Richard II: Act III

You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments
By you unhappied and disfigured clean.

My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatched.

Flourish and colors.

Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.

Else heaven would,
And we will not—heaven’s offer we refuse,
The proffered means of succor and redress.

Else heaven would,
And we will not—heaven’s offer we refuse,
The proffered means of succor and redress.

He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
Grows strong and great in substance and in power.

So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath reveled in the night
Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.

More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.

Glad am I that your Highness is so armed
To bear the tidings of calamity.

Whitebeards have armed 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

Yea, distaff women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat.

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 deposèd bodies to the ground?

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 humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!

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 humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!

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 humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!

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.

Thou chid’st me well.

This ague fit of fear is overblown.

Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver

Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver

Northumberland and Trumpets approach the battlements.

Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
That from this castle’s tottered battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perused.

Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head
And threat the glory of my precious crown.

Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head
And threat the glory of my precious crown.

Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons
Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation, and bedew
Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.

We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
To look so poorly and to speak so fair?

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown

We’ll make foul weather with despisèd tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn
And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaëton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

Go, bind thou up young dangling apricokes
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.

Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays
That look too lofty in our commonwealth.

Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays
That look too lofty in our commonwealth.

You thus employed, I will go root away
The noisome weeds which without profit suck
The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.

Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.

Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.

Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it?