Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
We'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God as well as us:
Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay;
The worst is death, and death will have his day. Scroop. Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd
To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day,
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright steel and hearts harder than
White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless
scalps
Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,
Strive to speak big and clap their female joints
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.
K. Rich. 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?
112. thin and hairless, with thin hair or none.
116. beadsmen, the king's pensioners, who, as such, were
117. double-fatal. The yew's leaves were held to be poison
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke. Scroop. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without
redemption !
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war
Upon their spotted souls for this offence!
Scroop. 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
Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound
And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.
Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wilt-
shire dead?
Scroop. Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their
heads.
Aum. Where is the duke my father with his power?
K. Rich. 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,
146. Make dust our paper, 'write sorrow' in the dust.
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.
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 poison'd by their wives; some sleeping
kill'd;
All murder'd: 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 fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd 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,
153. model of the barren earth. 'Model' in Shakespeare fluctuates between the two notions of an imitation (or plan) in little, and an impress or mould. Here the earth which the corpse can 'call its own' is a semblance of the earth at large, of which in filling the grave it may be said to take the mould.
156. sad stories of the death of kings; probably with a reference to the Mirror for Magistrates, the great Elizabethan repertory
of such stories, -a continuation of Boccaccio's more famous book the Falls of Princes (tr. by Lydgate), which closed shortly before the 'story' of Richard himself was complete.
162. antic, buffoon. 163. Scoffing, scoffing at. 164. breath, breathing-space. 166. self and vain conceit, vain self-conceit.
168. humour'd thus, (the king) having thus been humoured.
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
Car. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their 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.
Aum. My father hath a power; inquire of him,
And learn to make a body of a limb.
K. Rich. Thou chidest me well: proud Boling-
broke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague fit of fear is over-blown ;
An easy task it is to win our own.
Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
Scroop. 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 join'd with Bolingbroke,
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
176. subjected, made a subject.
183. to fight, by fighting.
185. fearing dying, to die
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,
For I have none: let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
Aum. My liege, one word.
K. Rich.
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers: let them hence away,
From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.
He does me double wrong
SCENE III. Wales. Before Flint castle.
Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE,
YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, Attendants, and
forces.
Boling. So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
North. The news is very fair and good, my
lord:
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
York. It would beseem the Lord Northumber-
land
209. Go to Flint castle. Holinshed makes Richard fly first to Conway. To induce him to place himself in Bolingbroke's power by advancing to Flint
was the original object of Northumberland's cajolery, reproduced in the next scene. See note to v. 72.
211. power, forces, troops.
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