Richard II Read Online Free PDF

The Fourth Quarto printed the deposition sequence for the first time, but in a defective text. The Folio text seems to have been printed from the Third Quarto (though a few editors argue that it was based on either the Fifth Quarto or a defective copy of the Third Quarto with the missing final leaves made up from the Fifth Quarto), but the Folio editor also consulted a manuscript closely related to theatrical production, perhaps the company “playbook.” The Folio restored many First Quarto readings that had been corrupted in later Quartos, printed a good text of the deposition scene for the first time, added and systematized stage directions, made some alterations to staging for the sake of clarification, introduced act divisions, replaced “God” with “heaven” in accordance with the 1606 Act to Restrain Abuses, made a few verbal alterations, and omitted about fifty lines (these mostly seem to be deliberate theatrical cuts, though a clutch of individual lines might have been dropped inadvertently). Most modern editions are based on the First Quarto, with the deposition scene, stage directions, and many individual readings taken from the Folio. Our text resists this sort of conflation and is based on Folio, with the correction of manifest printers’ errors. The Quarto-only passages are given at the end of the play.
    GENEALOGY: See
William Shakespeare: Complete Works,
pp. 2476–7.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND

LIST OF PARTS
    KING RICHARD II of England
    QUEEN , Richard’s wife
    John of GAUNT , Duke of Lancaster, Richard’s uncle
    Henry BULLINGBROOK , Duke of Hereford, John of Gaunt’s son, later King Henry IV
    Duke of YORK , Edmund of Langley, Richard’s uncle
    DUCHESS OF YORK , his wife
    Duke of AUMERLE , their son and Earl of Rutland
    DUCHESS of Gloucester, widow of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (Richard’s uncle)
    Thomas MOWBRAY , Duke of Norfolk
    Earl of SALISBURY
    Duke of SURREY
    Lord BERKELEY
    Bishop of CARLISLE
    ABBOT of Westminster
    Sir Stephen SCROOP
    BUSHY
    BAGOT
    GREEN
    Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND
    Harry PERCY , Northumberland’s son
    Lord ROSS
    Lord WILLOUGHBY
    Lord FITZWATERS
    Sir Piers of EXTON
    LORD
    LORD MARSHAL
    TWO HERALDS
    CAPTAIN of the Welsh army
    TWO LADIES attending the Queen
    GARDENER
    SERVANT to the Gardener
    SERVANT to York
    KEEPER of the prison at Pomfret Castle
    TWO SERVANTS to Exton
    GROOM of Richard’s stable
    Various Soldiers, Attendants, Lords
    QUEEN unnamed on stage; the historical Richard’s wife at the end of his reign was Isabel of Valois, a child; in portraying an adult queen and a close marriage, the play seems to conflate Isabel with Richard’s deceased first wife, Anne of Bohemia.

Act 4 Scene 1
running scene 13
    Location: Westminster Hall, London
    Enter, as to the Parliament, Bullingbrook, Aumerle, Northumberland, Percy, Fitzwaters, Surrey, Carlisle, Abbot of Westminister, Herald, Officers and Bagot
    BULLINGBROOK     Call forth Bagot.—
    Bagot is brought forward
        Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind,
    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death,
    Who wrought 4 it with the king, and who performed
    The bloody office 5 of his timeless end.
    BAGOT     Then set before my face the lord Aumerle.
    BULLINGBROOK     Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
    To Aumerle
    BAGOT     My lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
    Scorns to unsay 9 what it hath once delivered.
    In that dead 10 time when Gloucester’s death was plotted,
    I heard you say, ‘Is not my arm of length 11 ,
    That reacheth from the restful English court
    As far as Calais, to my uncle’s head?’
    Amongst much other talk, that very time,
    I heard you say that you had rather refuse
    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns 16
     Than 17 Bullingbrook’s return to England;
    Adding withal 18 how blest this land would be
    In this your cousin’s death.
    AUMERLE