The Complete Historical Plays of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
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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!
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, grav’d in the hollow ground.
AUMERLE.
Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOP.
Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
AUMERLE.
Where is the Duke my father with his power?
KING RICHARD.
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 can 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 depos’d,
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 antick 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?
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.
AUMERLE.
My father hath a power; inquire of him,
And learn to make a body of a limb.
KING RICHARD.
Thou chid’st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague fit of fear is overblown;
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.
SCROOP.
Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state in 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.
Thou hast said enough.
[To AUMERLE.] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
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.
AUMERLE.
My liege, one word.
KING RICHARD.
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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Wales. Before Flint Castle.
[Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE and Forces; YORK,
NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others.]
BOLINGBROKE.
So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispers’d; and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
The news is very fair and good, my lord.
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK.
It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say ‘King Richard’: alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,
Left I his title out.
YORK.