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Richard II (Quarto 1, 1597)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Catherine Lisak
Peer Reviewed
King Richard the second.
They will talke of state for euery one doth so,
Against a change woe is fore-runne with woe.
Gard. Go bind thou vp yong dangling Aphricokes,
1840Which like vnruly children make their sire,
Stoope with oppression of their prodigall weight,
Giue some supportance to the bending twigs,
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of two fast growing spraies,
1845That looke too loftie in our common-wealth,
All must be euen in our gouernement.
You thus employed, I will goe roote away
The noysome weedes which without profit sucke
The soiles fertilitie from wholsome flowers.
1850Man. Why should we in the compas of a pale,
Keepe law and forme, and due proportion,
Shewing as in a modle our firme estate,
When our sea-walled garden the whole land
Is full of weedes, her fairest flowers choakt vp,
1855Her fruit trees all vnprunde, her hedges ruinde,
Her knots disordered, and her holsome hearbs
Swarming with caterpillers.
Gard. Hold thy peace,
He that htah suffered this disordered spring,
1860Hath now himselfe met with the fall of leafe:
The weedes which his broad spreading leaues did shelter,
That seemde in eating him to hold him vp,
Are pluckt vp roote and all by Bullingbrooke,
I meane the Earle of Wiltshire, Bushie, Greene,
1865Man. What are they dead?
Gard. They are.
And Bullingbrooke hath ceasde the wastefull king,
Oh what pitie is it that he had not so trimde,
And drest his land as we this garden at time of yeare
1870Do wound the barke, the skinne of our fruit trees,
Lest being ouer prowd in sap and bloud,
With too much riches it confound it selfe
Had he done so to great and growing men,
G 3
They