Richard II by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 3
Wales. Before Flint castle.
Edmund of Langley : It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
[p]To say 'King Richard:'
alack the heavy day
[p]When such a sacred king should hide his head.
Edmund of Langley : The time hath been,
[p]Would you have been so brief with him, he
would
[p]Have been so brief with you, to shorten you,
[p]For taking so
the head, your whole head's length.
Edmund of Langley : Take not, good cousin, further than you should.
[p]Lest you mistake
the heavens are o'er our heads.
Edmund of Langley : Yet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,
[p]As bright as is the
eagle's, lightens forth
[p]Controlling majesty: alack, alack, for
woe,
[p]That any harm should stain so fair a show!
King Richard II : We are amazed; and thus long have we stood
[p]To watch the fearful
bending of thy knee,
[p][To NORTHUMBERLAND]
[p]Because we thought
ourself thy lawful king:
[p]And if we be, how dare thy joints
forget
[p]To pay their awful duty to our presence?
[p]If we be not,
show us the hand of God
[p]That hath dismissed us from our
stewardship;
[p]For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
[p]Can
gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
[p]Unless he do profane,
steal, or usurp.
[p]And though you think that all, as you have
done,
[p]Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
[p]And we are
barren and bereft of friends;
[p]Yet know, my master, God
omnipotent,
[p]Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
[p]Armies of
pestilence; and they shall strike
[p]Your children yet unborn and
unbegot,
[p]That lift your vassal hands against my head
[p]And threat
the glory of my precious crown.
[p]Tell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks
he stands--
[p]That every stride he makes upon my land
[p]Is dangerous
treason: he is come to open
[p]The purple testament of bleeding
war;
[p]But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
[p]Ten thousand
bloody crowns of mothers' sons
[p]Shall ill become the flower of
England's face,
[p]Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
[p]To
scarlet indignation and bedew
[p]Her pastures' grass with faithful
English blood.
King Richard II : Northumberland, say thus the king returns:
[p]His noble cousin is
right welcome hither;
[p]And all the number of his fair
demands
[p]Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction:
[p]With all
the gracious utterance thou hast
[p]Speak to his gentle hearing kind
commends.
[p]We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
[p][To DUKE OF
AUMERLE]
[p]To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
[p]Shall we call
back Northumberland, and send
[p]Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
Duke of Aumerle : No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words
[p]Till time lend
friends and friends their helpful swords.
King Richard II : O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,
[p]That laid the sentence
of dread banishment
[p]On yon proud man, should take it off
again
[p]With words of sooth! O that I were as great
[p]As is my
grief, or lesser than my name!
[p]Or that I could forget what I have
been,
[p]Or not remember what I must be now!
[p]Swell'st thou, proud
heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,
[p]Since foes have scope to beat
both thee and me.
Duke of Aumerle : Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
King Richard II : What must the king do now? must he submit?
[p]The king shall do it:
must he be deposed?
[p]The king shall be contented: must he
lose
[p]The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:
[p]I'll give my
jewels for a set of beads,
[p]My gorgeous palace for a
hermitage,
[p]My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
[p]My figured
goblets for a dish of wood,
[p]My sceptre for a palmer's walking
staff,
[p]My subjects for a pair of carved saints
[p]And my large
kingdom for a little grave,
[p]A little little grave, an obscure
grave;
[p]Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
[p]Some way of
common trade, where subjects' feet
[p]May hourly trample on their
sovereign's head;
[p]For on my heart they tread now whilst I
live;
[p]And buried once, why not upon my head?
[p]Aumerle, thou
weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!
[p]We'll make foul weather with
despised tears;
[p]Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer
corn,
[p]And make a dearth in this revolting land.
[p]Or shall we play
the wantons with our woes,
[p]And make some pretty match with shedding
tears?
[p]As thus, to drop them still upon one place,
[p]Till they
have fretted us a pair of graves
[p]Within the earth; and, therein
laid,--there lies
[p]Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping
eyes.
[p]Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
[p]I talk but
idly, and you laugh at me.
[p]Most mighty prince, my Lord
Northumberland,
[p]What says King Bolingbroke? will his
majesty
[p]Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
[p]You make a
leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
King Richard II : Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,
[p]Wanting the manage of
unruly jades.
[p]In the base court? Base court, where kings grow
base,
[p]To come at traitors' calls and do them grace.
[p]In the base
court? Come down? Down, court!
[p]down, king!
[p]For night-owls shriek
where mounting larks
[p]should sing.
King Richard II : Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
[p]To make the base earth
proud with kissing it:
[p]Me rather had my heart might feel your
love
[p]Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
[p]Up, cousin, up;
your heart is up, I know,
[p]Thus high at least, although your knee be
low.
King Richard II : Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
King Richard II : Well you deserve: they well deserve to have,
[p]That know the
strong'st and surest way to get.
[p]Uncle, give me your hands: nay,
dry your eyes;
[p]Tears show their love, but want their
remedies.
[p]Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
[p]Though you
are old enough to be my heir.
[p]What you will have, I'll give, and
willing too;
[p]For do we must what force will have us do.
[p]Set on
towards London, cousin, is it so?
King Richard II : Then I must not say no.
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Next: Act 3 - Scene 4
