Ch. 576: SCENE III. Wales. Before Flint Castle.
SCENE III. Wales. Before Flint Castle. ****
Enter, with drum and colours, Bolingbroke and Forces; Northumberland and Others.
BOLINGBROKE.
So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
The news is very fair and good, my lord:
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK.
It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say “King Richard”. Alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief
Left I his title out.
YORK.
The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.
BOLINGBROKE.
Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
YORK.
Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake. The heavens are o’er our heads.
BOLINGBROKE.
I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself
Against their will. But who comes here?
Enter Harry Percy.
Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
PERCY.
The castle royally is manned, my lord,
Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE.
Royally!
Why, it contains no king?
PERCY.
Yes, my good lord,
It doth contain a king. King Richard lies
Within the limits of yon lime and stone,
And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
Of holy reverence—who, I cannot learn.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
BOLINGBROKE.
[_To Northumberland_.] Noble lord,
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver:
Henry Bolingbroke
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
To his most royal person, hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
Provided that my banishment repealed
And lands restored again be freely granted.
If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power
And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood
Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen—
The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
Go signify as much, while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
That from this castle’s tottered battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perused.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water, when their thund’ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters—on the earth, and not on him.
March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.
A parley sounded, and answered by a trumpet within. Flourish. Enter on the Walls, the King, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle, Scroop and Salisbury
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east,
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
To dim his glory and to stain the track
Of his bright passage to the occident.
YORK.
Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe
That any harm should stain so fair a show!
KING RICHARD.
[_To Northumberland. _] We are amazed, and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship;
For well we know no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends,
Yet know: my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke—for yon methinks he stands—
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason. He is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons
Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation, and bedew
Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King
Should so with civil and uncivil arms
Be rushed upon! Thy thrice-noble cousin,
Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;
And by the honourable tomb he swears
That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones,
And by the royalties of both your bloods,
Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
And by the worth and honour of himself,
Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
His coming hither hath no further scope
Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;
Which on thy royal party granted once,
His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
To faithful service of your Majesty.
This swears he, as he is a prince and just;
And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
KING RICHARD.
Northumberland, say, thus the King returns:
His noble cousin is right welcome hither,
And all the number of his fair demands
Shall be accomplished without contradiction.
With all the gracious utterance thou hast,
Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
[_Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke. _]
[_To Aumerle_.] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
Shall we call back Northumberland and send
Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
AUMERLE.
No, good my lord. Let’s fight with gentle words
Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
KING RICHARD.
O God, O God, that e’er this tongue of mine
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yon proud man should take it off again
With words of sooth! O, that I were as great
As is my grief, or lesser than my name,
Or that I could forget what I have been,
Or not remember what I must be now.
Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to beat,
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
AUMERLE.
Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
KING RICHARD.
What must the King do now? Must he submit?
The King shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The King shall be contented. Must he lose
The name of King? I’ God’s name, let it go.
I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer’s walking-staff,
My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little, little grave, an obscure grave;
Or I’ll be buried in the King’s highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,
And, buried once, why not upon my head?
Aumerle, thou weep’st, my tender-hearted cousin!
We’ll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn
And make a dearth in this revolting land.
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes
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.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
My lord, in the base court he doth attend
To speak with you. May it please you to come down?
KING RICHARD.
Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaëthon,
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? Come down? Down, court! Down, king!
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
[_Exeunt from above. _]
BOLINGBROKE.
What says his Majesty?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Sorrow and grief of heart
Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man.
Yet he is come.
Enter King Richard and his attendants.
BOLINGBROKE.
Stand all apart,
And show fair duty to his Majesty. [_Kneeling_.]
My gracious lord.
KING RICHARD.
Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
Me rather had my heart might feel your love
Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
BOLINGBROKE.
My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
KING RICHARD.
Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
BOLINGBROKE.
So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.
KING RICHARD.
Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
That know the strong’st and surest way to get.
Uncle, give me your hands. Nay, dry your eyes.
Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir.
What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too;
For do we must what force will have us do.
Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?
BOLINGBROKE.
Yea, my good lord.
KING RICHARD.
Then I must not say no.
[_Flourish. Exeunt. _]