The life and death of King Richard the Second
Page: 39

And what I want, it bootes not to complaine

La. Madame, Ile sing

Qu. 'Tis well that thou hast cause:
But thou should'st please me better, would'st thou weepe

La. I could weepe, Madame, would it doe you good

Qu. And I could sing, would weeping doe me good,
And neuer borrow any Teare of thee.
Enter a Gardiner, and two Seruants.

But stay, here comes the Gardiners,
Let's step into the shadow of these Trees.
My wretchednesse, vnto a Rowe of Pinnes,
They'le talke of State: for euery one doth so,
Against a Change; Woe is fore-runne with Woe

Gard. Goe binde thou vp yond dangling Apricocks,
Which like vnruly Children, make their Syre
Stoupe with oppression of their prodigall weight:
Giue some supportance to the bending twigges.
Goe thou, and like an Executioner
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprayes,
That looke too loftie in our Common-wealth:
All must be euen, in our Gouernment.
You thus imploy'd, I will goe root away
The noysome Weedes, that without profit sucke
The Soyles fertilitie from wholesome flowers

Ser. Why should we, in the compasse of a Pale,
Keepe Law and Forme, and due Proportion,
Shewing as in a Modell our firme Estate?
When our Sea-walled Garden, the whole Land,
Is full of Weedes, her fairest Flowers choakt vp,
Her Fruit-trees all vnpruin'd, her Hedges ruin'd,
Her Knots disorder'd, and her wholesome Hearbes
Swarming with Caterpillers

Gard. Hold thy peace.
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd Spring,
Hath now himselfe met with the Fall of Leafe.
The Weeds that his broad-spreading Leaues did shelter,
That seem'd, in eating him, to hold him vp,
Are pull'd vp, Root and all, by Bullingbrooke:
I meane, the Earle of Wiltshire, Bushie, Greene

Ser. What are they dead?
Gard. They are,
And Bullingbrooke hath seiz'd the wastefull King.
Oh, what pitty is it, that he had not so trim'd
And drest his Land, as we this Garden, at time of yeare,
And wound the Barke, the skin of our Fruit-trees,
Least being ouer-proud with Sap and Blood,
With too much riches it confound it selfe?
Had he done so, to great and growing men,