Page 2913 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers’d and fled.

AUMERLE

Comfort, my liege. Why looks your grace so pale? [75]

RICHARD

But now the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face; and they are fled.
And till so much blood thither come again
Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
All souls that will be safe fly from my side, [80]
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

AUMERLE

Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.

RICHARD

I had forgot myself. Am I not King?
Awake, thou coward majesty; thou sleepest.
Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names? [85]
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? [90]

Enter Scrope.

SCROPE

More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tun’d tongue deliver him.

RICHARD

Mine ear is open and my heart prepar’d.
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, ’twas my care; [95]
And what loss is it to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be. If he serve God
We’ll serve Him too, and be his fellow so.