bushy: the wind sits fair for news to go for ireland, but none returns. for us to levy power proportionable to the enemy is all unpossible. besides, our nearness to the king in love is near the hate of those love not the king. and that's the wavering commons, for their love lies in their purses; and whoso empties them, by so much fills their hearts with deadly hate. wherein the king stands generally condemned. if judgment lie in them, then so do we, because we ever have been near the king. well, i will for refuge straight to bristol castle. thither will i with you, will you go along with us? no, i will to wales to rouse the troops. the men there will stay loyal to his majesty. farewell. if heart's presages be not vain, we three here part that ne'er shall meet again. that's as york thrives to beat back bolingbroke. alas, poor duke! the task he undertakes is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry. where one on his side fights, thousands will fly. farewell at once -- for once, for all, and ever. well, we may meet again. i fear me, never. bolingbroke: how far is it, my lord, to berkeley now? northumberland: believe me, noble lord, i am a stranger here. these high wild hills and rough uneven ways draw out our miles and make them wearisome. and yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, making the hard way sweet and delectable. of much less value is my company than your good words. [horse whinnies] but who comes here? my noble uncle! you show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee, whose duty is deceivable and false. my gracious uncle -- tut, tut! you grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle. why have those banished and forbidden legs dared once to touch a dust of england's ground? but then, more why -- why have they dared to march so many miles upon her peaceful bosom, frighting her pale-faced villages with war and ostentation of despised arms? com'st thou because the anointed king is hence? why, foolish boy, the king is left behind, and in my loyal bosom lies his power. were i but now the lord of such hot youth as when brave gaunt, thy father, and myself rescued the black prince, that young mars of men, from forth the ranks of many thousand french, o, then how quickly should this arm of mine, chastise thee and minister correction to thy fault! my gracious uncle, let me know my fault. on what condition stands it and wherein? even in condition of the worst degree, in gross rebellion and detested treason. thou art a banished man, and here art come, before the expiration of thy time, in braving arms against thy sovereign. bolingbroke: as i was banished, i was banished hereford; but as i come, i come for lancaster. and noble uncle, i beseech your grace, look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye. you are my father, for methinks in you i see old gaunt alive. o then, my father, will you permit that i shall stand condemned a wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties plucked from my arms perforce and given away to upstart unthrifts? wherefore was i born? if that my cousin king be king of england, it must be granted i am duke of lancaster. you have a son, aumerle, my noble cousin. had you first died and he been thus trod down, he would have found his uncle gaunt a father to rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay. what would you have me do? i am a subject, and i challenge law. attorneys are denied me, and therefore, personally i lay my claim to my inheritance of free descent. the noble duke hath been much abused. it stands your grace upon to do him right. base men by his endowments are made great. my lords of england, let me tell you this: i have had feelings of my cousin's wrongs and laboured all i could to do him right. but in this kind to come - in braving arms be his own carver, and cut out his way to find out right with wrong -- it may not be. and you that do abet him in this kind cherish rebellion and are rebels all. northumberland: the noble duke hath sworn his coming is but for his own... and for the right of that we are all strongly sworn to give him aid. and let him never see joy that breaks that oath! well, well... [chuckles] i see the issue of these arms. i cannot mend it, i must needs confess, because my power is weak and all ill-left; but if i could, by him that gave me life, i would attach you all and make you stoop unto the sovereign mercy of the king. but since i cannot, be it known unto you i do remain as neuter. so, fare you well. but we must win your grace to go with us to my father's seat to see those lands i must again call mine. nor friends nor foes to me welcome you are. things past redress are now with me past care. my lord, we have stayed ten days, and hardly kept our countrymen together, and yet we hear no tidings from the king. therefore we will disperse ourselves. farewell. stay yet another day, thou trusty welshman. the king reposeth all his confidence in thee. 'tis thought the king is dead. we will not stay. the bay-trees in our country are all withered, and meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; the pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, and lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change; rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap, the one in fear to lose what they enjoy, the other to enjoy by rage and war. these signs forerun the death or fall of kings. farewell. our countrymen are gone and fled, as well assured richard their king is dead. ah, richard, with the eyes of heavy mind i see thy glory like a shooting star fall to the base earth from the firmament. thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west, witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest. the friends are fled to wait upon thy foes, and crossly to thy good all fortune goes. [man whimpering] bolingbroke: bushy