Act 5, Scene 1

London. A street leading to the Tower.

[Enter the QUEEN and ladies.]
Queen Isabel
2237 This way the King will come; this is the way
2238 To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,
2239 To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
2240 Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
2241 Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
2242 Have any resting for her true King's queen.
[Enter KING RICHARD and Guard.]
Queen Isabel
2243 But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
2244 My fair rose wither; yet look up, behold,
2245 That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
2246 And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
2247 Ah! thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
2248 Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
2249 And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
2250 Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
2251 When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
King Richard II
2252 Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
2253 To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,
2254 To think our former state a happy dream;
2255 From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
2256 Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,
2257 To grim Necessity; and he and
2258 Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
2259 And cloister thee in some religious house:
2260 Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
2261 Which our profane hours here have thrown down.
Queen Isabel
2262 What! is my Richard both in shape and mind
2263 Transform'd and weaken'd! Hath Bolingbroke depos'd
2264 Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
2265 The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
2266 And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
2267 To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
2268 Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,
2269 And fawn on rage with base humility,
2270 Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
King Richard II
2271 A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,
2272 I had been still a happy king of men.
2273 Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
2274 Think I am dead, and that even here thou tak'st,
2275 As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
2276 In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire
2277 With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
2278 Of woeful ages long ago betid;
2279 And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs
2280 Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
2281 And send the hearers weeping to their beds;
2282 For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
2283 The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
2284 And in compassion weep the fire out;
2285 And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
2286 For the deposing of a rightful king.
[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.]
Earl of Northumberland
2287 My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;
2288 You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
2289 And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:
2290 With all swift speed you must away to France.
King Richard II
2291 Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
2292 The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
2293 The time shall not be many hours of age
2294 More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
2295 Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,
2296 Though he divide the realm and give thee half
2297 It is too little, helping him to all;
2298 And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way
2299 To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
2300 Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
2301 To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
2302 The love of wicked men converts to fear;
2303 That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both
2304 To worthy danger and deserved death.
Earl of Northumberland
2305 My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
2306 Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.
King Richard II
2307 Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, ye violate
2308 A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me,
2309 And then betwixt me and my married wife.
2310 Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
2311 And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.
2312 Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,
2313 Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
2314 My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
2315 She came adorned hither like sweet May,
2316 Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.
Queen Isabel
2317 And must we be divided? Must we part?
King Richard II
2318 Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
Queen Isabel
2319 Banish us both, and send the king with me.
Earl of Northumberland
2320 That were some love, but little policy.
Queen Isabel
2321 Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
King Richard II
2322 So two, together weeping, make one woe.
2323 Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
2324 Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.
2325 Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.
Queen Isabel
2326 So longest way shall have the longest moans.
King Richard II
2327 Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,
2328 And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
2329 Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
2330 Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
2331 One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
2332 Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
[They kiss.]
Queen Isabel
2333 Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part
2334 To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
[They kiss again.]
Queen Isabel
2335 So, now I have mine own again, be gone.
2336 That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
King Richard II
2337 We make woe wanton with this fond delay:
2338 Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2238historical topical
“Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower”
Queen Isabel calls the Tower of London 'Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower.' By Shakespeare's day, popular tradition held that Julius Caesar himself had built the Tower — a belief Holinshed repeats. 'Ill-erected' means built for evil purpose, foreshadowing Richard's imprisonment there.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2247classical allusion
“model where old Troy did stand”
Queen Isabel calls Richard 'the model where old Troy did stand' — Troy as a once-magnificent city now in ruins. A 'model' here means a ground-plan or outline, the shape left after a building has fallen. She is saying Richard is only the empty shell, the footprint, of his former kingly self.
TLN 2265rhetorical device
“The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw / And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage”
Queen Isabel makes a pointed comparison: even a dying lion strikes out with its paw rather than submit quietly. She is shaming Richard for accepting his fate without a fight. The lion was the emblem of English kingship on the royal coat of arms, so the comparison directly invokes his office: a king should die fighting, not mildly.
TLN 2268biblical allusion
“Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod”
To 'kiss the rod' means to accept punishment with submissive obedience. The image comes from the practice of a child kissing the rod or birch used to beat him, itself rooted in biblical teachings on correction and chastisement. Queen Isabel is accusing Richard of not merely accepting punishment but abjectly welcoming it.
TLN 2282rhetorical device
“the senseless brands will sympathize / The heavy accent of thy moving tongue, / And in compassion weep the fire out”
Richard imagines that even the fireside logs ('senseless brands' — inanimate pieces of burning wood) will feel sympathy with the Queen's weeping voice and, moved to their own grief, weep out the fire. This is pathetic fallacy: nature and inanimate objects responding emotionally to human suffering. 'Sympathize' means to share or match a feeling; 'brands' are burning sticks or logs.
TLN 2291historical topical
“thou ladder wherewithal / The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne”
Richard calls Northumberland a 'ladder' that Bolingbroke climbed to reach the throne — a tool now no longer needed. Richard then prophesies that Bolingbroke will turn on Northumberland once safely crowned, since a man who can plant an unlawful king can plant another. This is a historically accurate prediction: Northumberland did rebel against Henry IV in 1402-1403.
historical Edward III and his seven sons
TLN 2307historical topical
“Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, ye violate / A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me, / And then betwixt me and my married wife”
Richard calls his deposition and enforced separation from the Queen a 'doubly divorc'd' — two marriages broken at once. The first is the sacred marriage between a king and his crown (a real legal-theological concept in Tudor England). The second is his marriage to Queen Isabel. Being stripped of the crown and then of his wife are two violations of the same kind.
historical The king's two bodies
TLN 2315cultural context
“She came adorned hither like sweet May, / Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day”
Richard contrasts two calendar moments to measure his wife's altered fortunes. She arrived in England like May Day — the feast of spring, warmth, and celebration. She is being sent back like All Hallows (November 1) or the winter solstice (around December 21, the shortest day of the year). The contrast is May's garlands and bonfires against the cold, dark, dying end of the year.
TLN 2337wordplay
“We make woe wanton with this fond delay”
'Wanton' here does not mean sexual looseness. It means capricious, undisciplined, self-indulgent -- spending sorrow recklessly, letting grief run freely when the moment calls for restraint. 'Fond' means foolish. Richard is saying: by lingering over our goodbyes, we are turning grief into a plaything rather than bearing it with dignity.