Act IIIScene II
The coast of Wales. A castle in view
Flourish: drums and trumpets. Enter King Richard, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle and soldiers.
King Richard
Barkloughly Castle call they this at hand?
Aumerle
Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the airAfter your late tossing on the breaking seas?
King Richard
Needs must I like it well. I weep for joyTo stand upon my kingdom once again.Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs.As a long-parted mother with her childPlays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,And do thee favours with my royal hands.Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,Doing annoyance to the treacherous feetWhich with usurping steps do trample thee.Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adderWhose double tongue may with a mortal touchThrow death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.This earth shall have a feeling, and these stonesProve armed soldiers, ere her native kingShall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
Carlisle
Fear not, my lord. That Power that made you kingHath power to keep you king in spite of all.The means that heaven yields must be embracedAnd not neglected; else if heaven would,And we will not. Heaven’s 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.
King Richard
Discomfortable cousin, know’st thou notThat when the searching eye of heaven is hidBehind the globe that lights the lower world,Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseenIn murders and in outrage boldly here;But when from under this terrestrial ballHe fires the proud tops of the eastern pinesAnd darts his light through every guilty hole,Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,Who all this while hath revelled in the nightWhilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,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 seaCan wash the balm off from an anointed king;The breath of worldly men cannot deposeThe deputy elected by the Lord.For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressedTo lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,God for his Richard hath in heavenly payA 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 tongueAnd 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!Today, today, 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, dispersed, and fled.
Aumerle
Comfort, my liege. Why looks your Grace so pale?
King Richard
But now, the blood of twenty thousand menDid triumph in my face, and they are fled;And till so much blood thither come againHave I not reason to look pale and dead?All souls that will be safe, fly from my side,For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
Aumerle
Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
King Richard
I had forgot myself. Am I not king?Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest!Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names?Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikesAt 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 YorkHath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?
Enter Sir Stephen Scroop.
Scroop
More health and happiness betide my liegeThan can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
King Richard
Mine ear is open and my heart prepared.The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, ’twas my care,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.They break their faith to God as well as us.Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay.The worst is death, and death will have his day.
Scroop
Glad am I that your highness is so armedTo bear the tidings of calamity.Like an unseasonable stormy dayWhich makes the silver rivers drown their shoresAs if the world were all dissolved to tears,So high above his limits swells the rageOf Bolingbroke, covering your fearful landWith hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalpsAgainst thy majesty; boys with women’s voicesStrive to speak big and clap their female jointsIn stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bowsOf double-fatal yew against thy state;Yea, distaff-women manage rusty billsAgainst thy seat. Both young and old rebel,And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
King Richard
Too well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill.Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?That they have let the dangerous enemyMeasure our confines with such peaceful steps?If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
Scroop
Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
King Richard
O villains, vipers, damned without redemption!Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!Would they make peace? Terrible hellMake war upon their spotted souls for this!
Scroop
Sweet love, I see, changing his property,Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.Again uncurse their souls. Their peace is madeWith heads, and not with hands. Those whom you curseHave felt the worst of death’s destroying woundAnd lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.
Aumerle
Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
Scroop
Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
Aumerle
Where is the Duke my father with his power?
King Richard
No matter where. Of comfort no man speak!Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyesWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth.Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.And yet not so, for what can we bequeathSave our deposed bodies to the ground?Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,And nothing can we call our own but deathAnd that small model of the barren earthWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones.For God’s sake let us sit upon the groundAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings—How some have been deposed, some slain in war,Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,All murdered. For within the hollow crownThat rounds the mortal temples of a kingKeeps 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 feared, and kill with looks,Infusing him with self and vain conceit,As if this flesh which walls about our lifeWere brass impregnable; and, humoured thus,Comes at the last, and with a little pinBores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and bloodWith 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,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,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.
Aumerle
My father hath a power. Enquire of him,And learn to make a body of a limb.
King Richard
Thou chid’st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I comeTo change blows with thee for our day of doom.This ague fit of fear is overblown;An easy task it is to win our own.Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
Scroop
Men judge by the complexion of the skyThe state in inclination of the day;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 smallTo lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:Your uncle York is joined with Bolingbroke,And all your northern castles yielded up,And all your southern gentlemen in armsUpon his party.
King Richard
Thou hast said enough.
To Aumerle.
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forthOf that sweet way I was in to despair.What say you now? What comfort have we now?By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastinglyThat 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.That power I have, discharge, and let them goTo ear the land that hath some hope to grow,For I have none. Let no man speak againTo alter this, for counsel is but vain.
Aumerle
My liege, one word.
King Richard
He does me double wrongThat 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.