This page is referenced by:

• 1 2016-11-13T12:53:53-08:00 Act IV 8 Richard II Act 4 plain 2016-12-14T21:54:43-08:00 Scene 1
  Enter Bolingbroke with the Lords Aumerle,
  Northumberland, Harry Percy, Fitzwater, Surrey, the
  Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and
  another Lord, Herald, Officers to parliament.
   
  BOLINGBROKE  Call forth Bagot.
   
  Enter Officers with Bagot.
   
  Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind
  What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death,
  Who wrought it with the King, and who performed
  The bloody office of his timeless end.                                                     5
  BAGOT
  Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
  Aumerle steps forward.
  BAGOT
  My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
  Scorns to unsay what once it hath delivered.
  In that dead time when Gloucester’s death was                                  10
  plotted,
  I heard you say “Is not my arm of length,
  That reacheth from the restful English court
  As far as Calais, to mine uncle’s head?”
  Amongst much other talk that very time                                              15
  I heard you say that you had rather refuse
  The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
  Than Bolingbroke’s return to England,
  Adding withal how blest this land would be
  In this your cousin’s death.                                                                     20
  AUMERLE  Princes and noble lords,
  What answer shall I make to this base man?
  Shall I so much dishonor my fair stars
  On equal terms to give him chastisement?
  Either I must or have mine honor soiled                                               25
  With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
  He throws down a gage.
  There is my gage, the manual seal of death
  That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,
  And will maintain what thou hast said is false
  In thy heart-blood, though being all too base                                       30
  To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Bagot, forbear. Thou shalt not take it up.
  AUMERLE
  Excepting one, I would he were the best
  In all this presence that hath moved me so.
   
  FITZWATER, throwing down a gage
  If that thy valor stand on sympathy,                                                      35
  There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.
  By that fair sun which shows me where thou
  stand’st,
  I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,
  That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death.                             40
  If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest,
  And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
  Where it was forgèd, with my rapier’s point.
  AUMERLE, taking up the gage
  Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see that day.
  FITZWATER
  Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.                                        45
  AUMERLE
  Fitzwater, thou art damned to hell for this.
  PERCY
  Aumerle, thou liest! His honor is as true
  In this appeal as thou art all unjust;
  And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
  He throws down a gage.
  To prove it on thee to the extremest point                                            50
  Of mortal breathing. Seize it if thou dar’st.
  AUMERLE, taking up the gage
  An if I do not, may my hands rot off
  And never brandish more revengeful steel
  Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
  ANOTHER LORD, throwing down a gage
  I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle,                                    55
  And spur thee on with full as many lies
  As may be holloed in thy treacherous ear
  From sun to sun. There is my honor’s pawn.
  Engage it to the trial if thou darest.
  AUMERLE, taking up the gage
  Who sets me else? By heaven, I’ll throw at all!                                  60
  I have a thousand spirits in one breast
  To answer twenty thousand such as you.
  SURREY
  My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
  The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
  FITZWATER
  ’Tis very true. You were in presence then,                                           65
  And you can witness with me this is true.
  SURREY
  As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
  FITZWATER
  Surrey, thou liest.
  SURREY  Dishonorable boy,
  That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword                                                70
  That it shall render vengeance and revenge
  Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie
  In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull.
  He throws down a gage.
  In proof whereof, there is my honor’s pawn.
  Engage it to the trial if thou dar’st.                                                        75
  FITZWATER, taking up the gage
  How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
  If I dare eat or drink or breathe or live,
  I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness
  And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,
  And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith                                       80
  To tie thee to my strong correction.                He throws down a gage.
  As I intend to thrive in this new world,
  Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.—
  Besides, I heard the banished Norfolk say
  That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men                                  85
  To execute the noble duke at Calais.
  AUMERLE
  Some honest Christian trust me with a gage.
  A Lord hands him a gage.
  Aumerle throws it down.
  That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this,
  If he may be repealed to try his honor.
  BOLINGBROKE
  These differences shall all rest under gage                                           90
  Till Norfolk be repealed. Repealed he shall be,
  And though mine enemy, restored again
  To all his lands and seigniories. When he is
  returned,
  Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.                                           95
  CARLISLE
  That honorable day shall never be seen.
  Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought
  For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
  Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
  Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;                                      100
  And, toiled with works of war, retired himself
  To Italy, and there at Venice gave
  His body to that pleasant country’s earth
  And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
  Under whose colors he had fought so long.                                       105
  BOLINGBROKE  Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?
  CARLISLE  As surely as I live, my lord.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
  Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
  Your differences shall all rest under gage                                          110
  Till we assign you to your days of trial.
   
  Enter York.
   
  YORK
  Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
  From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing
  soul
  Adopts thee heir, and his high scepter yields                                    115
  To the possession of thy royal hand.
  Ascend his throne, descending now from him,
  And long live Henry, fourth of that name!
  BOLINGBROKE
  In God’s name, I’ll ascend the regal throne.
  CARLISLE  Marry, God forbid!                                                              120
  Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
  Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
  Would God that any in this noble presence
  Were enough noble to be upright judge
  Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would                                    125
  Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
  What subject can give sentence on his king?
  And who sits here that is not Richard’s subject?
  Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear,
  Although apparent guilt be seen in them;                                           130
  And shall the figure of God’s majesty,
  His captain, steward, deputy elect,
  Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
  Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
  And he himself not present? O, forfend it God                                 135
  That in a Christian climate souls refined
  Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
  I speak to subjects and a subject speaks,
  Stirred up by God thus boldly for his king.
  My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,                              140
  Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford’s king,
  And if you crown him, let me prophesy
  The blood of English shall manure the ground
  And future ages groan for this foul act,
  Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,                                    145
  And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
  Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.
  Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny
  Shall here inhabit, and this land be called
  The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls.                                   150
  O, if you raise this house against this house,
  It will the woefullest division prove
  That ever fell upon this cursèd earth!
  Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
  Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe!                            155
  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’                              160
  suit?
  BOLINGBROKE
  Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
  He may surrender. So we shall proceed
  Without suspicion.
  YORK  I will be his conduct.                                                  He exits.  165
  BOLINGBROKE
  Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
  Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
  Little are we beholding to your love
  And little looked for at your helping hands.
   
  Enter Richard and York.
   
   
  KING RICHARD
  Alack, why am I sent for to a king                                                   170
  Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
  Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned
  To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
  Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
  To this submission. Yet I well remember                                          175
  The favors of these men. Were they not mine?
  Did they not sometime cry “All hail” to me?
  So Judas did to Christ, but He in twelve
  Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand,
  none.                                                                                                      180
  God save the King! Will no man say “amen”?
  Am I both priest and clerk? Well, then, amen.
  God save the King, although I be not he,
  And yet amen, if heaven do think him me.
  To do what service am I sent for hither?                                            185
  YORK
  To do that office of thine own goodwill
  Which tired majesty did make thee offer:
  The resignation of thy state and crown
  To Henry Bolingbroke.
  KING RICHARD
  Give me the crown.—Here, cousin, seize the crown.                      190
  Here, cousin.
  On this side my hand, on that side thine.
  Now is this golden crown like a deep well
  That owes two buckets, filling one another,
  The emptier ever dancing in the air,                                                    195
  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.
  BOLINGBROKE
  I thought you had been willing to resign.
  KING RICHARD
  My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.                                    200
  You may my glories and my state depose
  But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
  KING RICHARD
  Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
  My care is loss of care, by old care done;                                          205
  Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
  The cares I give I have, though given away.
  They ’tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Are you contented to resign the crown?
  KING RICHARD
  Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be.                                                 210
  Therefore no “no,” for I resign to thee.
  Now, mark me how I will undo myself.
  I give this heavy weight from off my head
  And this unwieldy scepter from my hand,
  The pride of kingly sway from out my heart.                                    215
  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 oaths.
  All pomp and majesty I do forswear.                                                  220
  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 grieved,                         225
  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.                                     230
  What more remains?
  NORTHUMBERLAND, offering Richard a paper
  No more, but that you read
  These accusations and these grievous crimes
  Committed by your person and your followers
  Against the state and profit of this land;                                             235
  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 out
  My weaved-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
  If thy offenses were upon record,                                                        240
  Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop
  To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
  There shouldst thou find one heinous article
  Containing the deposing of a king
  And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,                                      245
  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 bait myself,
  Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,                        250
  Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates
  Have here delivered me to my sour cross,
  And water cannot wash away your sin.
  NORTHUMBERLAND
  My lord, dispatch. Read o’er these articles.
  KING RICHARD
  Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.                                            255
  And yet salt water blinds them not so much
  But they can see a sort 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                                            260
  T’ undeck 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 haught insulting man,                                     265
  Nor no man’s lord. I have no name, no title,
  No, not that name was given me at the font,
  But ’tis usurped. Alack the heavy day,
  That I have worn so many winters out
  And know not now what name to call myself.                                  270
  O, that I were a mockery king of snow
  Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
  To melt myself away in water drops.—
  Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,
  An if my word be sterling yet in England,                                         275
  Let it command a mirror hither straight,
  That it may show me what a face I have
  Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Go, some of you, and fetch a looking-glass.
  An Attendant exits.
  NORTHUMBERLAND
  Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.                               280
  KING RICHARD
  Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!
  BOLINGBROKE
  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                                                   285
  Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.
   
  Enter one with a glass.
   
  Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
  He takes the 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,                             290
  Like to my followers in prosperity,
  Thou dost beguile me. Was this face the face
  That every day under his household roof
  Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
  That like the sun did make beholders wink?                                      295
  Is this the face which faced so many follies,
  That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke?
  A brittle glory shineth in this face.
  As brittle as the glory is the face,
  He breaks the mirror.
  For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers.—                               300
  Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport:
  How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
  BOLINGBROKE
  The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
  The shadow of your face.
  KING RICHARD  Say that again.                                                           305
  The shadow of my sorrow? Ha, let’s see.
  ’Tis very true. My grief lies all within;
  And these external manners of laments
  Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
  That swells with silence in the tortured soul.                                    310
  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.                                      315
  Shall I obtain it?
  BOLINGBROKE  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,                                   320
  I have a king here to my flatterer.
  Being so great, I have no need to beg.
  BOLINGBROKE  Yet ask.
  KING RICHARD  And shall I have?
  BOLINGBROKE  You shall.                                                                   325
  KING RICHARD  Then give me leave to go.
  BOLINGBROKE  Whither?
  KING RICHARD
  Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
  BOLINGBROKE
  Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower.
  KING RICHARD
  O, good! “Convey”? Conveyers are you all,                                      330
  That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.
  Richard exits with Guards.
  BOLINGBROKE
  On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down
  Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.
  They exit. The Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of
  Carlisle, Aumerle remain.
  ABBOT
  A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
  CARLISLE
  The woe’s to come. The children yet unborn                                    335
  Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
  AUMERLE
  You holy clergymen, is there no plot
  To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
  ABBOT  My lord,
  Before I freely speak my mind herein,                                               340
  You shall not only take the sacrament
  To bury mine intents, but also 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.                                  345
  Come home with me to supper. I’ll lay
  A plot shall show us all a merry day.
  They exit.