Act 3, Scene 4

Langley. The DUKE OF YORK's garden.

[Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies.]
Queen Isabel
1786 What sport shall we devise here in this garden
1787 To drive away the heavy thought of care?
Lady
1788 Madam, we'll play at bowls.
Queen Isabel
1789 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
1790 And that my fortune runs against the bias.
Lady
1791 Madam, we'll dance.
Queen Isabel
1792 My legs can keep no measure in delight,
1793 When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
1794 Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.
Lady
1795 Madam, we'll tell tales.
Queen Isabel
1796 Of sorrow or of joy?
Lady
1797 Of either, madam.
Queen Isabel
1798 Of neither, girl:
1799 For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
1800 It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
1801 Or if of grief, being altogether had,
1802 It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;
1803 For what I have I need not to repeat,
1804 And what I want it boots not to complain.
Lady
1805 Madam, I'll sing.
Queen Isabel
1806 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;
1807 But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
Lady
1808 I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
Queen Isabel
1809 And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
1810 And never borrow any tear of thee.
1811 But stay, here come the gardeners.
1812 Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
1813 My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
1814 They will talk of state, for every one doth so
1815 Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.
[QUEEN and Ladies retire.]
[Enter a Gardener and two Servants.]
Gardener
1816 Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
1817 Which, like unruly children, make their sire
1818 Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
1819 Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
1820 Go thou, and like an executioner
1821 Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays
1822 That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
1823 All must be even in our government.
1824 You thus employ'd, I will go root away
1825 The noisome weeds which without profit suck
1826 The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
Servant
1827 Why should we in the compass of a pale
1828 Keep law and form and due proportion,
1829 Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
1830 When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
1831 Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
1832 Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
1833 Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
1834 Swarming with caterpillars?
Gardener
1835 Hold thy peace.
1836 He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
1837 Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;
1838 The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
1839 That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
1840 Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke;
1841 I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
Servant
1842 What! are they dead?
Gardener
1843 They are; and Bolingbroke
1844 Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O! what pity is it
1845 That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
1846 As we this garden! We at time of year
1847 Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
1848 Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
1849 With too much riches it confound itself:
1850 Had he done so to great and growing men,
1851 They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
1852 Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches
1853 We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
1854 Had he done so, himself had home the crown,
1855 Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
Servant
1856 What! think you the king shall be depos'd?
Gardener
1857 Depress'd he is already, and depos'd
1858 'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night
1859 To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's
1860 That tell black tidings.
Queen Isabel
1861 O! I am press'd to death through want of speaking!
[Coming forward.]
Queen Isabel
1862 Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
1863 How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
1864 What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee
1865 To make a second fall of cursed man?
1866 Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?
1867 Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
1868 Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
1869 Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.
Gardener
1870 Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
1871 To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.
1872 King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
1873 Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd.
1874 In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
1875 And some few vanities that make him light;
1876 But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
1877 Besides himself, are all the English peers,
1878 And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
1879 Post you to London, and you will find it so;
1880 I speak no more than every one doth know.
Queen Isabel
1881 Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
1882 Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
1883 And am I last that knows it? O! thou thinkest
1884 To serve me last, that I may longest keep
1885 Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,
1886 To meet at London London's king in woe.
1887 What was I born to this, that my sad look
1888 Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
1889 Gardener, for telling me these news of woe,
1890 Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!
[Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies.]
Gardener
1891 Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
1892 I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
1893 Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
1894 I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
1895 Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
1896 In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1789archaic vocab
“the world is full of rubs And that my fortune runs against the bias”
Both words are from the game of bowls. A 'rub' is an obstacle on the green that deflects the ball from its course. The 'bias' is the off-centre weight built into a bowl that makes it curve in a predictable arc; to 'run against the bias' is to veer the wrong way, against the intended curve. Queen Isabel turns the Lady's cheerful suggestion into a complaint: everything in her world knocks her off course.
TLN 1804archaic vocab
“what I want it boots not to complain”
'It boots not' means 'it does no good' or 'it profits nothing' — the verb 'to boot' meant to be of use or advantage. Queen Isabel is saying there is no point in complaining about what she lacks. The word has nothing to do with footwear.
TLN 1813archaic vocab
“My wretchedness unto a row of pins They will talk of state”
Queen Isabel wagers 'my wretchedness against a row of pins' — pins were such a trivial, low-value item that betting them was a humorous way of expressing certainty. The idiom means roughly 'I would bet anything on it.' She is sure the gardeners, like everyone during a political upheaval, will talk about the state of the kingdom.
TLN 1816rhetorical device
“bind thou up yon dangling apricocks Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression”
The Gardener's instructions to his two servants are an extended allegory: every task in the garden stands for a problem in governing the kingdom. Tying up heavy apricot branches ('apricocks') is like disciplining overpowered nobles; cutting 'too fast growing sprays' that 'look too lofty' is like cutting down men who rise above their station; rooting out 'noisome weeds' parallels removing corrupt favourites. Shakespeare places the political lesson in the mouths of working men tending a literal garden to underline that the principle of good rule is as basic as common sense.
TLN 1830historical topical
“our sea-walled garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up”
The Servant names the allegory the Gardener has been enacting: the 'sea-walled garden' is England itself. The image of England as an island-garden protected by the sea echoes John of Gaunt's famous speech earlier in the play. 'Caterpillars' was a common Elizabethan term of abuse for parasitic flatterers and corrupt officials who drain the commonwealth -- as Bolingbroke had already called Richard's favourites Bushy, Bagot, and Green.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 1861historical topical
“I am press'd to death through want of speaking”
'Pressed to death' refers to the English legal punishment of peine forte et dure ('strong and hard pain'): a prisoner who refused to enter a plea was laid on the ground and heavy stones were placed on his chest until he either agreed to plead or died of the weight. Queen Isabel uses it as a vivid hyperbole — she cannot bear her silence any longer and feels crushed by keeping it.
TLN 1873rhetorical device
“their fortunes both are weigh'd In your lord's scale is nothing but himself And some few vanities that make him light”
The Gardener describes the political contest between Richard and Bolingbroke as two pans of a balance scale: Richard's side holds only himself and 'some few vanities' (his flatterers and empty pleasures), which makes him 'light' -- both physically light in weight and morally frivolous. Bolingbroke's side holds all the English lords, and the heavier weight brings Richard's pan down. The image turns Bolingbroke's political strength into a physical law.
TLN 1894wordplay
“rue, sour herb of grace Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen”
Rue is a bitter, pungent herb (Ruta graveolens) that was called 'herb of grace' because it was used in Catholic blessing ceremonies and because 'rue' also meant repentance or sorrow. The Gardener plants it where the Queen wept, and his words turn on a triple wordplay: the plant rue, the verb 'to rue' (to feel sorrow or regret), and 'ruth' (an archaic noun meaning compassion or pity — the same word root). He will remember her grief with a plant whose very name means grief.