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Speak it in French, king; say, 'pardonne moi.'
DUCHESS OF YORK:
Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That set'st the word itself against the word!
Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;
The chopping French we do not understand.
Thine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;
Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;
That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE:
Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK:
I do not sue to stand;
Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE:
I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
DUCHESS OF YORK:
O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again;
Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon strong.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE:
With all my heart
I pardon him.
DUCHESS OF YORK:
A god on earth thou art.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE:
But for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,
With all the rest of that consorted crew,
Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
Good uncle, help to order several powers
To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:
They shall not live within this world, I swear,
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:
Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
DUCHESS OF YORK:
Come, my old son: I pray God make thee new.
EXTON:
Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,
'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
Was it not so?
Servant:
These were his very words.
EXTON:
'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice,
And urged it twice together, did he not?
Servant:
He did.
EXTON:
And speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,
And who should say, 'I would thou wert the man'
That would divorce this terror from my heart;'
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go:
I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.
KING RICHARD II:
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
With scruples and do set the word itself
Against the word:
As thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,
'It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,
That many have and others must sit there;