| ACT V SCENE I | London. A street leading to the Tower. | |
| [Enter QUEEN and Ladies] |
| QUEEN | This way the king will come; this is the way |
| To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower, |
| To whose flint bosom my condemned lord |
| Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke: |
| Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth | 5 |
| Have any resting for her true king's queen. |
[Enter KING RICHARD II and Guard] |
| But soft, but see, or rather do not see, |
| My fair rose wither: yet look up, behold, |
| That you in pity may dissolve to dew, |
| And wash him fresh again with true-love tears. | 10 |
| Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand, |
| Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb, |
| And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn, |
| Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee, |
| When triumph is become an alehouse guest? | 15 |
| KING RICHARD II | Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so, |
| To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul, |
| To think our former state a happy dream; |
| From which awaked, the truth of what we are |
| Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet, | 20 |
| To grim Necessity, and he and I |
| Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France |
| And cloister thee in some religious house: |
| Our holy lives must win a new world's crown, |
| Which our profane hours here have stricken down. | 25 |
| QUEEN | What, is my Richard both in shape and mind |
| Transform'd and weaken'd? hath Bolingbroke deposed |
| Thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart? |
| The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw, |
| And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage | 30 |
| To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like, |
| Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod, |
| And fawn on rage with base humility, |
| Which art a lion and a king of beasts? |
| KING RICHARD II | A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts, | 35 |
| I had been still a happy king of men. |
| Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France: |
| Think I am dead and that even here thou takest, |
| As from my death-bed, thy last living leave. |
| In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire | 40 |
| With good old folks and let them tell thee tales |
| Of woeful ages long ago betid; |
| And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs, |
| Tell thou the lamentable tale of me |
| And send the hearers weeping to their beds: | 45 |
| For why, the senseless brands will sympathize |
| The heavy accent of thy moving tongue |
| And in compassion weep the fire out; |
| And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, |
| For the deposing of a rightful king. | 50 |
| [Enter NORTHUMBERLAND and others] |
| NORTHUMBERLAND | My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed: |
| You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower. |
| And, madam, there is order ta'en for you; |
| With all swift speed you must away to France. |
| KING RICHARD II | Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal | 55 |
| The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne, |
| The time shall not be many hours of age |
| More than it is ere foul sin gathering head |
| Shalt break into corruption: thou shalt think, |
| Though he divide the realm and give thee half, | 60 |
| It is too little, helping him to all; |
| And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way |
| To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, |
| Being ne'er so little urged, another way |
| To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. | 65 |
| The love of wicked men converts to fear; |
| That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both |
| To worthy danger and deserved death. |
| NORTHUMBERLAND | My guilt be on my head, and there an end. |
| Take leave and part; for you must part forthwith. | 70 |
| KING RICHARD II | Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate |
| A twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me, |
| And then betwixt me and my married wife. |
| Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me; |
| And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made. | 75 |
| Part us, Northumberland; I toward the north, |
| Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; |
| My wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp, |
| She came adorned hither like sweet May, |
| Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day. | 80 |
| QUEEN | And must we be divided? must we part? |
| KING RICHARD II | Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart. |
| QUEEN | Banish us both and send the king with me. |
| NORTHUMBERLAND | That were some love but little policy. |
| QUEEN | Then whither he goes, thither let me go. | 85 |
| KING RICHARD II | So two, together weeping, make one woe. |
| Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; |
| Better far off than near, be ne'er the near. |
| Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans. |
| QUEEN | So longest way shall have the longest moans. | 90 |
| KING RICHARD II | Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short, |
| And piece the way out with a heavy heart. |
| Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief, |
| Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief; |
| One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part; | 95 |
| Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart. |
| QUEEN | Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part |
| To take on me to keep and kill thy heart. |
| So, now I have mine own again, be gone, |
| That I might strive to kill it with a groan. | 100 |
| KING RICHARD II | We make woe wanton with this fond delay: |
| Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. |
| [Exeunt] |
