Richard II by William Shakespeare (read the beginning after the end novel .TXT) 📕

did shelter,
That seem’d in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck’d up root and all by Bolingbroke,
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green. Servant What, are they dead? Gardener

They are; and Bolingbroke
Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it
That he had not so trimm’d and dress’d his land
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,
Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have lived to bear and he to taste
Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.

Servant What, think you then the king shall be deposed? Gardener

Depress’d he is already, and deposed
’Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night
To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s,
That tell black tidings.

Queen

O, I am press’d to death through want of speaking! Coming forward.
Thou, old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden,
How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
To make a second fall of cursed man?
Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
Camest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.

Gardener

Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh’d:
In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself,
And some few vanities that make him light;
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
Post you to London, and you will find it so;
I speak no more than every one doth know.

Queen

Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it? O, thou think’st
To serve me last, that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,
To meet at London London’s king in woe.
What, was I born to this, that my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
Gardener, for telling me these news of woe,
Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow. Exeunt Queen and Ladies.

Gardener

Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,
I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen. Exeunt.

Act IV Scene I

Westminster Hall.

Enter, as to the Parliament, Bolingbroke, Aumerle, Northumberland, Percy, Fitzwater, Surrey, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and another Lord, Herald, Officers, and Bagot. Bolingbroke

Call forth Bagot.
Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;
What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death,
Who wrought it with the king, and who perform’d
The bloody office of his timeless end.

Bagot Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle. Bolingbroke Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man. Bagot

My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver’d.
In that dead time when Gloucester’s death was 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,
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.

Aumerle

Princes and noble lords,
What answer shall I make to this base man?
Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars,
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
Either I must, or have mine honour soil’d
With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
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
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

If that thy valour stand on sympathy,
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 spakest it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death.
If thou deny’st it twenty times, thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point.

Aumerle Thou darest not, coward, live to see that day. Fitzwater Now by my soul, I would it were this hour. Aumerle Fitzwater, thou art damn’d to hell for this. Percy

Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
In this appeal as thou art all unjust;
And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
To prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.

Aumerle

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

I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
And spur thee on with full as many lies
As may be holloa’d in thy treacherous ear
From sun to sun: there is my honour’s pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.

Aumerle

Who sets me else? by heaven, I’ll throw at all:
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;
And you can witness with me this is true.

Surrey As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true. Fitzwater Surrey, thou liest. Surrey

Dishonourable boy!
That lie shall lie so heavy on