Act 4, Scene 1

Westminster Hall.

[The Lords spiritual on the right side of the throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below. Enter BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and attendants. OFFICERS behind, with BAGOT.]
Henry Bolingbroke
1897 Call forth Bagot.
1898 Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;
1899 What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;
1900 Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd
1901 The bloody office of his timeless end.
Bagot
1902 Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
Henry Bolingbroke
1903 Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
Bagot
1904 My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
1905 Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.
1906 In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted
1907 I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,
1908 That reacheth from the restful English Court
1909 As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'
1910 Amongst much other talk that very time
1911 I heard you say that you had rather refuse
1912 The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
1913 Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
1914 Adding withal, how blest this land would be
1915 In this your cousin's death.
Duke of Aumerle
1916 Princes, and noble lords,
1917 What answer shall I make to this base man?
1918 Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars
1919 On equal terms to give him chastisement?
1920 Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd
1921 With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
1922 There is my gage, the manual seal of death
1923 That marks thee out for hell: I say thou liest,
1924 And will maintain what thou hast said is false
1925 In thy heart-blood, through being all too base
1926 To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
Henry Bolingbroke
1927 Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.
Duke of Aumerle
1928 Excepting one, I would he were the best
1929 In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.
Lord Fitzwater
1930 If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
1931 There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
1932 By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
1933 I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
1934 That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.
1935 If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;
1936 And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
1937 Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
Duke of Aumerle
1938 Thou darest not, coward, live to see that day.
Lord Fitzwater
1939 Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
Duke of Aumerle
1940 Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
Henry Percy (Hotspur)
1941 Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
1942 In this appeal as thou art an unjust;
1943 And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
1944 To prove it on thee to the extremest point
1945 Of mortal breathing: seize it if thou dar'st.
Duke of Aumerle
1946 And if I do not, may my hands rot off
1947 And never brandish more revengeful steel
1948 Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
A Lord
1949 I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
1950 And spur thee on with full as many lies
1951 As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear
1952 From sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;
1953 Engage it to the trial if thou dar'st.
Duke of Aumerle
1954 Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all:
1955 I have a thousand spirits in one breast
1956 To answer twenty thousand such as you.
Duke of Surrey
1957 My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
1958 The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
Lord Fitzwater
1959 'Tis very true: you were in presence then,
1960 And you can witness with me this is true.
Duke of Surrey
1961 As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
Lord Fitzwater
1962 Surrey, thou liest.
Duke of Surrey
1963 Dishonourable boy!
1964 That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
1965 That it shall render vengeance and revenge
1966 Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie
1967 In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.
1968 In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
1969 Engage it to the trial if thou dar'st.
Lord Fitzwater
1970 How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
1971 If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
1972 I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,
1973 And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,
1974 And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith
1975 To tie thee to my strong correction.
1976 As I intend to thrive in this new world,
1977 Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal:
1978 Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say
1979 That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men
1980 To execute the noble duke at Calais.
Duke of Aumerle
1981 Some honest Christian trust me with a gage.
1982 That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this,
1983 If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.
Henry Bolingbroke
1984 These differences shall all rest under gage
1985 Till Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be
1986 And, though mine enemy, restor'd again
1987 To all his lands and signories; when he is return'd,
1988 Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
Bishop of Carlisle
1989 That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.
1990 Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
1991 For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
1992 Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
1993 Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;
1994 And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
1995 To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
1996 His body to that pleasant country's earth,
1997 And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
1998 Under whose colours he had fought so long.
Henry Bolingbroke
1999 Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
Bishop of Carlisle
2000 As surely as I live, my lord.
Henry Bolingbroke
2001 Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
2002 Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
2003 Your differences shall all rest under gage
2004 Till we assign you to your days of trial
[Enter YORK, attended.]
