Page 1198 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

BUCKINGHAM

You have, my lord: would it might please your Grace
On our entreaties to emend your fault.

RICHARD

Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land? [115]

BUCKINGHAM

Know then, it is your fault that you resign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The sceptred office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal House, [120]
To the corruption of a blemish’d stock;
Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts -
Which here we waken to our country’s good -
The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
Her face defac’d with scars of infamy, [125]
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
And almost shoulder’d in the swallowing gulf
Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion;
Which to recure, we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge [130]
And kingly government of this your land,
Not as Protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another’s gain,
But as successively from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own. [135]
For this, consorted with the citizens -
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation -
In this just cause come I to move your Grace.

RICHARD

I cannot tell if to depart in silence [140]
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
If not to answer, you might haply think
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty [145]
Which fondly you would here impose on me;