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King Richard II: Act I, Scene 3

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King Richard II
Act I, Scene 3

The lists at Coventry.

Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms, both who he is and why he cometh hither thus plated in habiliments of war

John Jellicoe, late 19th century

  1. Enter Lord Marshal and the Duke Aumerle.

Lord Marshal

1
  1. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Herford arm’d?

Aumerle

2
  1. Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in.

Lord Marshal

3 - 4
  1. The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
  2. Stays but the summons of the appellant’s trumpet.

Aumerle

5 - 6
  1. Why then the champions are prepar’d, and stay
  2. For nothing but his Majesty’s approach.
  1. The trumpets sound, and the King enters with his nobles
  2. Gaunt, Bushy, Bagot, Green, and others. When they are set,
  3. enter Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, in arms, defendant, with
  4. a Herald.

King Richard II

7 - 10
  1. Marshal, demand of yonder champion
  2. The cause of his arrival here in arms;
  3. Ask him his name, and orderly proceed
  4. To swear him in the justice of his cause.

Lord Marshal

11 - 15
  1. In God’s name and the King’s, say who thou art
  2. And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,
  3. Against what man thou com’st, and what thy quarrel.
  4. Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath,
  5. As so defend thee heaven and thy valor!

Mowbray

16 - 25
  1. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
  2. Who hither come engaged by my oath
  3. (Which God defend a knight should violate!)
  4. Both to defend my loyalty and truth
  5. To God, my king, and my succeeding issue,
  6. Against the Duke of Herford that appeals me,
  7. And by the grace of God, and this mine arm,
  8. To prove him, in defending of myself,
  9. A traitor to my God, my king, and me—
  10. And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
  1. The trumpets sound. Enter Bullingbrook, Duke of Herford,
  2. appellant, in armor, with a Herald.

King Richard II

26 - 30
  1. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,
  2. Both who he is and why he cometh hither
  3. Thus plated in habiliments of war,
  4. And formally, according to our law,
  5. Depose him in the justice of his cause.

Lord Marshal

31 - 34
  1. What is thy name? And wherefore com’st thou hither
  2. Before King Richard in his royal lists?
  3. Against whom com’st thou? And what’s thy quarrel?
  4. Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!

Bullingbrook

35 - 41
  1. Harry of Herford, Lancaster, and Derby
  2. Am I, who ready here do stand in arms
  3. To prove by God’s grace, and my body’s valor,
  4. In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
  5. That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,
  6. To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me—
  7. And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

Lord Marshal

42 - 45
  1. On pain of death, no person be so bold
  2. Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
  3. Except the Marshal and such officers
  4. Appointed to direct these fair designs.

Bullingbrook

46 - 51
  1. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign’s hand
  2. And bow my knee before his Majesty,
  3. For Mowbray and myself are like two men
  4. That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.
  5. Then let us take a ceremonious leave
  6. And loving farewell of our several friends.

Lord Marshal

52 - 53
  1. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,
  2. And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

King Richard II

54 - 58
  1. We will descend and fold him in our arms.
  2. Cousin of Herford, as thy cause is right,
  3. So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
  4. Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed,
  5. Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

Bullingbrook

59 - 77
  1. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
  2. For me, if I be gor’d with Mowbray’s spear.
  3. As confident as is the falcon’s flight
  4. Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
  5. My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
  6. Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
  7. Not sick, although I have to do with death,
  8. But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
  9. Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
  10. The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:
  11. O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
  12. Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
  13. Doth with a twofold vigor lift me up
  14. To reach at victory above my head,
  15. Add proof unto mine armor with thy prayers,
  16. And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point,
  17. That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen coat,
  18. And furbish new the name of John a’ Gaunt,
  19. Even in the lusty havior of his son.

Byam Shaw, 1901

Gaunt

78 - 83
  1. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
  2. Be swift like lightning in the execution,
  3. And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
  4. Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
  5. Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
  6. Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.

Bullingbrook

84
  1. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!

Mowbray

85 - 96
  1. However God or fortune cast my lot,
  2. There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne,
  3. A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
  4. Never did captive with a freer heart
  5. Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace
  6. His golden uncontroll’d enfranchisement,
  7. More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
  8. This feast of battle with mine adversary.
  9. Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
  10. Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
  11. As gentle and as jocund as to jest
  12. Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.