Duke of York
2005 Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the
2006 From plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul
2007 Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
2008 To the possession of thy royal hand.
2009 Ascend his throne, descending now from him;
2010 And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!
Henry Bolingbroke
2011 In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.
Bishop of Carlisle
2012 Marry, God forbid!
2013 Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
2014 Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
2015 Would God that any in this noble presence
2016 Were enough noble to be upright judge
2017 Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would
2018 Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
2019 What subject can give sentence on his king?
2020 And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
2021 Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,
2022 Although apparent guilt be seen in them;
2023 And shall the figure of God's majesty,
2024 His captain, steward, deputy elect,
2025 Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
2026 Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,
2027 And he himself not present? O! forfend it, God,
2028 That in a Christian climate souls refin'd
2029 Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
2030 I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
2031 Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.
2032 My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
2033 Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;
2034 And if you crown him, let me prophesy,
2035 The blood of English shall manure the ground
2036 And future ages groan for this foul act;
2037 Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
2038 And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
2039 Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
2040 Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,
2041 Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
2042 The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.
2043 O! if you raise this house against this house,
2044 It will the woefullest division prove
2045 That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
2046 Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
2047 Lest child, child's children, cry against you 'woe!'
Earl of Northumberland
2048 Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,
2049 Of capital treason we arrest you here.
2050 My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge
2051 To keep him safely till his day of trial.
2052 May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?
Henry Bolingbroke
2053 Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
2054 He may surrender; so we shall proceed
2055 Without suspicion.
Duke of York
2056 I will be his conduct.
[Exit.]
Henry Bolingbroke
2057 Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
2058 Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
2059 Little are we beholding to your love,
2060 And little look'd for at your helping hands.
[Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS bearing the Crown, &c.]
King Richard II
2061 Alack! why am I sent for to a king
2062 Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
2063 Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd
2064 To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
2065 Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
2066 To this submission. Yet I well remember
2067 The favours of these men: were they not mine?
2068 Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?
2069 So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,
2070 Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.
2071 God save the King! Will no man say, amen?
2072 Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.
2073 God save the King! although I be not he;
2074 And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.
2075 To do what service am I sent for hither?
Duke of York
2076 To do that office of thine own good will
2077 Which tired majesty did make thee offer,
2078 The resignation of thy state and crown
2079 To Henry Bolingbroke.
King Richard II
2080 Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
2081 Here, cousin,
2082 On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
2083 Now is this golden crown like a deep well
2084 That owes two buckets, filling one another;
2085 The emptier ever dancing in the air,
2086 The other down, unseen, and full of water.
2087 That bucket down and full of tears am I,
2088 Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
Henry Bolingbroke
2089 I thought you had been willing to resign.
King Richard II
2090 My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.
2091 You may my glories and my state depose,
2092 But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
Henry Bolingbroke
2093 Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
King Richard II
2094 Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
2095 My care is loss of care, by old care done;
2096 Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
2097 The cares I give I have, though given away;
2098 They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
Henry Bolingbroke
2099 Are you contented to resign the crown?
King Richard II
2100 Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;
2101 Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.
2102 Now mark me how I will undo myself:
2103 I give this heavy weight from off my head,
2104 And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
2105 The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
2106 With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
2107 With mine own hands I give away my crown,
2108 With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
2109 With mine own breath release all duteous rites:
2110 All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
2111 My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;
2112 My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny:
2113 God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
2114 God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!
2115 Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,
2116 And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd!
2117 Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
2118 And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!
2119 God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,
2120 And send him many years of sunshine days!
2121 What more remains?
[Offering a paper.]
Earl of Northumberland
2122 No more, but that you read
2123 These accusations, and these grievous crimes
2124 Committed by your person and your followers
2125 Against the state and profit of this land;
2126 That, by confessing them, the souls of men
2127 May deem that you are worthily depos'd.
King Richard II
2128 Must I do so? And must I ravel out
2129 My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
2130 If thy offences were upon record,
2131 Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop
2132 To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
2133 There shouldst thou find one heinous article,
2134 Containing the deposing of a king
2135 And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,
2136 Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.
