Queen. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,[1507][1508]
And never borrow any tear of thee.[1507][1509]
Enter a Gardener, and two Servants.
But stay, here come the gardeners:[1510]
Let's step into the shadow of these trees.25
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,[1511]
They'll talk of state; for every one doth so
Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.
[Queen and Ladies retire.[1512]
Gard. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,[1513]
Which, like unruly children, make their sire30
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,[1514]
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:35
All must be even in our government.
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, which without profit suck[1515]
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
Serv. Why should we in the compass of a pale[1516]40
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,[1517]
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruin'd,45
Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs[1518]
Swarming with caterpillars?
Gard. Hold thy peace:
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring[1518][1519]
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,[1520]50
That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,[1521]
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
Serv. What, are they dead?
Gard. They are; and Bolingbroke[1522]
Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it[1522][1523]55
That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land[1522][1524]
As we this garden! We at time of year[1522][1525]
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,[1525]
Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:60
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have lived to bear and he to taste
Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches[1526]
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:[1527]
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,65
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.[1528]
Serv. What, think you then the king shall be deposed?[1529]