The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

To do what service am I sent for hither?

YORK. To do that office of thine own good will 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.

Here, cousin,

On this side my hand, and 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,

The other down, unseen, and full of water.

That bucket down and fun 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.

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; 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; 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 sceptre from my hand, The pride of kingly sway from out my heart; 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;

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 griev’d, And thou with all pleas’d, that hast an achiev’d.

Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit, And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.

God save King Henry, unking’d Richard says, And send him many years of sunshine days!

What more remains?

NORTHUMBERLAND. 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; That, by confessing them, the souls of men May deem that you are worthily depos’d.

KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out My weav’d-up follies? Gentle Northumberland, If thy offences were upon record,

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, Mark’d with a blot, damn’d 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, Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates Have here deliver’d 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.

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 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, Nor no man’s lord; I have no name, no tide-No, not that name was given me at the font-But ‘tis usurp’d. Alack the heavy day, That I have worn so many winters out, And know not now what name to call myself!

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, 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.

Exit an attendant NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.

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

Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.

Re-enter attendant with glass Give me that glass, and therein will I read.

No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck So many blows upon this face of mine

And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass, 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?

Is this the face which fac’d so many follies That was at last out-fac’d by Bolingbroke?

A brittle glory shineth in this face; As brittle as the glory is the face;

[Dashes the glass against the ground]

For there it is, crack’d in a hundred shivers.

Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face.

BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d The shadow of your face.

KING RICHARD. Say that again.

The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let’s see.

‘Tis very true: my grief lies all within; And these external manner of laments

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?

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, 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.

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, That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.

Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.

Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE

ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.

CARLISLE. The woe’s to come; the children yet unborn 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, 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.

Come home with me to supper; I will lay A plot shall show us all a merry day. Exeunt

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ACT V. SCENE 1.

London. A street leading to the Tower

Enter the QUEEN, with her attendants

QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way To Julius Caesar’s illerected 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 Guard

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 alehouse guest?

KING RICHARD. 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

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, And cloister thee in some religious house.

Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown, Which our profane hours here have thrown down.

QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform’d and weak’ned? 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’erpow’r’d; and wilt thou, pupil-like, Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod, And fawn on rage with base humility,

Which art a lion and the king of beasts?

KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts, I had been still a happy king of men.

Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.

Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest, As from my deathbed, thy last living leave.

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages long ago betid;

And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs Tell thou the lamentable tale 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 NORTHUMBERLAND. 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.

KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal 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 knowest 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 men converts to fear; That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both To worthy danger and deserved death.

NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.

Take leave, and