2137 Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me
2138 Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
2139 Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
2140 Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates
2141 Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,
2142 And water cannot wash away your sin.
Earl of Northumberland
2143 My lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.
King Richard II
2144 Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see:
2145 And yet salt water blinds them not so much
2146 But they can see a sort of traitors here.
2147 Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,
2148 I find myself a traitor with the rest;
2149 For I have given here my soul's consent
2150 T'undeck the pompous body of a king;
2151 Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,
2152 Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
Earl of Northumberland
2153 My lord,—
King Richard II
2154 No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,
2155 Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,
2156 No, not that name was given me at the font,
2157 But 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day!
2158 That I have worn so many winters out,
2159 And know not now what name to call myself!
2160 O! that I were a mockery king of snow,
2161 Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke
2162 To melt myself away in water-drops!
2163 Good king, great king,—and yet not greatly good,
2164 An if my word be sterling yet in England,
2165 Let it command a mirror hither straight,
2166 That it may show me what a face I have,
2167 Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
Henry Bolingbroke
2168 Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
[Exit an Attendant.]
Earl of Northumberland
2169 Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
King Richard II
2170 Fiend! thou torments me ere I come to hell.
Henry Bolingbroke
2171 Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
Earl of Northumberland
2172 The Commons will not then be satisfied.
King Richard II
2173 They shall be satisfied; I'll read enough,
2174 When I do see the very book indeed
2175 Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
[Re-enter Attendant, with glass.]
King Richard II
2176 Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
2177 No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
2178 So many blows upon this face of mine
2179 And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass!
2180 Like to my followers in prosperity,
2181 Thou dost beguile me. Was this face the face
2182 That every day under his household roof
2183 Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
2184 That like the sun did make beholders wink?
2185 Is this the face which fac'd so many follies
2186 That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?
2187 A brittle glory shineth in this face:
2188 As brittle as the glory is the face;
[Dashes the glass against the ground.]
King Richard II
2189 For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.
2190 Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,
2191 How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.
Henry Bolingbroke
2192 The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd
2193 The shadow of your face.
King Richard II
2194 Say that again.
2195 The shadow of my sorrow! Ha! let's see:
2196 'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;
2197 And these external manner of laments
2198 Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
2199 That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.
2200 There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
2201 For thy great bounty, that not only givest
2202 Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
2203 How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
2204 And then be gone and trouble you no more.
2205 Shall I obtain it?
Henry Bolingbroke
2206 Name it, fair cousin.
King Richard II
2207 'Fair cousin'! I am greater than a king;
2208 For when I was a king, my flatterers
2209 Were then but subjects; being now a subject,
2210 I have a king here to my flatterer.
2211 Being so great, I have no need to beg.
Henry Bolingbroke
2212 Yet ask.
King Richard II
2213 And shall I have?
Henry Bolingbroke
2214 You shall.
King Richard II
2215 Then give me leave to go.
Henry Bolingbroke
2216 Whither?
King Richard II
2217 Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
Henry Bolingbroke
2218 Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.
King Richard II
2219 O, good! convey? conveyers are you all,
2220 That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
[Exeunt KING RICHARD and Guard.]
Henry Bolingbroke
2221 On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
2222 Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.
[Exeunt all but the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and AUMERLE.]
Abbot of Westminster
2223 A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
Bishop of Carlisle
2224 The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
2225 Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
Duke of Aumerle
2226 You holy clergymen, is there no plot
2227 To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
Abbot of Westminster
2228 My lord,
2229 Before I freely speak my mind herein,
2230 You shall not only take the sacrament
2231 To bury mine intents, but also to effect
2232 Whatever I shall happen to devise.
2233 I see your brows are full of discontent,
2234 Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears:
2235 Come home with me to supper; I will lay
2236 A plot shall show us all a merry day.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1897historical topical
“Call forth Bagot”
The entire opening sequence — Bagot brought in under guard, accusations traded, nobles throwing down gauntlets — is a formal 'appeal of treason,' a legal procedure by which one nobleman accused another of treasonous conduct. The accuser cast down a 'gage' (glove or hood) as a physical pledge to prove the charge in trial by combat; the accused picked it up to accept the challenge. God, in theory, would give victory to the truthful side.
historical Trial by combat and the gagehistorical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 1901archaic vocab
“timeless end”
'Timeless' here does not mean eternal; it means untimely — cut off before the proper time. 'His timeless end' means Gloucester's premature, violent death.
