Page:Richard II (1921) Yale.djvu/69

King Richard the Second, III. ii

Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.

Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made

With heads and not with hands: those whom you curse

Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound

And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.

Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?

Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.

Aum. Where is the duke my father with his power?

K. Rich. No matter where. Of comfort no man speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;

Let's choose executors and talk of wills:

And yet not so—for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own but death,

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,

Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;

All murder'd: for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;

 140 grav'd: entombed

153 model: mold, close envelop

161 rounds: encircles

162 antic: buffoon

163 Scoffing: mocking

