1 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.
1 LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.
QUEEN.
1 LADY. Of either, madam.
QUEEN.
Of neither, girl:
For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
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.
1 LADY. Madam, I'll sing.
QUEEN.
"T is well that thou hast cause;
But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
1 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.
But stay, here come the gardeners:
Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
Enter a Gardener and two Servants.
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They 'll talk of state: for every one doth so
Agains te change: Woe is forerun with woe.
GARD. 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,
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, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
1 SERV. 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,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:
The weeds, that 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;
I mean the earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
1 SERV. What, are they dead?
GARD.
They are;
And Bolingbroke hath seiz'd the wasteful king.—
Oh! what pity is it,
That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land,
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees;
Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd 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 and idle hours hath quite thrown down.
1 SERV. What, think you then, the king shall be depos'd? GARD. Depress'd he is already; and depos'd,
'Tis doubt, he will be: Letters came last night
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!
Thou, old Adam's likeness [coming from her concealment], 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?
Darʼst thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall? Say where, when, and how
Cam'st thou by these ill-tidings? speak, thou wretch.
GARD. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
To breathe these news: yet what I say is true.
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke; their fortunes both are weigh'd:
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'll 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 think'st
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 this news of woe,
I would the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
[Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies. GARD. Poor Queen! so that thy state might be no worse, I would my skill were subject to thy curse.Here did she drop 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.
SCENE I.-London. 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, PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, BISHOP OF CARLISLE, ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and Attendants. Officers behind with BAGOT.
BOLING. Call forth Bagot.
Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;
What thou dost know of noble Gloster'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.
BOLING. 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 Gloster'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 my 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 bless'd this land would be
In this your cousin's death.
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 sland'rous 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, though being all too base
To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
BOLING. Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it up.
AUм. Excepting one, I would he were the best
In all this presence, that hath mov'd me so.
FITZ. If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st,
1 heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it, .
That thou wert cause of noble Gloster'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.
AUM. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day.
FITZ. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUM. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,
In this appeal, as thou art all 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.
AUM. And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
And never brandish more revengeful steel
Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
[LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle; And spur thee on with full as many lies
As may be holla'd in thy treacherous ear
From sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.
AUM. Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:
I have a thousand spirits in one breast,
To answer twenty thousand such as you.]
SURREY. My lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
FITZ. "T is very true: you were in presence then;
And you can witness with me, this is true.
SURREY. AS false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true. FITZ. Surrey, thou liest.
That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,
That it shall render vengeance and revenge,
|