| ACT III SCENE IV | LANGLEY. The DUKE OF YORK's garden. | |
| [Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies] |
| QUEEN | What sport shall we devise here in this garden, |
| To drive away the heavy thought of care? |
| Lady | Madam, we'll play at bowls. |
| QUEEN | 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, |
| And that my fortune rubs against the bias. | 5 |
| Lady | Madam, we'll dance. |
| QUEEN | My legs can keep no measure in delight, |
| When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief: |
| Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport. |
| Lady | Madam, we'll tell tales. | 10 |
| QUEEN | Of sorrow or of joy? |
| Lady | Of either, madam. |
| QUEEN | Of neither, girl: |
| For of joy, being altogether wanting, |
| It doth remember me the more of sorrow; | 15 |
| Or if of grief, being altogether had, |
| It adds more sorrow to my want of joy: |
| For what I have I need not to repeat; |
| And what I want it boots not to complain. |
| Lady | Madam, I'll sing. | 20 |
| QUEEN | 'Tis well that thou hast cause |
| But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep. |
| Lady | I could weep, madam, would it do you good. |
| QUEEN | And I could sing, would weeping do me good, |
| And never borrow any tear of thee. | 25 |
[Enter a Gardener, and two Servants] |
| But stay, here come the gardeners: |
| Let's step into the shadow of these trees. |
| My wretchedness unto a row of pins, |
| They'll talk of state; for every one doth so |
| Against a change; woe is forerun with woe. | 30 |
| [QUEEN and Ladies retire] |
| Gardener | Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks, |
| Which, like unruly children, make their sire |
| Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight: |
| Give some supportance to the bending twigs. |
| Go thou, and like an executioner, | 35 |
| Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, |
| That look too lofty in our commonwealth: |
| All must be even in our government. |
| You thus employ'd, I will go root away |
| The noisome weeds, which without profit suck | 40 |
| The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers. |
| Servant | Why should we in the compass of a pale |
| Keep law and form and due proportion, |
| Showing, as in a model, our firm estate, |
| When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, | 45 |
| Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, |
| Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd, |
| Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs |
| Swarming with caterpillars? |
| Gardener | Hold thy peace: | 50 |
| He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring |
| Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf: |
| The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter, |
| That seem'd in eating him to hold him up, |
| Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke, | 55 |
| I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green. |
| Servant | What, are they dead? |
| Gardener | They are; and Bolingbroke |
| Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it |
| That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land | 60 |
| As we this garden! We at time of year |
| Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees, |
| Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood, |
| With too much riches it confound itself: |
| Had he done so to great and growing men, | 65 |
| They might have lived to bear and he to taste |
| Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches |
| We lop away, that bearing boughs may live: |
| Had he done so, himself had borne the crown, |
| Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down. | 70 |
| Servant | What, think you then the king shall be deposed? |
| Gardener | Depress'd he is already, and deposed |
| 'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night |
| To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's, |
| That tell black tidings. | 75 |
| QUEEN | O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking! |
[Coming forward] |
| Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden, |
| How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? |
| What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee |
| To make a second fall of cursed man? | 80 |
| Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed? |
| Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth, |
| Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how, |
| Camest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch. |
| Gardener | Pardon me, madam: little joy have I | 85 |
| To breathe this news; yet what I say is true. |
| King Richard, he is in the mighty hold |
| Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd: |
| In your lord's scale is nothing but himself, |
| And some few vanities that make him light; | 90 |
| But in the balance of great Bolingbroke, |
| Besides himself, are all the English peers, |
| And with that odds he weighs King Richard down. |
| Post you to London, and you will find it so; |
| I speak no more than every one doth know. | 95 |
| QUEEN | Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot, |
| Doth not thy embassage belong to me, |
| And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st |
| To serve me last, that I may longest keep |
| Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go, | 100 |
| To meet at London London's king in woe. |
| What, was I born to this, that my sad look |
| Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke? |
| Gardener, for telling me these news of woe, |
| Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow. | 105 |
| [Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies] |
| GARDENER | Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse, |
| I would my skill were subject to thy curse. |
| Here did she fall a tear; here in this place |
| I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace: |
| Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, | 110 |
| In the remembrance of a weeping queen. |
| [Exeunt] |
