And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus, to drop them still upon one place,

Till they have fretted us a pair of graves

Within the earth; and, therein laid,—there lies
Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.

Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.

North. My lord, in the base court he doth attend To speak with you; may it please you to come down. K. Rich. Down, down I come; like glistering Phae

thon,

Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base, To come at traitors' calls and do them grace.

In the base court?

king!

Come down? Down, court! down,

For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing. W. Shakespeare.

LXXVI.

K.

Rich.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT IV. SCENE I.-London. Westminster Hall.
BOLINGBROKE, NORTHUMBERLAND, and others.

Enter KING Richard, York, and Officers bearing the crown.
O 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.

K. Rich. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the

crown;

Here cousin ;

On this side my hand, and on that side yours.
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.
Boling. I thought you had been willing to resign.
K. Rich. 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.

Boling. Part of your cares you give me with your

crown.

K. Rich. 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.
Boling. Are you contented to resign the crown?
K. Rich. 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 duty's rites :
All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
My manors, rents, revenues I forego;
My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny :
God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!

Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,
And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!
Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!

God save King Harry, unkinged Richard says,
And send him many years of sunshine days!
What more remains?

North.

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 deposed.

K. Rich. Must I do so? and must I ravel out
My weaved-up folly? 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,
Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven :
Nay, all of you that stand and look upon,

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 delivered me to my sour cross,

And water cannot wash away your sin.

North. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles. K. Rich. 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

A sort. A company.

To undeck the pompous body of a king ;
Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,
Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
North. My lord,—

K. Rich. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man, Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,

No, not that name was given me at the font,
But 'tis usurped: alack the heavy day,
That I have worn so many winters out,
And know not now what name to call myself!
O that I were a mockery king of snow,
Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
To melt myself away in water-drops!

Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,
An if my word be sterling yet in England,
Let it command a mirror hither straight,
That it may show me what a face I have,
Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.

Boling. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.

[Exit an attendant.

North. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come. K. Rich. Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell! Boling. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland. North. The commons will not then be satisfied.

K. Rich. They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough, When I do see the very book indeed

Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.

Re-enter Attendant, with a glass.

Give me the glass, and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face
That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men? was this the face

That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?
Was this the face that faced so many follies,
And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?
A brittle glory shineth in this face :

As brittle as the glory is the face;

[Dashes the glass against the ground.

For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

Boling. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face.

K. Rich.

Say that again.
The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:
'Tis very true, my grief lies all within ;
And these external manners of laments

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief

That swells with silence in the tortured soul;
There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only givest
Me cause to wail but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
And then be gone and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?

Boling.
K. Rich.

Name it, fair cousin.

Fair cousin'? I am greater than a king:

For when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

I have a king here to my flatterer.

Being so great, I have no need to beg.

Boling. Yet ask.

Boling. You shall.

K. Rich. Then give me leave to go.

Boling. Whither?

K. Rich. Whither you will, so I were from your sights. Boling. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.