In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown.

Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows

Of double-fatal yew against thy state.

Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills

Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel,

And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

KING RICHARD

Too well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill.

Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?

What is become of Bushy, where is Green,

That they have let the dangerous enemy

Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?

If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.

I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.

SCROPE

Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.

KING RICHARD

O villains, vipers damned without redemption!

Dogs easily won to fawn on any man I

Snakes in my heart-blood warmed, 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!

SCROPE

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, graved in the hollow ground.

AUMERLE

Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?

SCROPE

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 call our own but death,

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

⌈Sitting⌉ 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 deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,

All murdered. For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life

Were brass impregnable; and humoured 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?

BISHOP OF CARLISLE

My lord, wise men ne’er wail their present 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. Enquire of him,

And learn to make a body of a limb.

KING RICHARD ⌈standing⌉

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, Scrope, where lies our uncle with his power?

Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.

SCROPE

Men judge by the complexion of the sky

The state and 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 joined with Bolingbroke,

And all your northern castles yielded up,

And all your southern gentlemen in arms

Upon his faction.

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;