Act 3. Scene IV

SCENE IV. LANGLEY. The DUKE OF YORK's garden.

Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies
QUEEN
What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
To drive away the heavy thought of care?

Lady
Madam, we'll play at bowls.

QUEEN
'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,
And that my fortune rubs against the bias.

Lady
Madam, we'll dance.

QUEEN
My legs can keep no measure in delight,
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.

Lady
Madam, we'll tell tales.

QUEEN
Of sorrow or of joy?

Lady
Of either, madam.

QUEEN
Of neither, girl:
For of joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
Or if of grief, being altogether had,
It adds more sorrow to my want of joy:
For what I have I need not to repeat;
And what I want it boots not to complain.

Lady
Madam, I'll sing.

QUEEN
'Tis well that thou hast cause
But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.

Lady
I could weep, madam, would it do you good.

QUEEN
And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.

Enter a Gardener, and two Servants

But stay, here come the gardeners:
Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They'll talk of state; for every one doth so
Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.

QUEEN and Ladies retire

Gardener
Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, which without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

Servant
Why should we in the compass of a pale
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?

Gardener
Hold thy peace:
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

Servant