Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune’s womb,

Is coming towards me; and my inward soul

At nothing trembles. With something it grieves

More than with parting from my lord the King.

BUSHY

Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows

Which shows like grief itself but is not so.

For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears,

Divides one thing entire to many objects—

Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon,

Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry,

Distinguish form. So your sweet majesty,

Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,

Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail,

Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows

Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,

More than your lord’s departure weep not: more is not seen,

Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,

Which for things true weeps things imaginary.

QUEEN

It may be so, but yet my inward soul

Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be,

I cannot but be sad: so heavy-sad

As thought—on thinking on no thought I think—

Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.

BUSHY

’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.

QUEEN

‘Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived

From some forefather grief; mine is not so;

For nothing hath begot my something grief—

Or something hath the nothing that I grieve—

’Tis in reversion that I do possess—

But what it is that is not yet known what,

I cannot name; ’tis nameless woe, I wot.

Enter Green

GREEN

God save your majesty, and well met, gentlemen.

I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.

QUEEN

Why hop‘st thou so? ’Tis better hope he is,

For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.

Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped?

GREEN

That he, our hope, might have retired his power,

And driven into despair an enemy’s hope,

Who strongly hath set footing in this land.

The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself,

And with uplifted arms is safe arrived

At Ravenspurgh.

QUEEN

Now God in heaven forbid!

GREEN

Ah madam, ’tis too true! And, that is worse,

The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy,

The Lords of Ross, Beaumont, and Willoughby,

With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

BUSHY

Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland,

And all the rest, revolted faction-traitors?

GREEN

We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester

Hath broke his staff, resigned his stewardship,

And all the household servants fled with him

To Bolingbroke.

QUEEN

So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,

And Bolingbroke my sorrow’s dismal heir.

Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,

And I, a gasping new-delivered mother,

Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.

BUSHY

Despair not, madam.

QUEEN Who shall hinder me?

I will despair, and be at enmity

With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,

A parasite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,

Which false hope lingers in extremity.

Enter the Duke of York, ⌈wearing a gorget⌉

GREEN Here comes the Duke of York.

QUEEN

With signs of war about his aged neck.

O, full of careful business are his looks!

Uncle, for God’s sake speak comfortable words.

YORK

Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.

Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth,

Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.

Your husband, he is gone to save far off,

Whilst others come to make him lose at home.

Here am I, left to underprop his land,

Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.

Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made.

Now shall he try his friends that flattered him.

Enter a Servingman

SERVINGMAN

My lord, your son was gone before I came.

YORK

He was? Why so, go all which way it will.

The nobles they are fled. The commons they are cold,

And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford’s side.

Sirrah, get thee to Pleshey, to my sister Gloucester.

Bid her send me presently a thousand pound—

Hold; take my ring.

SERVINGMAN

My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,

Today as I came by I called there—

But I shall grieve you to report the rest.

YORK What is’t, knave?

SERVINGMAN

An hour before I came, the Duchess died.

YORK

God for his mercy, what a tide of woes

Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!

I know not what to do. I would to God,

So my untruth had not provoked him to it,

The King had cut off my head with my brother’s.

What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland?

How shall we do for money for these wars?

(To the Queen) Come, sister—cousin, I would say; pray

pardon me.

(To the Servingman) Go, fellow, get thee home. Provide

some carts,

And bring away the armour that is there.

⌈Exit Servingman⌉

Gentlemen, will you go muster men?