TLN 1918archaic vocab
“dishonour my fair stars / On equal terms”
Aumerle says he would 'dishonour my fair stars' by fighting Bagot on equal terms. 'Stars' here means birth and rank — his noble lineage is written in the stars that governed his birth. To give a social inferior 'equal terms' (the right to challenge him formally) would shame the nobility he was born to.
TLN 1921archaic vocab
“attainder of his slanderous lips”
'Attainder' is a legal term meaning the stain or corruption of blood that comes from being convicted of treason or a capital crime; it cancelled the offender's civil rights and barred his heirs from inheriting. Aumerle uses it loosely: if he does nothing to answer Bagot's lie, the slander itself will act like a legal attainder — tainting his honour as thoroughly as a criminal conviction would.
TLN 1922rhetorical device
“manual seal of death”
Aumerle calls his thrown gage 'the manual seal of death.' A 'manual' seal is one impressed by hand (Latin manus), as a wax seal is pressed onto a document to make it legally binding. Throwing the glove is the physical 'signature' that pledges a duel to the death — a handmade death-warrant for Bagot.
TLN 1930archaic vocab
“If that thy valour stand on sympathies”
Fitzwater taunts Aumerle: 'If your courage depends on fighting only those of equal rank.' 'Sympathies' means equality or correspondence of degree — if Aumerle will only fight a social equal, Fitzwater (himself a lord) is ready to match him gage for gage.
TLN 1964rhetorical device
“That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword / That it shall render vengeance and revenge / Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie”
Surrey piles the word 'lie' into three different senses within three lines: the insult ('thou liest'), the lie weighing on his sword, and finally both the 'lie-giver' (the man who told the lie) and the lie itself lying dead on the ground. This is the figure called antanaclasis (also 'traductio') -- repeating a word in different senses -- used here for an effect of relentless, accumulating fury.
TLN 1970archaic vocab
“How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse”
'Fondly' means foolishly (not affectionately). A 'forward' horse is one already moving eagerly in the direction you want — it needs no spurring. Fitzwater's proverb-like jibe at Surrey means: you are wasting your breath urging me to fight, since I am already more than willing.
TLN 1990historical topical
“banish'd Norfolk fought / For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, / Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross / Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens”
The Bishop of Carlisle reports that the exiled Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, died in Venice after spending his banishment fighting in the Crusades — holy wars launched by Christian Europe to recover the Holy Land from Muslim (here called 'pagan,' 'Turk,' and 'Saracen') control. To die in the service of Christ after such a journey was understood as a pious and honourable end.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2001biblical allusion
“Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom / Of good old Abraham”
Bolingbroke prays that Norfolk's soul rest in 'the bosom of Abraham' — a phrase from Jesus's parable of Lazarus, meaning the place of comfort and honour where the righteous dead dwell with the patriarch Abraham. It was an Elizabethan synonym for heaven or paradise.
TLN 2006archaic vocab
“plume-pluck'd Richard”
York describes Richard as 'plume-pluck'd' — stripped of his feathers, like a proud bird that has had its plumage pulled out. A plume was both a literal feather and a symbol of royal or knightly pride. The image captures Richard's complete humiliation: his 'willing soul' in giving up the crown is the word of a man whose pride has already been broken.
TLN 2023historical topical
“figure of God's majesty, / His captain, steward, deputy elect, / Anointed, crowned, planted many years”
The Bishop of Carlisle lists the theological titles that belong to a king: he is the 'figure' (earthly image) of God's majesty, God's 'captain' (military commander on earth), 'steward' (a manager who acts on behalf of a higher lord), and 'deputy elect' (God's appointed representative). 'Anointed' refers to the holy oil poured on the king's head at coronation, marking him as sacred. Carlisle's argument is that deposing such a person is sacrilege, not just treason.
historical The divine right of kingshistorical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 2035historical topical
“The blood of English shall manure the ground / And future ages groan for this foul act”
Carlisle prophesies that deposing Richard will start a cycle of civil war lasting generations: English blood will fertilize the earth (to 'manure' in this period still carried the primary sense of 'to work or cultivate land by hand,' from Old French manouvrer, and the grimmer sense of enriching soil with organic matter). For an Elizabethan audience who had lived through or heard of the Wars of the Roses, Carlisle's prophecy reads as accurate history.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 2042biblical allusion
“The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls”
Golgotha is the Aramaic name for the hill outside Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. The Gospels explain that the name means 'Place of the skull' — the hill was called that because it was the city's execution ground, littered with skulls. Carlisle says that if Richard is deposed, England itself will become such a field of mass execution and death.
