?
K. Rich. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,
I had been still a happy king of men.
Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:
Think, I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.
In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire
With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages long ago betid:
And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,
And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compassion, weep the fire out:
And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.
North. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd; You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower. And, madam, there is order ta'en for you; With all swift speed you must away to France. K. Rich. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithał The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption: thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;
And he shall think, that thou, which know'st the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger, and deserved death.
North. My guilt be on my head, and there an end,
Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.
K. Rich. Doubly divorc'd?-Bad men, ye violate
A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me;
And then, betwixt me and my married wife.
Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.-
Part us, Northumberland? I towards the north,
Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
My wife to France; from whence, set forth in pomp,
She came adorned hither like sweet May,
Sent back like Hallowmas, or short'st of day.
Queen. And must we be divided? must we part?
K. Rich. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart
from heart. Queen. Banish us both, and send the king with me. North. That were some love, but little policy. poli Queen. Then whither he goes, thither let me go. K. Rich. So two, together weeping make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near. Go, count thy way with sighs; 1, mine with groans. Queen. So longest way shall have the longest moans. K. Rich. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being
And piece the way out 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 stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
Thus give I mine, and thus I take thy heart. [They kiss.
Queen. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part,
To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart. [Kiss again.
So, now I have mine own again, begone,
That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
K. Rich. We make woe wanton with this fond delay:
[Exeunt.
Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.
The same. A Room in the DUKE of YORK'S Palace.
Enter YORK and his DUCHESS.
Duch. My lord, you told me, you would tell the rest,
When weeping made you break the story off,
Of our two cousins coming into London.
At that sad stop, my lord,
Duch. Where rude misgovern'd hands, from windows' tops, Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard's head. York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course, While all tongues cried-God save thee, Bolingbroke! You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage; and that all the walls, With painted imag'ry, had said at once,Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke! Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus:-I thank you, countrymen: And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.
Duch. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while? York. As, in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious:
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