Like an unseasonable stormy day, Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores, As if the world were all dissolved to tears, So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices, Strive to speak big and clap their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:
The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills Against thy seat: both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than I have power to tell. KING RICHARD II Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green?
That they have let the dangerous enemy Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke. SIR STEPHEN SCROOP Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord. KING RICHARD II O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war Upon their spotted souls for this offence! SIR STEPHEN SCROOP Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate:
Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground. DUKE OF AUMERLE Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead? SIR STEPHEN SCROOP Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. DUKE OF AUMERLE Where is the duke my father with his power? KING RICHARD II No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence: throw away respect, Tradition, form and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king? BISHOP OF CARLISLE My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes, But presently prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe, And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:
And fight and die is death destroying death;
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath. DUKE OF AUMERLE My father hath a power; inquire of him And learn to make a body of a limb. KING RICHARD II Thou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague fit of fear is over-blown;
An easy task it is to win our own.
Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour. SIR STEPHEN SCROOP Men judge by the complexion of the sky The state and inclination of the day:
So may you by my dull and heavy eye, My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer, by small and small To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke, And all your northern castles yielded up, And all your southern gentlemen in arms Upon his party. KING RICHARD II Thou hast said enough.
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth To DUKE OF AUMERLE Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
What say you now? what comfort have we now?
By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly That bids me be of comfort any more.
Go to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;
A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
That power I have, discharge; and let them go To ear the land that hath some hope to grow, For I have none: let no man speak again To alter this, for counsel is but vain. DUKE OF AUMERLE My liege, one word. KING RICHARD II He does me double wrong That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers: let them hence away, From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.