TLN 2043biblical allusion
“O! if you raise this house against this house”
Carlisle quotes almost exactly from Jesus's warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand — the familiar argument that internal conflict is self-destructive. The 'houses' are both the dynastic Houses of Lancaster and York (rival lines descending from Edward III) and, literally, the parliamentary house they are standing in at Westminster.
historical Edward III and his seven sons
TLN 2068biblical allusion
“Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me? / So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve, / Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.”
Richard compares himself to Christ at the moment of betrayal. Judas identified Jesus to the soldiers by greeting him 'Hail, Master!' and kissing him (Matthew 26:49). Richard says the lords now crying 'Long live Henry' once cried 'All hail!' to him, just as Judas hailed Christ before betraying him. But Christ, among twelve apostles, found only one traitor (Judas); Richard, among his twelve thousand subjects, found none faithful.
TLN 2072cultural context
“Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.”
In a church service, the priest led the prayers and the parish clerk — a lay official — responded on behalf of the congregation with 'Amen.' Richard cries 'God save the King!' and, since no one says Amen for him, has to play both roles himself: he is both the officiant and the lone respondent. The bitter joke says that he has been abandoned even in the smallest ritual courtesy.
TLN 2083rhetorical device
“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”
Richard uses an extended metaphor (conceit): the crown is like a well with two buckets on opposite ends of the same rope — as one rises, the other falls. Right now Bolingbroke is the rising, empty bucket (dancing in the air, full of hope); Richard is the bucket plunging down, out of sight, 'full of water' — that is, full of weeping grief. The image captures the mechanism of the transfer of power with chilling precision.
TLN 2095rhetorical device
“My care is loss of care, by old care done; / Your care is gain of care, by new care won. / The cares I give I have, though given away; / They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.”
Richard plays obsessively on the word 'care,' shifting its meaning line by line: (1) anxiety and grief, (2) the duties and burdens of kingship, (3) the sorrows that belong to him personally. By old care done = destroyed by past anxiety. The paradox in the last two lines is his sharpest: the cares of kingship, once given away, no longer belong to the crown — but they still belong to him, because he is still their prisoner even as a private man.
TLN 2100wordplay
“Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be; / Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.”
Richard pivots on the ambiguity between 'ay' (yes) and 'I' (the first person pronoun — both were pronounced identically in Elizabethan English). 'Ay, no' can mean 'Yes, [and also] no' — he consents reluctantly — but also 'I [am] no [thing].' 'For I must nothing be' makes the pun explicit: to resign the crown is to cease to be an 'I,' a self, an identity.
TLN 2102rhetorical device
“Now mark me how I will undo myself”
Richard turns his abdication into a formal performance — he says 'mark me' (watch carefully) and then systematically strips himself of every royal attribute one by one: the crown from his head, the sceptre from his hand, pride from his heart, his tears wash away the anointing, his tongue denies his sacred status, his breath releases subjects from their oaths. The anaphora ('with mine own...') makes the speech a kind of anti-coronation ceremony.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 2106historical topical
“With mine own tears I wash away my balm”
'Balm' is the holy oil (chrism) poured on the monarch's head at coronation to mark him as God's anointed deputy on earth. Once applied, the anointing was held to be theologically permanent — you could not be 'un-anointed.' Richard's claim that his own tears now wash it away inverts the coronation ritual, and it underlines the theological violence of what is happening: he is being un-made as a sacred person.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 2128archaic vocab
“must I ravel out / My weav'd-up follies”
'Ravel out' means to unravel — to pull a woven fabric apart thread by thread until the weave is undone. Richard pictures his reign as a piece of cloth that has been 'weaved up' (woven together) over the years; now Northumberland wants him to publicly unweave it, confessing each wrong act as a separate thread. The metaphor conveys both exhaustion and humiliation.
