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King Richard II: Act III, Scene 4

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King Richard II
Act III, Scene 4

Langley. The Duke of York’s garden.

Lily Brayton Queen to King Richard

Lily Brayton Queen to King Richard

Virtue & Co., circa 1900

  1. Enter the Queen with two Ladies, her attendants.

Queen

1 - 2
  1. What sport shall we devise here in this garden
  2. To drive away the heavy thought of care?

First Attending Lady

3
  1. Madam, we’ll play at bowls.

Queen

4 - 5
  1. ’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,
  2. And that my fortune runs against the bias.

Second Attending Lady

6
  1. Madam, we’ll dance.

Queen

7 - 9
  1. My legs can keep no measure in delight,
  2. When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;
  3. Therefore no dancing, girl, some other sport.

First Attending Lady

10
  1. Madam, we’ll tell tales.

Queen

11
  1. Of sorrow or of joy?

First Attending Lady

12
  1.                      Of either, madam.

Queen

13 - 19
  1. Of neither, girl;
  2. For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
  3. It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
  4. Or if of grief, being altogether had,
  5. It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;
  6. For what I have I need not to repeat,
  7. And what I want it boots not to complain.

Second Attending Lady

20
  1. Madam, I’ll sing.

Queen

21 - 22
  1.                   ’Tis well that thou hast cause,
  2. But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.

First Attending Lady

23
  1. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.

Queen

24 - 30
  1. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
  2. And never borrow any tear of thee.
  3. Enter a Gardener and two of his Men.
  4. But stay, here come the gardeners.
  5. Let’s step into the shadow of these trees.
  6. My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
  7. They will talk of state, for every one doth so
  8. Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.
  1. Queen and Ladies retire.

Gardener

31 - 41
  1. Go bind thou up young dangling apricots,
  2. Which like unruly children make their sire
  3. Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;
  4. Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
  5. Go thou, and like an executioner
  6. Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,
  7. That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
  8. All must be even in our government.
  9. You thus employed, I will go root away
  10. The noisome weeds which without profit suck
  11. The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
Lionel Brough as the gardener

Lionel Brough as the gardener

Virtue & Co., circa 1900

First Gardener’s Man

42 - 49
  1. Why should we in the compass of a pale
  2. Keep law and form and due proportion,
  3. Showing as in a model our firm estate,
  4. When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
  5. Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers chok’d up,
  6. Her fruit-trees all unprun’d, her hedges ruin’d,
  7. Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
  8. Swarming with caterpillars?

Gardener

50 - 56
  1.                             Hold thy peace.
  2. He that hath suffered this disordered spring
  3. Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
  4. The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
  5. That seem’d in eating him to hold him up,
  6. Are pluck’d up root and all by Bullingbrook,
  7. I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

Second Gardener’s Man

57
  1. What, are they dead?

Gardener

58 - 70
  1.                      They are; and Bullingbrook
  2. Hath seiz’d the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
  3. That he had not so trimm’d and dress’d his land
  4. As we this garden! We at time of year
  5. Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,
  6. Lest being over-proud in sap and blood,
  7. With too much riches it confound itself;
  8. Had he done so to great and growing men,
  9. They might have liv’d to bear and he to taste
  10. Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
  11. We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
  12. Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
  13. Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.

Second Gardener’s Man

71
  1. What, think you the King shall be deposed?

Gardener

72 - 75
  1. Depress’d he is already, and depos’d
  2. ’Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
  3. To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s
  4. That tell black tidings.

Queen

76 - 84
  1. O, I am press’d to death through want of speaking!
  2. Coming forward.
  3. Thou old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden,
  4. How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
  5. What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
  6. To make a second fall of cursed man?
  7. Why dost thou say King Richard is depos’d?
  8. Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
  9. Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
  10. Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.
Gardener

Gardener

19th century

Gardener

85 - 95
  1. Pardon me, madam, little joy have I
  2. To breathe this news, yet what I say is true:
  3. King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
  4. Of Bullingbrook; their fortunes both are weigh’d.
  5. In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself,
  6. And some few vanities that make him light;
  7. But in the balance of great Bullingbrook,
  8. Besides himself, are all the English peers,
  9. And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
  10. Post you to London and you will find it so,
  11. I speak no more than every one doth know.

Queen

96 - 105
  1. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
  2. Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
  3. And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
  4. To serve me last that I may longest keep
  5. Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
  6. To meet at London London’s king in woe.
  7. What, was I born to this, that my sad look
  8. Should grace the triumph of great Bullingbrook?
  9. Gard’ner, for telling me these news of woe,
  10. Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow.
  1. Exit with Ladies.

Gardener

106 - 111
  1. Poor queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
  2. I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
  3. Here did she fall a tear, here in this place
  4. I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
  5. Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
  6. In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
  1. Exeunt.
Lionel Brough and Lily Brayton in Richard II

Lionel Brough and Lily Brayton in Richard II

Oliver Paque, 1903

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