The Tragedy of Richard The Second
By William Shakespeare
Let's talk of graves of worms and epitaphs
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth
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 poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed
All murdered

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,
And bow my knee before his majesty:
For Mowbray and myself are like two men
That vow a long and weary pilgrimage
Lord Marshal
The appellant in all duty greets your highness,
And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
KING RICHARD II
We will descend and fold him in our arms.
Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
O let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:
My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,
Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers
JOHN OF GAUNT
God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
Be swift like lightning in the execution be valiant and live.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive!
KING RICHARD II
Order the trial, marshal, and begin.
Lord Marshal
Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD II
Let them lay their helmets by.
KING RICHARD II
Draw near,
For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;
And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
Set you on
We Therefore, banish you our territories:
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Your will be done: this must my comfort be,
Sun that warms you here shall shine on me;
And those his golden beams to you here lent
Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
KING RICHARD II
Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The sly slow hours shall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile;
The hopeless word of 'never to return'
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
THOMAS MOWBRAY
A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

KING RICHARD II
It boots thee not to be compassionate:
After our sentence plaining comes too late.
Return again, and take an oath with me.
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to God--
Our part therein we banish with yourselves--
To keep the oath that we administer:
You never shall, so help you truth and God!
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill
'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
I swear.
THOMAS MOWBRAY
And I, to keep all this.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Norfolk, By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air.
Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.
THOMAS MOWBRAY
No, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!
But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse
JOHN OF GAUNT
Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;
My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.

KING RICHARD II
He is our cousin, cousin;
We did observed his courtship to the common people;
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'
As were our England in reversion his.

GREEN
Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means
For their advantage and your highness' loss.
KING RICHARD II
We will ourself in person to this war:
And, for our coffers, are grown somewhat light,
We are inforced to farm our royal realm;
The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand: if that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold
And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.

Scroop, what news?
SCROOP
Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken; and hath sent post haste
To entreat your majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD II
Where lies he?
SCROOP
At Lancaster,
KING RICHARD II
Now put it, God, in the physician's mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:
Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!

KING RICHARD II
How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
How is't with aged Gaunt?
JOHN OF GAUNT
O how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon,
Is my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
KING RICHARD II
Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
JOHN OF GAUNT
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
KING RICHARD II
Should dying men flatter with those that live?
JOHN OF GAUNT
Oh, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD II
Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.
JOHN OF GAUNT
No, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD II
I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
And thou--
KING RICHARD II
A lunatic lean-witted fool,
Darest with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence.
Now, by my seat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not fathers's father's son.
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee.

ACT II SCENE I END

SCENE IV. A camp in Wales.
CAPTAIN
My lord , we have stay'd ten days,
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the king;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.
BAGOT
Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:
The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.
CAPTAIN
'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
Farewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assured Richard their king is dead.
BAGOT
Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:
Thy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.
ACT II SCENE IV END