May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live that love and honour have.

130

[Exit, borne off by his Attendants.

K. Rich. And let them die that age and sullens have; For both hast thou, and both become the grave.

York. I do beseech your majesty, impute his words To wayward sickliness and age in him:

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear

As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.

K. Rich. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his ; As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

140

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty. K. Rich. What says he?

North.

Nay, nothing; all is said:

His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.

So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:

We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else

But only they have privilege to live.

And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us

The plate, coin, revenues and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

York. How long shall I be patient? ah, how long

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?

Not Glou'ster's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,

Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,

150

160

159 have privilege: that is, only venom has privilege. The making a verb agree in number with the noun immediately before it, regardless of its real nominative, was a common blunder in S.'s time.

SCENE I.]

KING RICHARD THE SECOND.

Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.

I am the last of noble Edward's sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war was never lion raged more fierce,

In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that
young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But when he frown'd, it was against the French
And not against his friends; his noble hand
Did win what he did spend and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won ;
His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?

York.

Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.

Seek

you to seize and gripe into your hands
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

O my liege,

Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
His charters and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day ;
Be not thyself; for how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?

If

Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!
Vou do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patent that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

K. Rich. Think what you will, we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.

York. I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:
What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood
That their events can never fall out good.

170 wrinkle frown.

K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight: Bid him repair to us to Ely House

To see this business. To-morrow next

We will for Ireland; and 't is time, I trow:

And we create, in absence of ourself,

Our uncle York lord governor of England;
For he is just and always lov'd us well.

220

Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part ;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.

[Flourish. Exeunt King, Queen, Aumerle, Bushy, Green, and Bagot.

North. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
Ross. And living too; for now his son is duke.
Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue.

North. Richly in both, if justice had her right.

Ross. My heart is great; but it must break with silence, Ere 't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

North. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

231

Willo. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?

If it be so, out with it boldly, man;

Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

Ross. No good at all that I can do for him;

Unless you call it good to pity him,

Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

North. Now, afore God, 't is shame such wrongs are borne

In him, a royal prince, and many moe

Of noble blood in this declining land.
The King is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,

That will the King severely prosecute

'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

Ross. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined

For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
Willo. And daily new exactions are devis'd,

As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what :
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

North. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,

But basely yielded upon compromise

That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows:

More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

223 My heart is great: that is, big, pregnant with sorrow.

246 pill'd robbed.

240

250

250 blanks the blank instruments of gift before called "charters." They were signed in blank, and the king filled in the sum to be given.

Ross. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
Willo. The King's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.
North. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
Ross. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.

North. His noble kinsman: most degenerate king!
But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

Ross. We see the very wrack that we must suffer;
And unavoided is the danger now,

For suffering so the causes of our wrack.

I

North. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death

spy

life peering; but I dare not say

How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willo. Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours,
Ross. Be confident to speak, Northumberland :

We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,

Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.
North. Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Brittany, received intelligence

That Harry Duke of Hereford, Reginald Lord Cobham,

That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,

His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,

260

270

Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint, All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war, Are making hither with all due expedience And shortly mean to touch our northern shore: Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay The first departing of the King for Ireland. If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country's broken wing, Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown, Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt And make high majesty look like itself, Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh; But if you faint, as fearing to do so, Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

280

290

Lord Cobham did not escape from the Duke of Exeter, nor was he brother to the ArchReginald: pronounced Regnald. There seems to be something lost here; for

bishop of Canterbury

securely without care: the real meaning of the word.

Imp out, etc. A hawk's wing was imped by feathers attached to it artificially.

Ross. To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear. 299
Willo. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

SCENE II. Windsor Castle.

Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT.

Bushy. Madam, your majesty is too much sad:
You promised, when you parted with the King,
To lay aside life-harming heaviness

And entertain a cheerful disposition.

Queen. To please the King I did; to please myself
I cannot do it; yet I know no cause
Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
As my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,
Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
With nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,
More than with parting from my lord the King.

[Exeunt.

Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which shows like grief itself; but is not so;
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives, which rightly gaz'd upon
Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry
Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty,
Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
Find shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;
Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows
Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,

More than your lord's departure weep not: more 's not seen;
Or if it be, 't is with false sorrow's eye,

Which for things true weeps things imaginary.

Queen. It may be so; but yet my inward soul Persuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,

I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad

As, though on thinking on no thought I think,

Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
Bushy. "T is nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
Queen. T is nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd

From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
For nothing hath begot my something grief;
Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:
"T is in reversion that I do possess ;

20

20

30

18 perspectives grotesque contrivances, which, looked at directly, showed only confusion, but, looked at from one side or the other, a perfect figure.

34 Tis nothing less: that is, nothing less than it is conceit.