For I have given here my soul's consent
To undeck the pompous body of a king;
Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,
Proud majesty a subject; state a peasant.

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NORTH. My lord

K. RICH. No lord of thine, thou haught, insulting man,

Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,

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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!
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.

BOLING. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.

[Exit an Attendant.

NORTH. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
K. RICH. Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell!
BOLING. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
NORTH. The commons will not then be satisfied.

K. RICH. 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 a glass.

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Give me that glass, and therein will I read.—

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No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck

So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face

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That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men? Was this face the face

That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?

Was this the face that faced so many follies,

And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?
A brittle glory shineth in this face :
As brittle as the glory is the face;

[Dashes the glass against the ground.

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For there it is, crack'd in an hundred shivers.
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
BOLING. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face.

There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only givest
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
And then begone, and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?

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K. RICH. "Fair cousin?" I am greater than a king:

BOLING. On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down

Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.

K. RICH. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
BOLING. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.
K. RICH. O, good! Convey? Conveyors are you all,
That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

[Exeunt K. RICHARD, some Lords, and a Guard.

[Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the BISHOP

OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE.

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ABBOT. A woful pageant have we here beheld.

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CAR. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn

Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

AUM. You holy clergyman, 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

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To bury mine intents, but 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; and I'll lay

A plot shall show us all a merry day.

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[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

London. A street leading to the Tower.

Enter QUEEN and Ladies.

QUEEN. This way the king will come; this is the way

To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower,

To whose flint bosom my condemnéd lord

Is doomed 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 Guards.

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 lodged in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

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K. RICH. 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 awaked, the truth of what we are

Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,

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To grim Necessity; and he and I

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 stricken down.

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QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind

Transformed and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke deposed
Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage

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To be o'erpowered; and wilt thou, pupil-like,

Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,

Which art a lion, and a king of beasts?

K. RICH. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts, I had been still a happy king of men.

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Good sometime 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

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With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales

Of woful 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:

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For why, the senseless brands will sympathise
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, and others.

NORTH. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed; You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.

And, madam, there is order ta'en for

you;

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With all swift speed you must away to France.

K. RICH. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal

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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,

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It is too little, helping him to all;

And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way

NORTH. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.

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K. RICH. Doubly divorced? Bad men, you violate

A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me,
And then betwixt me and my married wife.

Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;

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And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.
Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,
Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
My wife to France; from whence, set forth in pomp,
She came adornéd hither like sweet May,

Sent back like Hallowmas, or short'st of day.

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QUEEN. And must we be divided? must we part?

K. RICH. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the king with me.

NORTH. That were some love, but little policy.

QUEEN. Then whither he goes, thither let me go.

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K. RICH. So two, together weeping, make one woe.
Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.

Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.

QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.

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K. RICH. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short, And piece the way out with a heavy heart.

Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,

Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief;

One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;

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Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

[They kiss.

QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part,

To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart.
So, now I have mine own again, begone,

That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

[They kiss again.

K. RICH. We make woe wanton with this fond delay; Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.

SCENE II. A room in the DUKE OF YORK's Palace.

Enter YORK and his DUCHESS.

DUCH. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off

Of our two cousins coming into London.

YORK. Where did I leave?
DUCH.

At that sad stop, my lord,

Where rude misgoverned hands, from windows' tops
Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.
YORK. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

[Exeunt.

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