King Richard II
Act V, Scene 1
London. A street leading to the Tower.
- Enter the Queen with her Attendants.
Queen
1 - 15- 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 Bullingbrook.
- Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
- Have any resting for her true king’s queen.
- Enter Richard 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 honor, thou King Richard’s tomb,
- And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
- Why should hard-favor’d grief be lodg’d in thee,
- When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
King Richard II
16 - 25- 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 awak’d, 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 thrown down.
Queen
26 - 34- What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
- Transform’d and weak’ned? Hath Bullingbrook depos’d
- 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’erpow’r’d, and wilt thou, pupil-like,
- Take the correction, mildly kiss the rod,
- And fawn on rage with base humility,
- Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
King Richard II
35 - 50- A king of beasts indeed—if aught but beasts,
- I had been still a happy king of men.
- Good sometimes 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 quite 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.
Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so, to make my end too sudden.
Lily Brayton and Herbert Beerbohm Tree in Richard II
Karl August Büchel, 1903
Northumberland
51 - 54- My lord, the mind of Bullingbrook is chang’d,
- 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
55 - 68- Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
- The mounting Bullingbrook ascends my throne,
- The time shall not be many hours of age
- More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
- Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,
- Though he divide the realm and give thee half,
- It is too little, helping him to all;
- He shall think that thou, which knowest the way
- To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
- Being ne’er so little urg’d, 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
69 - 70- My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
- Take leave and part, for you must part forthwith.
Costume design for halberd carrier
From Charles Kean's scrapbook
19th century
King Richard II
71 - 80- Doubly divorc’d! 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 towards 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
81- And must we be divided? Must we part?
King Richard II
82- Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
Queen
83- Banish us both, and send the King with me.
Northumberland
84- That were some love, but little policy.
Queen
85- Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
King Richard II
86 - 89- 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
90- So longest way shall have the longest moans.
King Richard II
91 - 96- 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
97 - 100- 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 may strive to kill it with a groan.
King Richard II
101 - 102- We make woe wanton with this fond delay,
- Once more, adieu, the rest let sorrow say.
- Exeunt.
So two together weeping make one woe
Lily Brayton and Herbert Beerbohm Tree in Richard II
Balliol Salmon, 1903