TLN 2136biblical allusion
“damn'd in the book of heaven”
The 'book of heaven' is the Book of Life — the divine ledger in which, according to the Bible, God records the names of the saved and the deeds of all people, opened at the Last Judgment. Richard says that conspiring to depose a king is written there as a damnable sin, a blot that cannot be expunged.
TLN 2139biblical allusion
“Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands, / Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates / Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross, / And water cannot wash away your sin.”
Richard casts himself as Christ condemned by Pontius Pilate. Pilate, the Roman governor, famously washed his hands before the crowd to signal that he took no responsibility for ordering Jesus's death. Richard tells the lords that, just like Pilate, their outward show of pity means nothing: they have still delivered him to suffer on a cross (his suffering and imprisonment), and no amount of hand-washing can cleanse the guilt of condemning an innocent, anointed king.
biblical Pilate washing his hands
TLN 2155historical topical
“no name, no title, / No, not that name was given me at the font, / But 'tis usurp'd”
A 'font' is a baptismal font — the stone basin where a baby is baptized and given its Christian name. Richard says he has lost even the name given to him at baptism, because that name ('Richard') is now 'usurped' — his crown has been taken, so the royal identity that went with it has gone too, and even his private self feels stolen. The line dramatizes the doctrine of the king's two bodies: his 'body politic' (the king) has been stripped away, and now his 'body natural' (the man named Richard) does not know who it is.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 2160rhetorical device
“O! that I were a mockery king of snow, / Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke / To melt myself away in water-drops!”
Richard imagines himself as a king made of snow — a hollow, temporary imitation of a real king — standing before Bolingbroke, imagined as the sun, and simply melting into water. The image is a sustained metaphor: snow-king melted by the sun = false king dissolved by the true (or stronger) king. It also continues the water/tears imagery that runs through the scene: tears, well-water, the bucket, weeping, and now melt-water.
TLN 2181rhetorical device
“Was this face the face / That every day under his household roof / Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face / That like the sun did make beholders wink?”
Staring into the mirror, Richard parodies the Helen-of-Troy formula ('Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?') and also turns the royal sun-comparison on its head. 'Keeping' ten thousand men means feeding and maintaining a household of that size — what a great medieval king was expected to do. 'Make beholders wink' means the face was so brilliant (like the sun) that onlookers had to squint or look away. Now the mirror shows him only a man.
TLN 2189rhetorical device
“crack'd in a hundred shivers. / Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, / How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face. / The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd / The shadow of your face.”
Richard smashes the mirror and calls the broken glass 'the moral of this sport' — the lesson of this theater. Bolingbroke's cool correction is the scene's most memorable exchange: Richard thinks his sorrow has destroyed his face, but Bolingbroke says it is only the shadow (the reflection in the glass) that was destroyed. 'Shadow' is the Elizabethan word for a reflected image or a theatrical representation — not the real thing. Bolingbroke implies that Richard's grief is performed, not real.
TLN 2219wordplay
“convey? conveyers are you all, / That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.”
Richard bitterly puns on 'convey': its polite meaning is 'escort' (Bolingbroke's usage — 'convey him to the Tower'), but its slang meaning in Elizabethan English was 'to steal' or 'to pilfer' (a 'conveyer' was a thief). Richard's parting shot accuses every person in the room of being a common thief who has pilfered the crown.
TLN 2230historical topical
“You shall not only take the sacrament / To bury mine intents”
The Abbot of Westminster requires Aumerle and Carlisle to swear a sacred oath — 'take the sacrament' — before he will reveal his conspiracy to restore Richard. In this context, taking the sacrament means swearing on the Eucharist (Holy Communion), the most binding oath available in a Catholic context; it sealed the conspirator to secrecy and mutual obligation. 'To bury mine intents' means to keep my plans secret.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles