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.

1. Discomfortable cousin, know’st thou not
2. That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
3. Behind the globe that lights the lower world,
4. Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
5. In murders and in outrage boldly here?
6. But when from under this terrestrial ball
7. He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
8. And darts his light through every guilty hole,
9. Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
10. The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,
11. Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.
12. So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,
13. Who all this while hath reveled in the night
14. Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
15. Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
16. His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
17. Not able to endure the sight of day,
18. But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
19. Not all the water in the rough rude sea
20. Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
21. The breath of worldly men cannot depose
22. The deputy elected by the Lord.
23. For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
24. To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
25. God for His Richard hath in heavenly pay
26. A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
27. Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.