Page 2940 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ; and that’s myself.

Enter one with a glass.
Give me that glass, and therein will I read. [275]
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds? O, flatt’ring glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,
Thou dost beguile me. Was this face the face [280]
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
That like the sun did make beholders wink?
Is this the face which fac’d so many follies,
That was at last outfac’d by Bolingbroke? [285]
A brittle glory shineth in this face.
As brittle as the glory is the face.

[He throws the glass down.]
For there it is, crack’d in an hundred shivers.
Mark, silent King, the moral of this sport:
How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face. [290]

BOLINGBROKE

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face.

RICHARD

Say that again!
“The shadow of my sorrow” - ha, let’s see.
’Tis very true. My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of laments [295]
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul.
There lies the substance; and I thank thee, King,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way [300]
How to lament the cause. I’ll beg one boon,
And then be gone and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?

BOLINGBROKE

Name it, fair cousin.