Richard II (play)

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second is a play written by William Shakespeare around 1595 and based on the life of King Richard II of England. It is the first part of a tetralogy referred to by scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part I, Henry IV, Part II, and Henry V.

Act I

• Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster.
  • King Richard, scene i

• That which in mean men we entitle patience,
  Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
  • Duchess of Gloucester, scene ii

• John of Gaunt: What is six winters? they are quickly gone.
  Bolingbroke: To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
  • Scene iii

Act II

• They say, the tongues of dying men
  Enforce attention, like deep harmony:
  Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain.
  • John of Gaunt, scene i

• This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
  This other Eden, demi-paradise,
  This fortress built by Nature for herself
  Against infection and the hand of war,
  This happy breed of men, this little world,
  This precious stone set in the silver sea,
  Which serves it in the office of a wall,
  Or as a moat defensive to a house,
  Against the envy of less happier lands,
  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
  This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
  Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth.
  • John of Gaunt, scene i

Act III

• Not all the water in the rough rude sea
  Can wash the balm from an anointed king;
  The breath of worldly men cannot depose
  The deputy elected by the Lord.
  • King Richard, scene ii

• O! call back yesterday, bid time return.
  • Salisbury, scene ii

• No matter where. Of comfort no man speak:
  Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
  Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
  Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;
  Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
  And yet not so — for what can we bequeath
  Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
  Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's,
  And nothing can we call our own but death,
  And that small model of the barren earth
  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
  For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
  And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
  How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
  Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,
  Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
  All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
  That rounds the mortal temples of a king
  Keeps Death his court.
  • King Richard, scene ii

Act IV

• I am greater than a king;
  For when I was a king, my flatterers
  Were then but subjects; being now a subject,
  I have a king here to my flatterer.
  Being so great, I have no need to beg.
  • King Richard, scene i

Act V

• But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
  My fair rose wither: yet look up, behold,
  That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
  And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
  • Queen, scene i

• As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
  After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
  Are idly bent on him that enters next.
  • Duke of York, scene ii

• Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves
  That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
  Nor shall not be the last.
  • King Richard, scene v

• I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
  • King Richard, scene v

Dialogue

RICHARD II: I with some unwillingness pronounce:

The sly slow hours shall not determinate

The dateless limit of thy dear exile;

THOMAS MOWBRAY: A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege...

The language I have learn'd these forty years,

My native English, now I must forego:

And now my tongue's use is to me no more...

Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,...

Too far in years to be a pupil now:

What is thy sentence then but speechless death,

Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

• • [1]
  • Mowbray is articulating the difficulties of mastering a new language in a strange land, more so as since he is—"far in years"—i.e. 40 years old.

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External links

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second at Wikisource