King Richard II

97 - 99
  1. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy
  2. Virtue with valor couched in thine eye.
  3. Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.

Lord Marshal

100 - 101
  1. Harry of Herford, Lancaster, and Derby,
  2. Receive thy lance, and God defend the right!

Bullingbrook

102
  1. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.

Lord Marshal

103
  1. To an Officer.
  2. Go bear this lance to Thomas Duke of Norfolk,

First Herald

104 - 109
  1. Harry of Herford, Lancaster, and Derby
  2. Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
  3. On pain to be found false and recreant,
  4. To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
  5. A traitor to his God, his king, and him,
  6. And dares him to set forward to the fight.

Second Herald

110 - 116
  1. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
  2. On pain to be found false and recreant,
  3. Both to defend himself and to approve
  4. Henry of Herford, Lancaster, and Derby
  5. To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,
  6. Courageously, and with a free desire,
  7. Attending but the signal to begin.

Lord Marshal

117 - 118
  1. Sound, trumpets, and set forward, combatants.
  2. A charge sounded.
  3. Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.

King Richard II

119 - 143
  1. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
  2. And both return back to their chairs again.
  3. Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound
  4. While we return these dukes what we decree.
  5. A long flourish.
  6. Draw near,
  7. And list what with our Council we have done:
  8. For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soil’d
  9. With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
  10. And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
  11. Of civil wounds plough’d up with neighbors’ sword;
  12. And for we think the eagle-winged pride
  13. Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
  14. With rival-hating envy, set on you
  15. To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle
  16. Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
  17. Which so rous’d up with boist’rous untun’d drums,
  18. With harsh-resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray,
  19. And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
  20. Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
  21. And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood:
  22. Therefore we banish you our territories.
  23. You, cousin Herford, upon pain of life,
  24. Till twice five summers have enrich’d our fields
  25. Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
  26. But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Marshall of the lists

Marshall of the lists

19th century

Bullingbrook

144 - 147
  1. Your will be done. This must my comfort be,
  2. That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
  3. And those his golden beams to you here lent
  4. Shall point on me and gild my banishment.

King Richard II

148 - 153
  1. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
  2. Which I with same unwillingness pronounce:
  3. The sly, slow hours shall not determinate
  4. The dateless limit of thy dear exile;
  5. The hopeless word of “never to return”
  6. Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Mowbray

154 - 173
  1. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
  2. And all unlook’d for from your Highness’ mouth.
  3. A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
  4. As to be cast forth in the common air,
  5. Have I deserved at your Highness’ hands.
  6. The language I have learnt these forty years,
  7. My native English, now I must forgo,
  8. And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
  9. Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
  10. Or like a cunning instrument cas’d up,
  11. Or being open, put into his hands
  12. That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
  13. Within my mouth you have enjail’d my tongue,
  14. Doubly portcullis’d with my teeth and lips,
  15. And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
  16. Is made my jailer to attend on me.
  17. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
  18. Too far in years to be a pupil now.
  19. What is thy sentence then but speechless death,
  20. Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

King Richard II

174 - 175
  1. It boots thee not to be compassionate,
  2. After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Mowbray

176 - 177
  1. Then thus I turn me from my country’s light,
  2. To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

King Richard II

178 - 190
  1. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
  2. Lay on our royal sword your banish’d hands;
  3. Swear by the duty that y’ owe to God
  4. (Our part therein we banish with yourselves)
  5. To keep the oath that we administer:
  6. You never shall, so help you truth and God,
  7. Embrace each other’s love in banishment,
  8. Nor never look upon each other’s face,
  9. Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
  10. This low’ring tempest of your home-bred hate,
  11. Nor never by advised purpose meet
  12. To plot, contrive, or complot any ill
  13. ’Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

Bullingbrook

191
  1. I swear.

Mowbray

192
  1. And I, to keep all this.

Bullingbrook

193 - 200
  1. Norfolk, so fare as to mine enemy:
  2. By this time, had the King permitted us,
  3. One of our souls had wand’red in the air,
  4. Banish’d this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
  5. As now our flesh is banish’d from this land;
  6. Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;
  7. Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
  8. The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
Basil Gill as Duke of Norfolk

Basil Gill as Duke of Norfolk

circa 1903

Mowbray

201 - 207
  1. No, Bullingbrook, if ever I were traitor,
  2. My name be blotted from the book of life,
  3. And I from heaven banish’d as from hence!
  4. But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know,
  5. And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.
  6. Farewell, my liege, now no way can I stray;
  7. Save back to England, all the world’s my way.
  1. Exit.