and green, i will not vex your souls -- since presently your souls must part your bodies -- with too much urging your pernicious lives, for 'twere no charity; yet to wash your blood from off my hands, here in the view of men i will unfold some causes of your deaths: you have misled a prince, a royal king, a happy gentleman in blood and lineaments, by you unhappied and disfigured clean. you have in manner with your sinful hours made a divorce betwixt his queen and him, broke the possession of a royal bed and stained the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks with tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs. myself, a prince by fortune of my birth, near to the king in blood, and near in love till you did make him misinterpret me, have stooped my neck under your injuries and sighed my english breath in foreign clouds, eating the bitter bread of banishment, whilst you have fed upon my signories, disparked my parks and felled my forest woods, from my own window torn my household coat, raised out my imprese, leaving me no sign save men's opinions and my living blood to show the world i am a gentleman. this and much more, much more than twice all this, condemns you to the death. see them delivered over to execution and the hand of death. bushy: more welcome is the stroke of death to me than bolingbroke to england. lords! farewell. [green struggling] my only comfort is that heaven will take our souls and plague injustice with the pains of hell. bolingbroke: come lords, away. aumerle: how brooks you grace the air after your late tossing on the breaking seas? richard: needs must i like it well. i weep for joy to stand upon my kingdom once again. dear earth, i do salute thee with my hand, though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs. as a long-parted mother with her child plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting, so weeping, smiling, greet i thee, my earth, and do thee favours with my royal hands. feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth, nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense, but let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom and heavy-gaited toads lie in their way, doing annoyance to the treacherous feet that with usurping steps do trample thee. yield stinging nettles to mine enemies; and when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, guard it i pray thee, with a lurking adder. mock not my senseless conjuration, lords. this earth shall have a feeling, and these stones prove armed soldiers, ere her native king shall falter under foul rebellion's arms. fear not, my lord. that power that made you king hath power to keep you king in spite of all. aumerle: he means, my lord, that we are too remiss, whilst bolingbroke, through our security, grows strong and great in substance and in power. discomfortable cousin, knowst thou not that when the searching eye of heaven is hid, behind the globe that lights the lower world, then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen but when from over this terrestrial ball he fires the proud tops of the eastern pines and darts his light through every guilty hole, then murders, treasons and detested sins, stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves? so, when this thief, this traitor, bolingbroke, who all the while hath revelled in the night whilst we were wandering with the antipodes, shall see us rising in our throne, the east, his treasons will sit blushing in his face, not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off from an anointed king; for every man that bolingbroke hath pressed to lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, god for his richard hath in heavenly pay a glorious angel. then, if angels fight, weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right. welcome, my lord. how far off lies your power? nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord, than this weak arm. discomfort guides my tongue and bids me speak of nothing but despair. one day too late, i fear me, noble lord, hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. o, call back yesterday, bid time return, and thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men! today, today, unhappy day, too late, o'er throws thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state; for all the welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, are gone to bolingbroke, dispersed, fled. comfort, my liege. why looks thou so pale? richard: but now the blood of twenty thousand men did triumph in my face, and they are fled; and till such blood thither come again, have i not reason to look pale and dead? all souls that will be safe fly from my side, for time hath set a blot upon my pride. comfort, my liege. remember who you are. i had forgot myself. [both laugh] am i not king? is not the king's name twenty thousand names? [laughs] arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes at thy great glory. look not to the ground, ye favourites of a king. are we not high? high be our thoughts! i know my uncle york hath power enough to serve our turn. but who comes here? scroop: more health and happiness betide my liege than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him. mine ear is open and my heart prepared. the worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold. say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care; and what loss is it to be rid of care? strives bolingbroke to be as great as we? greater he shall not be. revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend. they break their faith to god as well as us. cry woe, destruction, ruin and decay. the worst is death, and death will have his day. scroop: glad am i that your highness is so armed to bear the tidings of calamity. like an unseasonable stormy day, so high above his limits swells the rage of bolingbroke, covering