‘Pardon’ should be the first word of thy speech.

I never longed to hear a word till now.

Say ‘Pardon’, King. Let pity teach thee how.

The word is short, but not so short as sweet;

No word like ’Pardon’ for kings’ mouths so meet.

YORK

Speak it in French, King: say ‘Pardonnez-moi’.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?

Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord

That sets the word itself against the word!

Speak ‘Pardon’ as ’tis current in our land;

The chopping French we do not understand.

Thine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;

Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,

That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,

Pity may move thee ’Pardon’ to rehearse.

KING HENRY

Good aunt, stand up.

DUCHESS OF YORK I do not sue to stand.

Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.

KING HENRY

I pardon him as God shall pardon me.

⌈York and Aumerle rise⌉

DUCHESS OF YORK

O, happy vantage of a kneeling knee!

Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.

Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain,

But makes one pardon strong.

KING HENRY

I pardon him

With all my heart.

DUCHESS OF YORK (rising) A god on earth thou art.

KING HENRY

But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,

With all the rest of that consorted crew,

Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.

Good uncle, help to order several powers

To Oxford, or where’er these traitors are.

They shall not live within this world, I swear,

But I will have them if I once know where.

Uncle, farewell; and cousin, so adieu.

Your mother well hath prayed; and prove you true.

DUCHESS OF YORK

Come, my old son. I pray God make thee new.

Exeunt ⌈King Henry at one door; York, the Duchess of York, and Aumerle at another door⌉

5.4 Enter Sir Piers Exton, and his Men

EXTON

Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?

‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’

Was it not so?

⌈FIRST⌉ MAN Those were his very words.

EXTON

‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he. He spake it twice,

And urged it twice together, did he not?

⌈SECOND⌉ MAN He did.

EXTON

And speaking it, he wishtly looked on me,

As who should say ‘I would thou wert the man

That would divorce this terror from my heart’,

Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let’s go.

I am the King’s friend, and will rid his foe.

Exeunt

5.5 Enter Richard, alone

RICHARD

I have been studying how I may compare

This prison where I live unto the world;

And for because the world is populous,

And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer it out.

My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father, and these two beget

A generation of still-breeding thoughts;

And these same thoughts people this little world

In humours like the people of this world.

For no thought is contented. The better sort,

As thoughts of things divine, are intermixed

With scruples, and do set the faith itself

Against the faith, as thus: ‘Come, little ones’,

And then again,

‘It is as hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.’

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails

May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;

And for they cannot, die in their own pride.

Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,

Nor shall not be the last—like seely beggars,

Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame

That many have, and others must, set there;

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortunes on the back

Of such as have before endured the like.

Thus play I in one person many people,

And none contented. Sometimes am I king;

Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,

And so I am. Then crushing penury

Persuades me I was better when a king.

Then am I kinged again, and by and by

Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,

And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be,

Nor I, nor any man that but man is,

With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased

With being nothing.

The music plays

Music do I hear.

Ha, ha; keep time! How sour sweet music is

When time is broke and no proportion kept.

So is it in the music of men’s lives.

And here have I the daintiness of ear

To check time broke in a disordered string;

But for the concord of my state and time

Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me,

For now hath time made me his numb‘ring clock.

My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar