Aumerle. Where is the duke my father, with his power?
K. Richard. 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 in 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 heaven’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 dispossess’d;
Some poison’d
by their wives, some sleeping kili’d;
All murder’d:—for
within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal
temples of a king,
Keeps death his court:
and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state,
and grinning at his pomp!
Allowing him a breath,
a little scene
To monarchize, be fear’d,
and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self
and vain conceit—
As if this flesh, which
walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable;
and, humour’d thus,
Comes at the last, and,
with a little pin,
Bores through his castle
wall, and—farewell king!
Cover your heads, and
mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence;
throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and
ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook
me all this while:
I live on bread like
you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends, like you;
subjected thus,
How can you say to me
I am a king?
There is as little sincerity afterwards in his affected resignation to his fate, as there is fortitude in this exaggerated picture of his misfortunes before they have happened.
When Northumberland comes back with the message from Bolingbroke, he exclaims, anticipating the result,—
What must the king do
now? Must he submit?
The king shall do it:
must he be depos’d?
The king shall be contented:
must he lose
The name of king?
O’ God’s name let it go.
I’ll give my jewels
for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for
a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an
almsman’s gown,
My figur’d goblets
for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer’s
walking staff,
My subjects for a pair
of carved saints,
And my large kingdom
for a little grave—
A little, little grave,
an obscure grave.
How differently is all this expressed in King Henry’s soliloquy, during the battle with Edward’s party: