Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,[1369]135
Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate:
Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
With heads, and not with hands: those whom you curse[1370]
Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound[1371]
And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.[1372]140
Aum. Is Bushy, Green and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
Scroop. Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.[1373]
Aum. Where is the duke my father with his power?
K. Rich. No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs;145
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.[1374]
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?150
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth[1375]
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground[1376]155
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;[1377]
Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown160
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antique sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,165
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin[1378]
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king![1379]170
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood[1380]
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,[1380]
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,[1381]
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,[1382]175
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,[1382][1383][1384]
How can you say to me, I am a king?[1382][1384][1385]
Car. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,[1386]
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,180
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.[1387]
Fear, and be slain; no worse can come to fight:[1388][1389]
And fight and die is death destroying death;[1388][1390]
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.[1388]185
Aum. My father hath a power; inquire of him,[1388]
And learn to make a body of a limb.[1388]
K. Rich. Thou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.[1391]
This ague fit of fear is over-blown;[1391]190
An easy task it is to win our own.[1391]
Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.[1392]
Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky[1392]
The state and inclination of the day:[1392]195
So may you by my dull and heavy eye,[1392]
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.[1392]
I play the torturer, by small and small
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,[1393]200
And all your northern castles yielded up
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.
K. Rich. Thou hast said enough.[1394]
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth [To Aumerle.[1395]
Of that sweet way I was in to despair!205
What say you now? what comfort have we now?
By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly
That bids me be of comfort any more.
Go to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;
A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.210
That power I have, discharge; and let them go[1396]
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,[1397]
For I have none: let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.