King Richard II

208 - 213
  1. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
  2. I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
  3. Hath from the number of his banish’d years
  4. Pluck’d four away.
  5. To Bullingbrook.
  6.                    Six frozen winters spent,
  7. Return with welcome home from banishment.

Bullingbrook

214 - 216
  1. How long a time lies in one little word!
  2. Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
  3. End in a word: such is the breath of kings.

Gaunt

217 - 225
  1. I thank my liege that in regard of me
  2. He shortens four years of my son’s exile,
  3. But little vantage shall I reap thereby;
  4. For ere the six years that he hath to spend
  5. Can change their moons and bring their times about,
  6. My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
  7. Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
  8. My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
  9. And blindfold Death not let me see my son.

King Richard II

226
  1. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.

Gaunt

227 - 233
  1. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give.
  2. Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
  3. And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;
  4. Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
  5. But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
  6. Thy word is current with him for my death,
  7. But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

King Richard II

234 - 236
  1. Thy son is banish’d upon good advice,
  2. Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
  3. Why at our justice seem’st thou then to low’r?

Gaunt

237 - 247
  1. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
  2. You urg’d me as a judge, but I had rather
  3. You would have bid me argue like a father.
  4. O, had’t been a stranger, not my child,
  5. To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
  6. A partial slander sought I to avoid,
  7. And in the sentence my own life destroyed.
  8. Alas, I look’d when some of you should say
  9. I was too strict to make mine own away;
  10. But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
  11. Against my will to do myself this wrong.

King Richard II

248 - 249
  1. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.
  2. Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
  1. Flourish. Exit with his Train.

Aumerle

250 - 251
  1. Cousin, farewell! What presence must not know,
  2. From where you do remain let paper show.

Lord Marshal

252 - 253
  1. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride,
  2. As far as land will let me, by your side.

Gaunt

254 - 255
  1. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
  2. That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?

Bullingbrook

256 - 258
  1. I have too few to take my leave of you,
  2. When the tongue’s office should be prodigal
  3. To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart.

Gaunt

259
  1. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.

Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed, lament we may, but not revenge thee dead

William Hatherell, circa 1900

Bullingbrook

260
  1. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

Gaunt

261
  1. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.

Bullingbrook

262
  1. To men in joy, but grief makes one hour ten.

Gaunt

263
  1. Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure.

Bullingbrook

264 - 265
  1. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
  2. Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt

266 - 268
  1. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
  2. Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
  3. The precious jewel of thy home return.

Bullingbrook

269 - 275
  1. Nay rather, every tedious stride I make
  2. Will but remember me what a deal of world
  3. I wander from the jewels that I love.
  4. Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
  5. To foreign passages, and in the end,
  6. Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
  7. But that I was a journeyman to grief?

Gaunt

276 - 294
  1. All places that the eye of heaven visits
  2. Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
  3. Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
  4. There is no virtue like necessity.
  5. Think not the King did banish thee,
  6. But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
  7. Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
  8. Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honor,
  9. And not the King exil’d thee; or suppose
  10. Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
  11. And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
  12. Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
  13. To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com’st.
  14. Suppose the singing birds musicians,
  15. The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strow’d,
  16. The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
  17. Than a delightful measure or a dance,
  18. For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
  19. The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

Bullingbrook

295 - 304
  1. O, who can hold a fire in his hand
  2. By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
  3. Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
  4. By bare imagination of a feast?
  5. Or wallow naked in December snow
  6. By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
  7. O no, the apprehension of the good
  8. Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
  9. Fell Sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more
  10. Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

Gaunt

305 - 306
  1. Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way;
  2. Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

Bullingbrook

307 - 310
  1. Then England’s ground, farewell, sweet soil, adieu;
  2. My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
  3. Where e’er I wander, boast of this I can,
  4. Though banish’d, yet a true-born Englishman.
  1. Exeunt.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Oscar Asche, and William Haviland in Richard II

Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Oscar Asche, and William Haviland in Richard II

Paul Thiriat, 1903

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