SCENE I. London. A street leading to the Tower. The Life and Death of Richard the Second  Shakespeare homepage  |  Richard II  | Act 5, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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 

 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. 

 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? 

 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, 

 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. 

 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 

 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, 

 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 

 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: 

 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. 



 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 

 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, 

 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. 

 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. 

 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. 

 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. 

 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. 

 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. 

 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; 

 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. 

 KING RICHARD II  We make woe wanton with this fond delay: 

 Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. 



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