Enter one with a glass RICHARD        Give me that glass and therein will I read. No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck So many blows upon this face of mine And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass, Like to my followers in prosperity Thou dost beguile me. Was this face the face That every […]

RICHARD                                Good King, great King, and yet not greatly good, And if my word be sterling yet in England, Let it command a mirror hither straight That it may show me what a face I have Since it is bankrupt of his majesty. BOLINGBROKE                      Go some of you and fetch a looking glass. [Exit an […]

NORTHUMBERLAND            My lord— RICHARD                                No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man, Nor no man’s lord. I have no name, no title— No, not that name was given me at the font— But ’tis usurped. Alack the heavy day That I have worn so many winters out And know not now what name to call […]

NORTHUMBERLAND            My lord, dispatch, read o’er these articles. RICHARD                                Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see, And yet salt water blinds them not so much But they can see a sort of traitors here. Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself I find myself a traitor with the rest, For I have […]

RICHARD        Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself, Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands, Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates Have here delivered me to my sour cross And water cannot wash away your sin.      (4.1.237-242)   More hyperbole from Richard, […]

RICHARD        Must I do so? And must I ravel out My weaved-up follies? Gentle Northumberland, If thy offences were upon record, Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst, There shouldst thou find one heinous article Containing the deposing of a king And cracking […]

RICHARD                                Make me that nothing have with nothing grieved, And thou with all pleased that thou hast achieved. Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit. God save King Henry, unkinged Richard says, And send him many years of sunshine days. What more remains? NORTHUMBERLAND                                                […]

BOLINGBROKE          Are you contented to resign the crown? RICHARD                    Ay, no; no, ay, for I must nothing be: Therefore no no, for I resign to thee. Now mark me how I will undo myself: I give this heavy weight from off my head And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, The pride of kingly sway […]

BOLINGBROKE          I thought you had been willing to resign. RICHARD                    My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine. You may my glories and my state depose But not my griefs; still am I king of those. BOLINGBROKE          Part of your cares you give me with your crown. RICHARD                    Your cares set up do […]

RICHARD                                Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here, cousin, On this side my hand, and on that side thine. Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets filling one another, The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other down, unseen and full of water. That bucket […]