Richard II: Act IV

The Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle remain.

Enter Bolingbroke with the Lords Aumerle, Northumberland, Harry Percy, Fitzwater, Surrey, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and another Lord, Herald, Officers to parliament.

Princes and noble lords,
What answer shall I make to this base man?

Bagot, forbear.

If that thy valor stand on sympathy,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.

If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest,
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forgèd, with my rapier’s point.

An if I do not, may my hands rot off
And never brandish more revengeful steel
Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
That it shall render vengeance and revenge
Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie
In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull.

Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought
For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross

And, toiled with works of war, retired himself
To Italy, and there at Venice gave
His body to that pleasant country’s earth
And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
Under whose colors he had fought so long.

Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high scepter yields
To the possession of thy royal hand.

Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high scepter yields
To the possession of thy royal hand.

Would God that any in this noble presence
Were enough noble to be upright judge
Of noble Richard!

O, forfend it God
That in a Christian climate souls refined
Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.

Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny
Shall here inhabit, and this land be called
The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls.

Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe!

Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
Procure your sureties for your days of answer.

I hardly yet have learned
To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.

And must I ravel out
My weaved-up follies?

Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,
I find myself a traitor with the rest,
For I have given here my soul’s consent
T’ undeck the pompous body of a king,
Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,
Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,
I find myself a traitor with the rest,
For I have given here my soul’s consent
T’ undeck the pompous body of a king,
Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,
Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

O flatt’ring glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,
Thou dost beguile me.

Was this the face
That like the sun did make beholders wink?

My grief lies all within;
And these external manners of laments
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul.

And I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st
Me cause to wail but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause.

I’ll beg one boon
And then be gone and trouble you no more.

On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down
Our coronation.

My lord,
Before I freely speak my mind herein,
You shall not only take the sacrament
To bury mine intents, but also to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise.