Monologue

Richard Monologue from Richard III

From Richard III by William Shakespeare

male · contemplative · 2:12 min

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I cannot tell if to depart in silence Or bitterly to speak in your reproof Best fitteth my degree or your condition. If not to answer, you might haply think Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty, Which fondly you would here impose on me; If to reprove you for this suit of yours, So seasoned with your faithful love to me, Then, on the other side, I checked my friends. Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first, And then, in speaking, not to incur the last, Definitively thus I answer you: Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert Unmeritable shuns your high request. First, if all obstacles were cut away, And that my path were even to the crown As the ripe revenue and due of birth, Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects, That I would rather hide me from my greatness, Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid, And in the vapour of my glory smothered. But, God be thanked, there is no need of me, And much I need to help you, were there need. The royal tree hath left us royal fruit, Which, mellowed by the stealing hours of time, Will well become the seat of majesty, And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign. On him I lay that you would lay on me, The right and fortune of his happy stars, Which God defend that I should wring from him.

About this piece

Richard grapples with the conflicting desires of ambition and self-doubt as he contemplates the implications of accepting a royal position that he feels unworthy of.

20s · confusion · ambition · power · identity · fate

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