Richard II by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 1
London. A street leading to the Tower.
Queen : This way the king will come; this is the way
[p]To Julius Caesar's
ill-erected tower,
[p]To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
[p]Is
doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke:
[p]Here let us rest, if this
rebellious earth
[p]Have any resting for her true king's
queen.
[p][Enter KING RICHARD II and Guard]
[p]But soft, but see, or
rather do not see,
[p]My fair rose wither: yet look up,
behold,
[p]That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
[p]And wash him fresh
again with true-love tears.
[p]Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did
stand,
[p]Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
[p]And not
King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
[p]Why should hard-favour'd
grief be lodged in thee,
[p]When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
King Richard II : Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
[p]To make my end too
sudden: learn, good soul,
[p]To think our former state a happy
dream;
[p]From which awaked, the truth of what we are
[p]Shows us but
this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
[p]To grim Necessity, and he and
I
[p]Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France
[p]And cloister
thee in some religious house:
[p]Our holy lives must win a new world's
crown,
[p]Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
Queen : What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
[p]Transform'd and
weaken'd? hath Bolingbroke deposed
[p]Thine intellect? hath he been in
thy heart?
[p]The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,
[p]And wounds
the earth, if nothing else, with rage
[p]To be o'erpower'd; and wilt
thou, pupil-like,
[p]Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,
[p]And
fawn on rage with base humility,
[p]Which art a lion and a king of
beasts?
King Richard II : A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,
[p]I had been still a
happy king of men.
[p]Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for
France:
[p]Think I am dead and that even here thou takest,
[p]As from
my death-bed, thy last living leave.
[p]In winter's tedious nights sit
by the fire
[p]With good old folks and let them tell thee tales
[p]Of
woeful ages long ago betid;
[p]And ere thou bid good night, to quit
their griefs,
[p]Tell thou the lamentable tale of me
[p]And send the
hearers weeping to their beds:
[p]For why, the senseless brands will
sympathize
[p]The heavy accent of thy moving tongue
[p]And in
compassion weep the fire out;
[p]And some will mourn in ashes, some
coal-black,
[p]For the deposing of a rightful king.
King Richard II : Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
[p]The mounting Bolingbroke
ascends my throne,
[p]The time shall not be many hours of age
[p]More
than it is ere foul sin gathering head
[p]Shalt break into corruption:
thou shalt think,
[p]Though he divide the realm and give thee
half,
[p]It is too little, helping him to all;
[p]And he shall think
that thou, which know'st the way
[p]To plant unrightful kings, wilt
know again,
[p]Being ne'er so little urged, another way
[p]To pluck
him headlong from the usurped throne.
[p]The love of wicked men
converts to fear;
[p]That fear to hate, and hate turns one or
both
[p]To worthy danger and deserved death.
King Richard II : Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate
[p]A twofold marriage, 'twixt my
crown and me,
[p]And then betwixt me and my married wife.
[p]Let me
unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
[p]And yet not so, for with a kiss
'twas made.
[p]Part us, Northumberland; I toward the north,
[p]Where
shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
[p]My wife to France:
from whence, set forth in pomp,
[p]She came adorned hither like sweet
May,
[p]Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.
Queen : And must we be divided? must we part?
King Richard II : Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
Queen : Banish us both and send the king with me.
Queen : Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
King Richard II : So two, together weeping, make one woe.
[p]Weep thou for me in France,
I for thee here;
[p]Better far off than near, be ne'er the
near.
[p]Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.
Queen : So longest way shall have the longest moans.
King Richard II : Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,
[p]And piece the
way out with a heavy heart.
[p]Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be
brief,
[p]Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief;
[p]One
kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
[p]Thus give I mine, and
thus take I thy heart.
Queen : Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part
[p]To take on me to keep
and kill thy heart.
[p]So, now I have mine own again, be gone,
[p]That
I might strive to kill it with a groan.
King Richard II : We make woe wanton with this fond delay:
[p]Once more, adieu; the rest
let sorrow say.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 2
