The Same. A Room in the Palace. | |
| |
Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT. | |
| Bushy. Madam, your majesty is too much sad: | |
| You promis’d, when you parted with the king, | 4 |
| To lay aside life-harming heaviness, | |
| And entertain a cheerful disposition. | |
| Queen. To please the king I did; to please myself | |
| I cannot do it; yet I know no cause | 8 |
| Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, | |
| Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest | |
| As my sweet Richard: yet, again, methinks, | |
| Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune’s womb, | 12 |
| Is coming towards me, and my inward soul | |
| With nothing trembles; at some thing it grieves | |
| More than with parting from my lord the king. | |
| Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, | 16 |
| Which show like grief itself, but are not so. | |
| For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears, | |
| Divides one thing entire to many objects; | |
| Like perspectives, which rightly gaz’d upon | 20 |
| Show nothing but confusion; ey’d awry | |
| Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty, | |
| Looking awry upon your lord’s departure, | |
| Finds shapes of grief more than himself to wail; | 24 |
| Which, look’d on as it is, is nought but shadows | |
| Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, | |
| More than your lord’s departure weep not: more’s not seen; | |
| Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye, | 28 |
| 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, | 32 |
| As, though in 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 deriv’d | 36 |
| 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; | 40 |
| 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: | 44 |
| I hope the king is not yet shipp’d 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 shipp’d? | 48 |
| Green. That he, our hope, might have retir’d his power, | |
| And driven into despair an enemy’s hope, | |
| Who strongly hath set footing in this land: | |
| The banish’d Bolingbroke repeals himself, | 52 |
| And with uplifted arms is safe arriv’d | |
| At Ravenspurgh. | |
| Queen. Now God in heaven forbid! | |
| Green. Ah! madam, ’tis too true: and that is worse, | 56 |
| The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy, | |
| The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby, | |
| With all their powerful friends, are fled to him. | |
| Bushy. Why have you not proclaim’d Northumberland | 60 |
| And all the rest of the revolted faction traitors? | |
| Green. We have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester | |
| Hath broke his staff, resign’d his stewardship, | |
| And all the household servants fled with him | 64 |
| 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, | 68 |
| And I, a gasping new-deliver’d mother, | |
| Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join’d. | |
| Bushy. Despair not, madam. | |
| Queen. Who shall hinder me? | 72 |
| 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 bands of life, | 76 |
| Which false hope lingers in extremity. | |
| |
Enter YORK. | |
| Green. Here comes the Duke of York. | |
| Queen. With signs of war about his aged neck: | 80 |
| 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, | 84 |
| 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, | 88 |
| Who, weak with age, cannot support myself. | |
| Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made; | |
| Now shall he try his friends that flatter’d him. | |
| |
Enter a Servant. | 92 |
| Serv. 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. | 96 |
| Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester; | |
| Bid her send me presently a thousand pound. | |
| Hold, take my ring. | |
| Serv. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship: | 100 |
| To-day, as I came by, I called there; | |
| But I shall grieve you to report the rest. | |
| York. What is’t, knave? | |
| Serv. An hour before I came the duchess died. | 104 |
| 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 provok’d him to it,— | 108 |
| The king had cut off my head with my brother’s. | |
| What! are there no posts dispatch’d for Ireland? | |
| How shall we do for money for these wars? | |
| Come, sister,—cousin, I would say,—pray, pardon me.— | 112 |
| Go, fellow, get thee home; provide some carts | |
| And bring away the armour that is there. [Exit Servant. | |
| Gentlemen, will you go muster men? If I know | |
| How or which way to order these affairs | 116 |
| Thus thrust disorderly into my hands, | |
| Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen: | |
| The one is my sovereign, whom both my oath | |
| And duty bids defend; the other again | 120 |
| Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong’d, | |
| Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. | |
| Well, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, | |
| I’ll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men, | 124 |
| And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle. | |
| I should to Plashy too: | |
| But time will not permit. All is uneven, | |
| And every thing is left at six and seven. [Exeunt YORK and QUEEN. | 128 |
| Bushy. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland, | |
| But none returns. For us to levy power | |
| Proportionable to the enemy | |
| Is all unpossible. | 132 |
| Green. Besides, our nearness to the king in love | |
| Is near the hate of those love not the king. | |
| Bagot. And that’s the wavering commons; for their love | |
| Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them, | 136 |
| By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate. | |
| Bushy. Wherein the king stands generally condemn’d. | |
| Bagot. If judgment lie in them, then so do we, | |
| Because we ever have been near the king. | 140 |
| Green. Well, I’ll for refuge straight to Bristol Castle; | |
| The Earl of Wiltshire is already there. | |
| Bushy. Thither will I with you; for little office | |
| Will the hateful commons perform for us, | 144 |
| Except like curs to tear us all to pieces. | |
| Will you go along with us? | |
| Bagot. No; I will to Ireland to his majesty. | |
| Farewell: if heart’s presages be not vain, | 148 |
| We three here part that ne’er shall meet again. | |
| Bushy. That’s as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke. | |
| Green. Alas, poor duke! the task he undertakes | |
| Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry: | 152 |
| Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly. | |
| Farewell at once; for once, for all, and ever. | |
| Bushy. Well, we may meet again. | |
| Bagot. I fear me, never. [Exeunt. | 156 |