your fearful land with hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel. whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices strive to speak big and clap their female joints in stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown; both young and old rebel, and all goes worse than i have power to tell. what is become of bushy? where is green? if we prevail, their heads shall pay for it! i warrant they have made peace with bolingbroke. peace have they made with him indeed, my lord. o villains! vipers! damned without redemption! dogs easily won to fawn on any man! snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart! judases, each one, worse than judas! would they make peace? terrible hell make war upon their spotted souls for this! again uncurse their souls. their peace is made with heads, and not with hands. are bushy and green dead? ay, both of them at lancaster lost their heads. where is the duke my father with his power? 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 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 deposed, some slain in war, some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed all murdered. 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 feared and kill with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit, as if this flesh which walls about our life were brass impregnable; and humoured 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 with bread like you... feel want, taste grief, need friends. subjected thus, how can you say to me i am a king? my lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes, but presently prevent the ways to wail. aumerle: my father hath a power. enquire of him, and learn to make a body of a limb. thou chid'st me well. [laughs] proud bolingbroke, i come to change blows with thee for our day of doom. an easy task it is to win our own. say, scroop, where lies our uncle with his power? speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour. men judge by the complexion of the sky the state and inclination of the day; so may you by my dull and heavy eye. my tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. i play the torturer, by small and small to lengthen out the worst that must be spoken: your uncle york is joined with bolingbroke, and all your northern castles yielded up, and all your southern gentlemen in arms upon his party. thou hast said enough. beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth of that sweet way i was in to despair. what say you now?! what comfort have we now?! by heaven, i'll hate him everlastingly that bids me be of comfort any more. go to flint castle. there i'll pine away. a king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey. aumerle: my lord, one word. richard: he does me double wrong that wounds me with the flattees of his tongue. discharge my followers. let them hence away, from richard's night to bolingbroke's fair day. coming up, richard returns to england only to discover that bolingbroke has crowned himself king henry iv. with the crown in question and rebellion stirring from all corners, it's a power struggle as only shakespeare can tell it. richard: no hand of blood and bone can grip the sacred handle of our sceptre unless he do profane, steal, or usurp! "the hollow crown: richard ii" continues in a moment. "the hollow crown: richard ii" anncr: what if television could sweep us away to another time and place? carson: very nice milady anncr: why can't our favorite characters step off the page? rochester: that's the jane i want to marry. anncr: who says tv can't be as brilliant as holmes... watson: sherlock! ...or as bold as macbeth? witches: thou shalt be king! anncr: and what if television could take us from the gilded age... ...to the great war? soldier: hold the line! [explosion] anncr: from the heat of the chase... [tires squeal] ...to the heart of a queen? no one tells stories like pbs. tales as timeless as the classics that inspired them. oliver: please sir... anncr: give to your pbs station and help bring stories like these to life now and for generations to come. these are: your parents. and these are their parents. before that, it gets a little fuzzy. that's where we come in. our genealogy experts are crossing the country. woman: that's amazing! announcer: solving the mysteries... woman: oh, gosh! announcer: ...of family histories. woman: yes! announcer: don't miss the all-new genealogy roadshow. only on pbs. pbs takes flight, with a breathtaking bird's-eye view... [bird calls] takes a revealing look at john f. kennedy... he had enormous charm, a great sense of humor, he was a real star. and takes a turn on the dance floor...[laughter] with a tale of true love lost... how are you? and found again. this fall... there's one place that can take you anyplace... look at that! pbs. "the hollow crown: richard ii." "great performances" is brought to you by... major funding for this program is provided by... and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. bolingbroke: what, will not this castle yield? ross: the castle royally is manned, my lord, against thy entrance. royally? why? it contains no king? yes, my good lord, it doth contain a king. king richard lies within the limits of yon lime and stone, and with him are the lord aumerle, bagot, sir stephen scroop, besides a clergyman of holy reverence -- who, i cannot learn. o, belike it is the bishop of carlisle. noble lord, go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle; through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley into his ruined ears, and thus deliver: henry bolingbroke on both his knees doth kiss king richard's hand and sends allegiance and true faith of heart to his most royal person, hither come even at his feet to lay my arms and power, provided that my banishment repealed and lands restored again be freely granted. if not, i'll use the advantage of my power and lay the summer's dust with showers of blood rained from the wounds of slaughtered englishmen -- the which how far off from the mind of bolingbroke it is such crimson tempest should bedrench the fresh green lap of fair king richard's land, my stooping duty tenderly shall show. go signify as much. methinks king richard and myself should meet with no less terror than the elements of fire and water, when their thundering shock at meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven. be he the fire, i'll be the yielding water; the rage be his, whilst on the earth i rain my waters -- on the earth and not on him. march on... and mark king richard how he looks. we are amazed; and thus long have we stood to watch the fearful bending of thy knee, because we thought ourself thy lawful king: and if we be, how dare thy joints forget to pay their awful duty to our presence? no hand of blood and bone can grip the sacred handle of our sceptre, unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. and though you think that all, as you have done, have torn their souls by turning them from us, and we are barren and bereft of friends; yet know, my master, god omnipotent, is mustering in his clouds on our behalf armies of pestilence; and they shall strike your children yet unborn and unbegot, that lift your vassal hands against my head and threat the glory of my precious crown. tell bolingbroke. for yond methinks he stands. that every stride he makes upon my land is dangerous treason: he is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war; but ere the crown he looks for live in peace, ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons shall ill become the flower of england's face, change the complexion of her maid-pale peace to scarlet indignation and bedew her pastures' grass with faithful english blood. the king of heaven forbid our lord the king should so with civil and uncivil arms be rushed upon! thy thrice noble cousin harry bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand; and by the honourable tomb he swears, that stands upon your royal grandsire's bones, and by the buried hand of warlike gaunt, and by the worth and honour of himself, his coming hither hath no further scope than for his lineal royalties. northumberland, say thus the king returns: his noble cousin is right welcome hither; and all the number of his fair demands shall be accomplished without contradiction. we do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, to look so poorly and to speak so fair? shall we call back northumberland, and send defiance to the traitor, and so die? no, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words till time lend friends and friends their helpful swords. o god, o god! that e'er this tongue of mine, that laid the sentence of dread banishment on yon proud man, should take it off again with words of sooth! o that i were as great as is my grief, or lesser than my name! or that i could forget what i have been, or not remember what i must be now! swell'st thou, proud heart? i'll give thee scope to beat, since foes have scope to beat both thee and me. northumberland comes back from bolingbroke. what must the king do now? must he submit? the king shall do it: must he be deposed? the king shall be contented: must he lose the name of king? in god's name, let it go: i'll give my jewels for a set of beads, my gorgeous palace for a hermitage, my figured goblets for a dish of wood, my subjects for a pair of carved saints and my large kingdom for a little grave, a little, little grave, an obscure grave; or i'll be buried in the king's highway, some way of common trade, where subjects' feet may hourly trample on their sovereign's head; for on my heart they tread now whilst i live; and buried once, why not upon my head? aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin! we'll make foul weather with despised tears; our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn, and make a dearth in this revolting land. or shall we play the wantons with our woes, and make some pretty match with shedding tears? as thus, to drop them still upon one place, till they have fretted us a pair of graves within the earth; and, therein laid, there lies two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes. would not this ill do well? well, well, i see i talk but idly, and you laugh at me. most mighty prince, my lord northumberland, what says king bolingbroke? northumberland: my lord, he doth attend to speak with you; may it please you to come down. down, down i come; like a glistering phaethon, wanting the manage of unruly jades. in the base court? base court, where kings grow base, to come at traitors' calls and do them grace. in the base court? come down? down, court! down, king! for night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing. stand all apart, and show fair duty to his majesty. my gracious lord. fair cousin, you debase your princely knee to make the base earth proud with kissing it: me rather had my heart might feel your love than my unpleased eye see your courtesy. up, cousin, up... your heart is up, i know, thus high at least, although your knee be low. my gracious lord, i come but for mine own. richard: your own is yours, and i am yours, and all. so far be mine, my most redoubted lord, as my true service shall deserve your love. well you deserve: they well deserve to have, that know the strong'st and the surest way to get! [york sobbing] uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes; tears show their love, but want their remedies. cousin, i am too young to be your father, though you are old enough to be my heir. what you will have, i'll give, and willing too; for do we must what force will have us do. [sighs] set on towards london, cousin, is it so? yea, my good lord. richard: then i must not say no. queen: what sport shall we devise here in this garden, to drive away the heavy thought of care? lady: madam, we'll dance. queen: my legs can keep no measure in delight, when my poor heart no measure keeps in grief: therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport. madam, we'll tell tales. of sorrow or of joy? of either, madam. of neither, girl. madam, i'll sing. 