Richard II: Act 3, Scene 2
Richard II Richard Act 3, Scene 2
This speech is used in our interview with Julia Coffey
Click here to open a scanned version.
Click here to open up First Folio version.
- Discomfortable cousin, know’st thou not
- That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
- Behind the globe that lights the lower world,
- Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
- In murders and in outrage boldly here?
- But when from under this terrestrial ball
- He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
- And darts his light through every guilty hole,
- Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
- The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,
- Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.
- So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,
- Who all this while hath reveled in the night
- Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
- Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
- His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
- Not able to endure the sight of day,
- But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
- Not all the water in the rough rude sea
- Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
- The breath of worldly men cannot depose
- The deputy elected by the Lord.
- For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
- To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
- God for His Richard hath in heavenly pay
- A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
- Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
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