Richard II (4 page)
Authors: William Shakespeare
Entrances and Exits
are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. “[
and Attendants
]”).
Exit
is sometimes silently normalized to
Exeunt
and
Manet
anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.
Editorial Stage Directions
such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters’ position on the gallery stage are only used sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as
directorial
interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing them in the right margin in a different typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an
Aside?
(often a line may be equally effective as an aside or as a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a
may exit
or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.
Explanatory Notes
explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to non-standard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.
Textual Notes
at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, with “Q” indicating that it derives from the First Quarto of 1597, “F” from the First Folio of 1623, “F2” a correction introduced in the Second Folio of 1632, and “Ed” from the subsequent editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. We have also included noteworthy rejected readings, for example Act 5 Scene 5 line 31: “
5.5.31 prison
= F. Q = person.” This indicates that we have preferred the Folio reading “prison” but noted the frequently adopted and interestingly different Quarto reading “person.”
MAJOR PARTS
(
with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage
): King Richard II (27%/98/9), Henry Bullingbrook (15%/90/8), Duke of York (10%/54/8), John of Gaunt (7%/28/4), Northumberland (5%/38/6), Mowbray (5%/13/2), Queen (4%/25/4), Aumerle (3%/38/7), Duchess of York (3%/28/2), Bishop of Carlisle (2%/6/2), Duchess of Gloucester (2%/4/1), Gardener (2%/6/1).
LINGUISTIC MEDIUM:
100% verse, with high proportion of rhyme.
DATE:
1595–96. Registered for publication August 1597. Written after Samuel Daniel’s
First Four Books of the Civil Wars
(registered October 1594, apparently published 1595); perhaps postdates renowned Accession Day tilts of November 1595. Described in February 1601 as “old and long out of use.”
SOURCES:
Primary source is the account of the last two years of Richard’s reign in Raphael Holinshed’s
Chronicles
(1587 edition), supplemented—especially for various details in the final act—by Samuel Daniel’s
First Four Books of the Civil Wars Between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York
(1594–95). Christopher Marlowe’s
Edward II
(1592?) was a major dramatic influence, both structurally (the fall of a weak king and the rise of his rival) and thematically (flatterers, Irish wars, a marginalized queen). Some scholars also detect the influence of the anonymous chronicle play of
Woodstock
: as well as verbal parallels, there are resemblances between Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt and this play’s Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, but recent scholarship suggests that Shakespeare’s play precedes
Woodstock
, not vice versa. The garden scene is apparently
without source, though the comparison between a disordered state and an overgrown garden was traditional.
TEXT:
First printed in Quarto in 1597, with text deriving from Shakespeare’s working manuscript or a transcription of it; the deposition scene was, however, omitted for reasons of censorship. The First Quarto was reprinted several times (Second and Third Quartos, 1598; Fourth Quarto, 1608; Fifth Quarto, 1615). These later Quartos correct a few obvious errors in the First Quarto, but introduce many misprints. The Second Quarto was one of the first printed play texts to include Shakespeare’s name on the title page. The Fourth Quarto printed the deposition sequence for the first time, but in a defective text. The Folio text seems to have been printed from the Third Quarto (though a few editors argue that it was based on either the Fifth Quarto or a defective copy of the Third Quarto with the missing final leaves made up from the Fifth Quarto), but the Folio editor also consulted a manuscript closely related to theatrical production, perhaps the company “playbook.” The Folio restored many First Quarto readings that had been corrupted in later Quartos, printed a good text of the deposition scene for the first time, added and systematized stage directions, made some alterations to staging for the sake of clarification, introduced act divisions, replaced “God” with “heaven” in accordance with the 1606 Act to Restrain Abuses, made a few verbal alterations, and omitted about fifty lines (these mostly seem to be deliberate theatrical cuts, though a clutch of individual lines might have been dropped inadvertently). Most modern editions are based on the First Quarto, with the deposition scene, stage directions, and many individual readings taken from the Folio. Our text resists this sort of conflation and is based on Folio, with the correction of manifest printers’ errors. The Quarto-only passages are given at the end of the play.
GENEALOGY:
See
William Shakespeare: Complete Works,
pp. 2476–7.
LIST OF PARTS
KING RICHARD
II of England
QUEEN
, Richard’s wife
John of
GAUNT
, Duke of Lancaster, Richard’s uncle
Henry
BULLINGBROOK
, Duke of Hereford, John of Gaunt’s son, later King Henry IV
Duke of
YORK
, Edmund of Langley, Richard’s uncle
DUCHESS OF YORK
, his wife
Duke of
AUMERLE
, their son and Earl of Rutland
DUCHESS
of Gloucester, widow of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (Richard’s uncle)
Thomas
MOWBRAY
, Duke of Norfolk
Earl of
SALISBURY
Duke of
SURREY
Lord
BERKELEY
Bishop of
CARLISLE
ABBOT
of Westminster
Sir Stephen
SCROOP
BUSHY
BAGOT
GREEN
Earl of
NORTHUMBERLAND
Harry
PERCY
, Northumberland’s son
Lord
ROSS
Lord
WILLOUGHBY
Lord
FITZWATERS
Sir Piers of
EXTON
LORD
LORD MARSHAL
TWO HERALDS
CAPTAIN
of the Welsh army
TWO LADIES
attending the
Queen
GARDENER
SERVANT
to the Gardener
SERVANT
to York
KEEPER
of the prison at Pomfret Castle
TWO SERVANTS
to Exton
GROOM
of Richard’s stable
Various Soldiers, Attendants, Lords
QUEEN
unnamed on stage; the historical Richard’s wife at the end of his reign was Isabel of Valois, a child; in portraying an adult queen and a close marriage, the play seems to conflate Isabel with Richard’s deceased first wife, Anne of Bohemia.
running scene 1
Location:
the court of King Richard II
Enter King Richard,
John of Gaunt
, with other Nobles and Attendants
KING RICHARD
Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
Hast thou
2
according to thy oath and band
Brought hither
Henry Hereford
3
thy bold son,
Here to make good the
boist’rous
4
late appeal,
Which then
our
5
leisure would not let us hear,
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
GAUNT
I have, my
liege
7
.
KING RICHARD
Tell me, moreover, hast thou
sounded
8
him,
If he appeal the duke
on ancient
9
malice,
Or worthily, as a good subject should,
On some known
ground
11
of treachery in him?
GAUNT
As near as I could
sift
12
him on that argument,
On some
apparent
13
danger seen in him
Aimed at your highness, no
inveterate
14
malice.
KING RICHARD
Then call them to our presence.
[
Exit an Attendant
]
Face to face,
And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
Th’accuser and the accusèd freely speak;
High-stomached
18
are they both, and full of ire,
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
Enter Bullingbrook and Mowbray
BULLINGBROOK
Many years of happy days befall
My
gracious
21
sovereign, my most loving liege!
MOWBRAY
Each day
still
22
better other’s happiness
Until the heavens, envying earth’s good
hap
23
,
Add an
immortal title
24
to your crown!
KING RICHARD
We thank you both. Yet one
but
25
flatters us,
As
well appeareth
26
by the cause you come,
Namely, to
appeal
27
each other of high treason.
Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou
object
28
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
BULLINGBROOK
First, heaven be the
record
30
to my speech!
In the devotion of a subject’s love,
Tend’ring
32
the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other
misbegotten
33
hate,
Come I
appellant
34
to this princely presence.
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And
mark
36
my greeting well, for what I speak
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul
answer
38
it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor and a
miscreant
39
;
Too
good
40
to be so and too bad to live,
Since the more fair and
crystal
41
is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to
aggravate
43
the note,
With a foul traitor’s name stuff I thy throat;
And wish — so please my sovereign —
ere
45
I move,
What my tongue speaks my
right
46
drawn sword may prove.
MOWBRAY
Let not my
cold
47
words here accuse my zeal:
’Tis not the
trial
48
of a woman’s war,
The bitter clamour of two
eager
49
tongues,
Can arbitrate
50
this cause betwixt us twain.
The
blood
51
is hot that must be cooled for this.
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
As to be hushed and nought at all to say.
First, the
fair reverence of
54
your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech,
Which
else
56
would post until it had returned
These terms of treason doubly down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood’s royalty
58
,
And
let
59
him be no kinsman to my liege,
I do
defy
60
him, and I spit at him,
Call him a slanderous coward and a villain,
Which to maintain I would allow him
odds
62
,
And
meet
63
him, were I tied to run afoot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground
inhabitable
65
Wherever Englishman
durst
66
set his foot.
Meantime, let
this
67
defend my loyalty:
By all my hopes most falsely doth he lie.
BULLINGBROOK
Pale trembling coward, there I throw my
gage
69
,
Throws down his gage
Disclaiming here the kindred of a king,
And lay aside my high blood’s royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to
except
72
.
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honour’s
pawn
74
, then stoop.
By that and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I
make good
76
against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoken, or
thou canst devise
77
.
MOWBRAY
I take it up, and by that sword I swear
Takes up gage
Which
gently
79
laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
I’ll answer thee
in any fair degree
80
,
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
And when I mount, alive may I not
light
82
,
If I be traitor or
unjustly
83
fight!
KING RICHARD
What doth our cousin
lay to Mowbray’s charge
84
?
It must be great that can
inherit us
85
So much as of a thought of ill in him.
BULLINGBROOK
Look
87
what I said: my life shall prove it true,
That Mowbray hath received eight thousand
nobles
88
In name of
lendings
89
for your highness’ soldiers,
The which he hath detained for
lewd
90
employments,
Like a false traitor and
injurious
91
villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,
Or
93
here or elsewhere to the furthest verge
That ever was surveyed by English eye,
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
Complotted
96
and contrivèd in this land
Fetched
97
from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the
Duke of Gloucester
100
’s death,
Suggest
101
his soon-believing adversaries,
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluiced out
103
his innocent soul through streams of blood:
Which blood, like
sacrificing
104
Abel’s, cries
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth
To me for justice and rough
chastisement
106
.
And by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
KING RICHARD
How high a
pitch
109
his resolution soars!
Thomas of Norfolk, what sayest thou to this?
MOWBRAY
O, let my sovereign turn away his face
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this
slander of
113
his blood,
How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
KING RICHARD
Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears.
Were he my brother, nay, our kingdom’s heir,
As he is but my father’s brother’s son,
Now, by
my sceptre’s awe
118
, I make a vow,
Such
neighbour
119
nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor
partialize
120
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou.
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
MOWBRAY
Then, Bullingbrook, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
Three parts of that
receipt
126
I had for Calais
Disbursed I duly to his highness’ soldiers;
The other part reserved I by consent,
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
Upon remainder of a dear account
130
,
Since last I went to France to
fetch
131
his queen.
Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester’s death,
I slew him not; but to mine own disgrace
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
For you, my noble
lord of Lancaster
135
,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once I did lay an ambush for your life —
A
trespass
138
that doth vex my grievèd soul.
But ere I last received the sacrament
I did confess it, and
exactly
140
begged
Your grace’s pardon, and I hope I had it.
This is my fault. As for the rest
appealed
142
,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
A
recreant
144
and most degenerate traitor
Which
145
in myself I boldly will defend,
And
interchangeably
146
hurl down my gage
Throws down his gage
Upon this
overweening
147
traitor’s foot,
To prove myself a loyal gentleman
Even in
149
the best blood chambered in his bosom.
In haste whereof
150
, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.
KING RICHARD
Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me:
Let’s
purge
153
this choler without letting blood.
This we prescribe, though no physician:
Deep malice makes too deep incision.
Forget, forgive,
conclude
156
and be agreed:
Our
doctors
157
say this is no time to bleed.
Good uncle, let this end where it begun:
We’ll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
GAUNT
To be a make-peace shall
become
160
my age:
Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk’s gage.
KING RICHARD
And, Norfolk, throw down his.
GAUNT
When, Harry, when?
Obedience bids I should not bid again.
KING RICHARD
Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no
boot
164
.
MOWBRAY
Myself I throw,
dread
165
sovereign, at thy foot.
Kneels
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:
The one my duty owes, but my
fair name
167
,
Despite of death that lives upon my grave,
To dark dishonour’s use thou shalt not have.
I am disgraced,
impeached
170
and baffled here,
Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear,
The which no
balm
172
can cure but his heart-blood
Which breathed this poison.
KING RICHARD
Rage must be withstood.
Give me his gage.
Lions make leopards
175
tame.
MOWBRAY
Yea, but not change his
spots
176
. Take but my shame,
And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation: that
away
179
,
Men are
but gilded
180
loam or painted clay.
A jewel in a
ten-times-barred-up
181
chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
Mine honour is my life; both grow
in one
183
:
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me
try
185
.
In that I live and for that will I die.
KING RICHARD
Cousin, throw down your gage. Do you begin.
BULLINGBROOK
O, heaven defend my soul from such foul sin!
Shall I seem
crest-fall’n
189
in my father’s sight?
Or with pale beggar-fear
impeach my height
190
Before this
out-dared
191
dastard? Ere my tongue
Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong,
Or sound so base a
parle
193
, my teeth shall tear
The slavish
motive
194
of recanting fear,
And spit it bleeding in
his
195
high disgrace,
Where shame doth
harbour
196
, even in Mowbray’s face.