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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / King Richard II / Act III Scene IV
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King Richard II: Act 3 Scene 4
Scene IV LANGLEY. The DUKE OF YORK's garden.
- [Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies]
- QUEEN
- What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
- To drive away the heavy thought of care?
- Lady
- Madam, we'll play at bowls.
- QUEEN
- 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,
- And that my fortune rubs against the bias.
- Lady
- Madam, we'll dance.
- QUEEN
- My legs can keep no measure in delight,
- When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
- Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.
- Lady
- Madam, we'll tell tales.
- QUEEN
- Of sorrow or of joy?
- Lady
- Of either, madam.
- QUEEN
- Of neither, girl:
- For of joy, being altogether wanting,
- It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
- Or if of grief, being altogether had,
- It adds more sorrow to my want of joy:
- For what I have I need not to repeat;
- And what I want it boots not to complain.
- Lady
- Madam, I'll sing.
- QUEEN
- 'Tis well that thou hast cause
- But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.
- Lady
- I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
- QUEEN
- And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
- And never borrow any tear of thee.
- [Enter a Gardener, and two Servants]
- But stay, here come the gardeners:
- Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
- My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
- They'll talk of state; for every one doth so
- Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.
- [QUEEN and Ladies retire]
- GARDENER
- Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
- Which, like unruly children, make their sire
- 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,
- That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
- All must be even in our government.
- You thus employ'd, I will go root away
- The noisome weeds, which without profit suck
- The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
- SERVANT
- Why should we in the compass of a pale
- Keep law and form and due proportion,
- Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
- When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
- Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
- Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,
- Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs
- Swarming with caterpillars?
- GARDENER
- Hold thy peace:
- He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
- Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:
- The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
- That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
- Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,
- I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
- SERVANT
- What, are they dead?
- GARDENER
- They are; and Bolingbroke
- Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it
- That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
- As we this garden! We at time of year
- Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,
- Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
- With too much riches it confound itself:
- 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
- We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
- Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
- Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
- SERVANT
- What, think you then the king shall be deposed?
- GARDENER
- Depress'd he is already, and deposed
- 'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night
- To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's,
- That tell black tidings.
- QUEEN
- O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!
- [Coming forward]
- Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
- How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
- What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
- To make a second fall of cursed man?
- Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
- Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth,
- Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
- Camest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.
- GARDENER
- Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
- To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.
- King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
- Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:
- In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
- And some few vanities that make him light;
- But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
- Besides himself, are all the English peers,
- And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
- Post you to London, and you will find it so;
- I speak no more than every one doth know.
- QUEEN
- Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
- Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
- And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st
- To serve me last, that I may longest keep
- Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,
- To meet at London London's king in woe.
- What, was I born to this, that my sad look
- Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
- Gardener, for telling me these news of woe,
- Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
- [Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies]
- GARDENER
- Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,
- I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
- Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
- I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:
- Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
- In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
- [Exeunt]
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