Enter the Queen, Bushy, ⌜and⌝ Bagot.BUSHY Madam, your Majesty is too much sad. You promised, when you parted with the King, To lay aside life-harming heaviness And entertain a cheerful disposition.QUEEN 5 To please the King I did; to please myself I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks10 Some unborn sorrow ripe in Fortune’s womb Is coming towards me, and my inward soul With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves More than with parting from my lord the King.BUSHY Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows15 Which shows like grief itself but is not so; For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects, Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry20 Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty, Looking awry upon your lord’s departure, Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail, Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,25 More than your lord’s departure weep not. More is not seen, Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye, Which for things true weeps things imaginary.QUEEN It may be so, but yet my inward soul30 Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be,
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I cannot but be sad—so heavy sad As thought, on thinking on no thought I think, Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.BUSHY ’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.QUEEN 35 ’Tis nothing less. Conceit is still derived From some forefather grief. Mine is not so, For nothing hath begot my something grief— Or something hath the nothing that I grieve. ’Tis in reversion that I do possess,40 But what it is that is not yet known what, I cannot name. ’Tis nameless woe, I wot.⌜Enter Green.⌝GREEN God save your Majesty!—And well met, gentlemen. I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.QUEEN Why hopest thou so? ’Tis better hope he is,45 For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope. Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped?GREEN That he, our hope, might have retired his power And driven into despair an enemy’s hope, Who strongly hath set footing in this land.50 The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself And with uplifted arms is safe arrived At Ravenspurgh.QUEEN Now God in heaven forbid!GREEN Ah, madam, ’tis too true. And that is worse,55 The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy, The Lords of Ross, Beaumont, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
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BUSHY Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland60 And all the rest revolted faction traitors?GREEN We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester Hath broken his staff, resigned his stewardship, And all the Household servants fled with him To Bolingbroke.QUEEN 65 So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe, And Bolingbroke my sorrow’s dismal heir. Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy, And I, a gasping new-delivered mother, Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.BUSHY 70 Despair not, madam.QUEEN Who shall hinder me? I will despair and be at enmity With cozening hope. He is a flatterer, A parasite, a keeper-back of death,75 Who gently would dissolve the bands of life Which false hope lingers in extremity.⌜Enter York.⌝GREEN Here comes the Duke of York.QUEEN With signs of war about his agèd neck. O, full of careful business are his looks!—80 Uncle, for God’s sake speak comfortable words.YORK Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts. Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the Earth, Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief. Your husband, he is gone to save far off85 Whilst others come to make him lose at home. Here am I left to underprop his land,
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Who, weak with age, cannot support myself. Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made; Now shall he try his friends that flattered him.⌜Enter a Servingman.⌝SERVINGMAN 90 My lord, your son was gone before I came.YORK He was? Why, so go all which way it will. The nobles they are fled; the commons they are cold And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford’s side.95 Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester; Bid her send me presently a thousand pound. Hold, take my ring.SERVINGMAN My lord, I had forgot to tell your Lordship: Today as I came by I callèd there—100 But I shall grieve you to report the rest.YORK What is ’t, knave?SERVINGMAN An hour before I came, the Duchess died.YORK God for His mercy, what a tide of woes Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!105 I know not what to do. I would to God, So my untruth had not provoked him to it, The King had cut off my head with my brother’s! What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland? How shall we do for money for these wars?—110 Come, sister—cousin I would say, pray pardon me.— Go, fellow, get thee home. Provide some carts And bring away the armor that is there.⌜Servingman exits.⌝ Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
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115 If I know how or which way to order these affairs Thus disorderly thrust into my hands, Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen. T’ one is my sovereign, whom both my oath And duty bids defend; t’ other again120 Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged, Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. Well, somewhat we must do. ⌜To Queen.⌝ Come, cousin, I’ll dispose of you.—Gentlemen, go muster up your125 men And meet me presently at Berkeley. I should to Plashy too, But time will not permit. All is uneven, And everything is left at six and seven.Duke ⌜of York and⌝ Queen exit.
Bushy, Green, ⌜and Bagot⌝ remain.BUSHY 130 The wind sits fair for news to go for Ireland, But none returns. For us to levy power Proportionable to the enemy Is all unpossible.GREEN Besides, our nearness to the King in love135 Is near the hate of those love not the King.BAGOT And that is the wavering commons, for their love Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.BUSHY Wherein the King stands generally condemned.BAGOT 140 If judgment lie in them, then so do we, Because we ever have been near the King.GREEN Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle. The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
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BUSHY Thither will I with you, for little office145 Will the hateful commons perform for us, Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.— Will you go along with us?BAGOT No, I will to Ireland to his Majesty. Farewell. If heart’s presages be not vain,150 We three here part that ne’er shall meet again.BUSHY That’s as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.GREEN Alas, poor duke, the task he undertakes Is numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry. Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.155 Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.BUSHY Well, we may meet again.BAGOT I fear me, never.⌜They exit.⌝
Richard II
