Shakespeare's Henriad (Book 1-4). William Hazlitt
To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s
That tell black tidings.
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?
Why dost thou say King Richard is depos’d?
Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.
GARDENER.
Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
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;
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.
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 thinkest
To serve me last, that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,
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!
[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,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
[Exeunt.]
ACT 4
SCENE I.
Westminster Hall.
[The Lords spiritual on the right side of the throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below. Enter BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and attendants. OFFICERS behind, with BAGOT.]
BOLINGBROKE.
Call forth Bagot.
Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;
What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death;
Who wrought it with the King, and who perform’d
The bloody office of his timeless end.
BAGOT.
Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
BOLINGBROKE.
Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
BAGOT.
My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver’d.
In that dead time when Gloucester’s death was plotted
I heard you say ‘Is not my arm of length,
That reacheth from the restful English Court
As far as Calais, to mine uncle’s head?’
Amongst much other talk that very time
I heard you say that you had rather refuse
The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
Than Bolingbroke’s return to England;
Adding withal, how blest this land would be
In this your cousin’s death.
AUMERLE.
Princes, and noble lords,
What answer shall I make to this base man?
Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
Either I must, or have mine honour soil’d
With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
There is my gage, the manual seal of death
That marks thee out for hell: I say thou liest,
And will maintain what thou hast said is false
In thy heart-blood, through being all too base
To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
BOLINGBROKE.
Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.
AUMERLE.
Excepting one, I would he were the best
In all this presence that hath mov’d me so.
FITZWATER.
If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand’st,
I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death.
If thou deny’st it twenty times, thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point.
AUMERLE.
Thou darest not, coward, live to see that day.
FITZWATER.
Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE.
Fitzwater, thou art damn’d to hell for this.
HENRY PERCY.
Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
In this appeal as thou art an unjust;
And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
To prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of mortal breathing: seize it if thou dar’st.
AUMERLE.
And if I do not, may my hands rot off
And never brandish more revengeful