The Oxford Shakespeare: Richard II by Anthony B. Dawson & Paul Yachnin

Author:Anthony B. Dawson & Paul Yachnin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

BOLINGBROKE

But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot

With all the rest of that consorted crew,

Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.

Good uncle, help to order several powers

To Oxford or where’er these traitors are. 140

They shall not live within this world, I swear,

But I will have them if I once know where.

Uncle, farewell, and cousin, adieu.

Your mother well hath prayed, and prove you true.

DUCHESS

Come my old son, I pray God make thee new. 145

Exeunt

[5.4] Enter Exton and Servants

EXTON

Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?

‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?

Was it not so?

SERVANT These were his very words.

EXTON

‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he. He spake it twice

And urged it twice together, did he not? 5

SERVANT

He did.

EXTON

And speaking it, he wishtly looked on me,

As who should say ‘I would thou wert the man

That would divorce this terror from my heart’—

Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let’s go, 10

I am the King’s friend and will rid his foe. Exeunt

[5.5]Enter Richard alone

RICHARD

I have been studying how I may compare

This prison where I live unto the world,

And for because the world is populous

And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer’t out. 5

My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father, and these two beget

A generation of still-breeding thoughts;

And these same thoughts people this little world

In humours like the people of this world, 10

For no thought is contented. The better sort,

As thoughts of things divine, are intermixed

With scruples and do set the word itself

Against the word, as thus: ‘Come little ones’,

And then again, 15

‘It is as hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.’

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

Unlikely wonders—how these vain weak nails

May tear a passage through the flinty ribs 20

Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,

And for they cannot, die in their own pride.

Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,

Nor shall not be the last—like silly beggars 25

Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame

That many have and others must sit there,

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortunes on the back

Of such as have before endured the like. 30

Thus play I in one person many people

And none contented. Sometimes am I king,

Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar

And so I am. Then crushing penury

Persuades me I was better when a king, 35

Then am I kinged again, and by and by

Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke

And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be,

Nor I nor any man that but man is

With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased 40

With being nothing.

The music plays

Music do I hear?

Ha, ha, keep time. How sour sweet music is

When time is broke and no proportion kept.

So is it in the music of men’s lives;

And here have I the daintiness of ear 45

To check time broke in a disordered string,

But for the concord of my state and time

Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.