'tis well that thou hast cause but thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep. i could weep, madam, would it do you good. gardener: go thou, and like an executioner, cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, that look too lofty in our commonwealth: all must be even in our government. why should we keep law and form and due proportion, when our sea-walled garden, the whole land, is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruined, her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs swarming with caterpillars? gardener: hold thy peace: he that hath suffered this disordered spring hath now himself met with the fall of leaf: the weeds which his broad spreading leaves did shelter, that seemed in eating him to hold him up, are plucked up root and all by bolingbroke, i mean the favourites of the king, bushy and green. -what, are they dead? -they are; and bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful king. o, what pity is it that he had not so trimmed and dressed his land as we this garden! we at time of year do wound the bark, lest, being over-proud in sap and blood, it confound itself: had he done so to great and growing men, they might have lived to bear and he to taste their fruits of duty. assistant: what, think you then the king shall be deposed? gardener: depressed he is already, and deposed he will be. thou! how dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? what eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee to make a second fall of cursed man? why dost thou say king richard is deposed? darest, thou... thou little better thing than earth, divine his downfall? speak, thou wretch. gardener: pardon me, madam: little joy have i to breathe this news; yet what i say is true. king richard, he is in the mighty hold of bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weighed: in your lord's scale is nothing but himself, but in the balance of great bolingbroke, besides himself, are all the english peers, and with that odds he weighs king richard down. post you to london, and you will find it so; i speak no more than every man doth know. queen: and am i last that knows it? come, lady, go, to meet at london, london's king in woe. was i born to this, that my sad look should grace the triumph of great bolingbroke? gardener, for telling me these news of woe, pray god the plants thou graft'st may never grow. poor queen! great duke of lancaster, i come to thee from plume-plucked richard; who with willing soul adopts thee heir ascend his throne, descending now from him; and long live henry, fourth of that name! in god's name... i'll ascend the regal throne. carlisle: marry. god forbid! would god that any in this noble presence were enough noble to be upright judge of noble richard! what subject can give sentence on his king? and who sits here that is not richard's subject? and shall the figure of god's majesty, his captain, steward, deputy-elect, anointed, crowned, planted many years, be judged by subject and inferior breath, and he himself not present? o, forfend it, god, that in a christian climate souls refined should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed! i speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, stirred up by god, thus boldly for his king: my lord of hereford here, whom you call king, is a foul traitor to proud hereford's king: and if you crown him, let me prophesy: the blood of english shall manure the ground, and future ages groan for this foul act; peace shall go sleep with turks and infidels, and in this seat of peace tumultuous wars shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound; disorder, horror, fear and mutiny shall here inhabit, and this land be called the field of golgotha and dead men's skulls. o, if you raise this house against this house, it will the woe fullest division prove that ever fell upon this cursed earth! well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains, of capital treason we arrest you here. my lord of westminster, be it your charge to keep him safely till his day of trial. fetch hither richard, that in common view he may surrender. so we shall proceed without suspicion. alack... why am i sent for to a king... before i have shook off the regal thoughts wherewith i reigned? i hardly yet have learned to insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs: give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me to this submission. [richard sobbing] yet i well remember the favours of these men: were they not mine? 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. god save the king! will no man say amen? [chuckles] am i both priest and clerk? well then, amen. god save the king! although i be not he; and yet, amen, if heaven do think him me. to do what service am i sent for hither? to do that office of thine own good will which tired majesty did make thee offer, the resignation of thy state and crown to henry bolingbroke. give me the crown. here, cousin, seize the crown. [lilting] here cousin. on this side my hand, and on that side yours. 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: that bucket down and full of tears am i, drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high. i thought you had been willing to resign. my crown i am; but still my griefs are mine. part of your cares you give me with your crown. your cares set up do not pluck my cares down. 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. are you contented to resign the crown? ay.