Queen.
This way the King will come: this is the way
To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tow'r,
To whose flint bosom, my condemned lord
Is doom'd a prisoner, by proud Bolingbroke.
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
Have any resting for her true King's Queen. Enter King Richard and Guards.
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.
O thou the model where old Troy did stand, [To K. Rich.
Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
And not King Richard; thou most beauteous Inn,
Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
When triumph is become an ale-house guest?

K. Rich.
Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream,
From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shews us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim Necessity; and he and I
Will keep a league till death. Hye thee to France,

And cloister thee in some religious house;
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.

Queen.
How, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform'd and weak? hath Bolingbroke depos'd
Thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The Lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpow'rd: and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a Lion and a King of beasts?

K. Rich.
A King of beasts indeed; if ought but beasts,
I had been still a happy King of men.
Good, † ^notesometime Queen, prepare thee hence for France;
Think I am dead, and that ev'n here thou tak'st,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.
In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages, long ago betide:
And ere thou bid good-night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,
And send the hearers weeping to their beds.* ^note

Next section