Page 2920 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Our fair appointments may be well perused.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements [55]
Of fire and water when their thund’ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters - on the earth, and not on him. [60]
March on, and mark King Richard, how he looks.

The trumpets sound parley without, and answer within; then a flourish.
Richard appeareth on the walls [with the Bishop of] Carlisle, Aumerle,

Scrope, Salisbury.

See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing, discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent [65]
To dim his glory and to stain the track
Of his bright passage to the occident.

Y ORK

Yet looks he like a king. Behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty. Alack, alack for woe [70]
That any harm should stain so fair a show!

RICHARD

We are amaz’d; and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget [75]
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismiss’d us from our stewardship;
For well we know no hand of blood and bone
Can grip the sacred handle of our sceptre [80]
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends,