King Richard II
Act II, Scene 2
Windsor Castle.
Costume designs for Richard's Queen
19th century
- Enter the Queen, Bushy, Bagot.
Bushy
1 - 4- Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
- You promis’d, when you parted with the King,
- To lay aside life-harming heaviness
- And entertain a cheerful disposition.
Queen
5 - 13- To please the King I did, to please myself
- I cannot do it; yet I know no cause
- Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
- Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
- As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks
- Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune’s womb,
- Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
- With nothing trembles; at some thing it grieves,
- More than with parting from my lord the King.
Bushy
14 - 27- Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
- Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
- For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears,
- Divides one thing entire to many objects,
- Like perspectives, which rightly gaz’d upon
- Show nothing but confusion; ey’d awry
- Distinguish form; so your sweet Majesty,
- Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,
- Find shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail,
- Which, look’d on as it is, is nought but shadows
- Of what it is not; then, thrice-gracious Queen,
- More than your lord’s departure weep not—more is not seen,
- Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,
- Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
Queen
28 - 32- It may be so; but yet my inward soul
- Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be,
- I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad,
- As, though on thinking on no thought I think,
- Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
Bushy
33- ’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
Queen
34 - 40- ’Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv’d
- From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
- For nothing hath begot my something grief,
- Or something hath the nothing that I grieve—
- ’Tis in reversion that I do possess—
- But what it is that is not yet known what,
- I cannot name; ’tis nameless woe, I wot.
- Enter Green.
Green
41 - 42- God save your Majesty! And well met, gentlemen.
- I hope the King is not yet shipp’d for Ireland.
Queen
43 - 45- Why hopest thou so? ’Tis better hope he is,
- For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
- Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp’d?
Green
46 - 51- That he, our hope, might have retir’d his power,
- And driven into despair an enemy’s hope,
- Who strongly hath set footing in this land:
- The banish’d Bullingbrook repeals himself,
- And with uplifted arms is safe arriv’d
- At Ravenspurgh.
Queen
52- Now God in heaven forbid!
Bagot
From costume sketches for Henry Irving’s production of King Richard II
Edwin Austin Abbey, 1898
Green
53 - 56- Ah, madam! ’Tis too true, and that is worse,
- The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy,
- The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
- With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
Bushy
57 - 58- Why have you not proclaim’d Northumberland
- And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
Green
59 - 62- We have, whereupon the Earl of Worcester
- Hath broken his staff, resign’d his stewardship,
- And all the household servants fled with him
- To Bullingbrook.
Queen
63 - 67- So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
- And Bullingbrook my sorrow’s dismal heir.
- Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,
- And I, a gasping new-deliver’d mother,
- Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join’d.
Bushy
68- Despair not, madam.
Queen
69 - 74- Who shall hinder me?
- I will despair, and be at enmity
- With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
- A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
- Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
- Which false hope lingers in extremity.
- Enter York.
Green
75- Here comes the Duke of York.
Queen
76 - 78- With signs of war about his aged neck.
- O, full of careful business are his looks!
- Uncle, for God’s sake speak comfortable words.
York
79 - 87- Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
- Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth,
- Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.
- Your husband, he is gone to save far off,
- Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
- Here am I left to underprop his land,
- Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
- Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made,
- Now shall he try his friends that flatter’d him.
- Enter a Servingman.
Servingman
88- My lord, your son was gone before I came.
York
89 - 94- He was—why, so go all which way it will!
- The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,
- And will, I fear, revolt on Herford’s side.
- Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester,
- Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
- Hold, take my ring.
Servingman
95 - 97- My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship:
- Today, as I came by, I called there—
- But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
York
98- What is’t, knave?
Servingman
99- An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
York
100 - 124- God for his mercy, what a tide of woes
- Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
- I know not what to do. I would to God
- (So my untruth had not provok’d him to it)
- The King had cut off my head with my brother’s.
- What, are there no posts disparch’d for Ireland?
- How shall we do for money for these wars?
- Come, sister—cousin, I would say—pray pardon me.
- Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,
- And bring away the armor that is there.
- Exit Servingman.
- Gentlemen, will you go muster men? If I
- Know how or which way to order these affairs
- Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
- Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen:
- T’ one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
- And duty bids defend; t’ other again
- Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong’d,
- Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
- Well, somewhat we must do.
- Come, cousin, I’ll dispose of you.
- Gentlemen, go muster up your men,
- And meet me presently at Berkeley.
- I should to Plashy too,
- But time will not permit. All is uneven,
- And every thing is left at six and seven.
- Exeunt Duke of York, Queen. Manent Bushy, Green, Bagot.
Costume designs for Lords Bagot and Green
From Charles Kean's scrapbook
19th century
Bushy
125 - 128- The wind sits fair for news to go for Ireland,
- But none returns. For us to levy power
- Proportionable to the enemy
- Is all unpossible.
Green
129 - 130- Besides, our nearness to the King in love
- Is near the hate of those love not the King.
Bagot
131 - 133- And that is the wavering commons, for their love
- Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them
- By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
Bushy
134- Wherein the King stands generally condemn’d.
Bagot
135 - 136- If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
- Because we ever have been near the King.
Green
137 - 138- Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow castle:
- The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
Bushy
139 - 142- Thither will I with you, for little office
- Will the hateful commons perform for us,
- Except like curs to tear us all to pieces.
- Will you go along with us?
Bagot
143 - 145- No, I will to Ireland to his Majesty.
- Farewell! If heart’s presages be not vain,
- We three here part that ne’er shall meet again.
Bushy
146- That’s as York thrives to beat back Bullingbrook.
Green
147 - 150- Alas, poor duke, the task he undertakes
- Is numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry;
- Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
- Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.
Bushy
151- Well, we may meet again.
Bagot
152- I fear me, never.
- Exeunt.
Souvenir of Richard the Second as represented at the Royal Princess' Theatre
Joseph Myers & Co., 1857