1596 KING RICHARD THE SECOND
Page: 56

KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being
short,
And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part
To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
So, now I have mine own again, be gone.
That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.
Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. [Exeunt]




SCENE 2
The DUKE OF YORK's palace

[Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS]

DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
When weeping made you break the story off,
Of our two cousins' coming into London.
YORK. Where did I leave?
DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,
Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops
Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.
YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,
With slow but stately pace kept on his course,
Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls
With painted imagery had said at once
'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'
Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,
Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.
DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?
YORK. 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,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'