Shakespeare's Henriad (Book 1-4). William Hazlitt
of trial.
May it please you, lords, to grant the commons’ suit?
BOLINGBROKE.
Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
He may surrender; so we shall proceed
Without suspicion.
YORK.
I will be his conduct.
[Exit.]
BOLINGBROKE.
Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
Little are we beholding to your love,
And little look’d for at your helping hands.
[Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS bearing the Crown, &c.]
KING RICHARD.
Alack! why am I sent for to a king
Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
Wherewith I reign’d? I hardly yet have learn’d
To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
To this submission. Yet I well remember
The favours of these men: were they not mine?
Did they not sometime cry ‘All hail!’ to me?
So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,
Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.
God save the King! Will no man say, amen?
Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.
God save the King! although I be not he;
And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.
To do what service am I sent for hither?
YORK.
To do that office of thine own good will
Which tired majesty did make thee offer,
The resignation of thy state and crown
To Henry Bolingbroke.
KING RICHARD.
Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
Here, cousin,
On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another;
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water.
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
BOLINGBROKE.
I thought you had been willing to resign.
KING RICHARD.
My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
BOLINGBROKE.
Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
KING RICHARD.
Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
My care is loss of care, by old care done;
Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
The cares I give I have, though given away;
They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
BOLINGBROKE.
Are you contented to resign the crown?
KING RICHARD.
Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;
Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.
Now mark me how I will undo myself:
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous rites:
All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;
My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny:
God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!
Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev’d,
And thou with all pleas’d, that hast an achiev’d!
Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!
God save King Henry, unking’d Richard says,
And send him many years of sunshine days!
What more remains?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
[Offering a paper.] No more, but that you read
These accusations, and these grievous crimes
Committed by your person and your followers
Against the state and profit of this land;
That, by confessing them, the souls of men
May deem that you are worthily depos’d.
KING RICHARD.
Must I do so? And must I ravel out
My weav’d-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
If thy offences were upon record,
Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop
To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
There shouldst thou find one heinous article,
Containing the deposing of a king
And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,
Mark’d with a blot, damn’d in the book of heaven.
Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me
Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates
Have here deliver’d me to my sour cross,
And water cannot wash away your sin.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
My lord, dispatch; read o’er these articles.
KING RICHARD.
Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see:
And yet salt water blinds them not so much
But they can see a sort of traitors here.
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.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
My lord,—
KING RICHARD.