1    Barkloughly castle call they this at hand?

2    Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air,
3    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

4    Needs must I like it well: I weep for joy
5    To stand upon my kingdom once again.
6    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
7    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:
8    As a long-parted mother with her child
9    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
10   So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
11   And do thee favours with my royal hands.
12   Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
13   Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;
14   But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
15   And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
16   Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
17   Which with usurping steps do trample thee:
18   Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
19   And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
20   Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder
21   Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
22   Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.
23   Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:
24   This earth shall have a feeling and these stones
25   Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
26   Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.

27   Fear not, my lord: that Power that made you king
28   Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
29   The means that heaven yields must be embraced,
30   And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
31   And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
32   The proffer'd means of succor and redress.

33   He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
34   Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
35   Grows strong and great in substance and in power.

36   Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not
37   That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,
38   Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,
39   Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
40   In murders and in outrage, boldly here;
41   But when from under this terrestrial ball
42   He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
43   And darts his light through every guilty hole,
44   Then murders, treasons and detested sins,
45   The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
46   Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
47   So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
48   Who all this while hath revell'd in the night
49   Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes,
50   Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
51   His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
52   Not able to endure the sight of day,
53   But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.
54   Not all the water in the rough rude sea
55   Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
56   The breath of worldly men cannot depose
57   The deputy elected by the Lord:
58   For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
59   To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
60   God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
61   A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
62   Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
Enter EARL OF SALISBURY
63   Welcome, my lord how far off lies your power?

64   Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
65   Than this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue
66   And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
67   One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
68   Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:
69   O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
70   And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
71   To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,
72   O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state:
73   For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead.
74   Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled.

75   Comfort, my liege; why looks your grace so pale?

76   But now the blood of twenty thousand men
77   Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
78   And, till so much blood thither come again,
79   Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
80   All souls that will be safe fly from my side,
81   For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

82   Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.

83   I had forgot myself; am I not king?
84   Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
85   Is not the king's name twenty thousand names?
86   Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes
87   At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
88   Ye favourites of a king: are we not high?
89   High be our thoughts: I know my uncle York
90   Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

91   More health and happiness betide my liege
92   Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!

93   Mine ear is open and my heart prepared;
94   The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
95   Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care
96   And what loss is it to be rid of care?
97   Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
98   Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
99   We'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:
100  Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;
101  They break their faith to God as well as us:
102  Cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:
103  The worst is death, and death will have his day.

104  Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd
105  To bear the tidings of calamity.
106  Like an unseasonable stormy day,
107  Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
108  As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
109  So high above his limits swells the rage
110  Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
111  With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
112  White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
113  Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,
114  Strive to speak big and clap their female joints
115  In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:
116  The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
117  Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
118  Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
119  Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
120  And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

121  Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.
122  Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
123  What is become of Bushy? where is Green?
124  That they have let the dangerous enemy
125  Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
126  If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:
127  I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.

128  Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.

129  O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!
130  Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
131  Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
132  Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
133  Would they make peace? terrible hell make war
134  Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

135  Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
136  Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate:
137  Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
138  With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse
139  Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound
140  And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.

141  Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?

142  Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.

143  Where is the duke my father with his power?

144  No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
145  Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
146  Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
147  Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
148  Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
149  And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
150  Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
151  Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
152  And nothing can we call our own but death
153  And that small model of the barren earth
154  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
155  For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
156  And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
157  How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
158  Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
159  Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
160  All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
161  That rounds the mortal temples of a king
162  Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
163  Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
164  Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
165  To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
166  Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
167  As if this flesh which walls about our life,
168  Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
169  Comes at the last and with a little pin
170  Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
171  Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
172  With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
173  Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
174  For you have but mistook me all this while:
175  I live with bread like you, feel want,
176  Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
177  How can you say to me, I am a king?

178  My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
179  But presently prevent the ways to wail.
180  To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
181  Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
182  And so your follies fight against yourself.
183  Fear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:
184  And fight and die is death destroying death;
185  Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

186  My father hath a power; inquire of him
187  And learn to make a body of a limb.

188  Thou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come
189  To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
190  This ague fit of fear is over-blown;
191  An easy task it is to win our own.
192  Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
193  Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.

194  Men judge by the complexion of the sky
195  The state and inclination of the day:
196  So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
197  My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
198  I play the torturer, by small and small
199  To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
200  Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,
201  And all your northern castles yielded up,
202  And all your southern gentlemen in arms
203  Upon his party.

204  Thou hast said enough.
205  Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
To DUKE OF AUMERLE
206  Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
207  What say you now? what comfort have we now?
208  By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly
209  That bids me be of comfort any more.
210  Go to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;
211  A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
212  That power I have, discharge; and let them go
213  To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
214  For I have none: let no man speak again
215  To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

216  My liege, one word.

217  He does me double wrong
218  That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
219  Discharge my followers: let them hence away,
220  From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.