From Richard II, Act 3 Scene 2, by William Shakespeare

Click here for an annotated version of this speech.

Rich.  No matter where—of comfort no man speak:  
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; 145
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes  
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;  
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.  
And yet not so—for what can we bequeath  
Save our deposed bodies to the ground? 150
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,  
And nothing can we call our own but death;  
And that small model of the barren earth  
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.  
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground 155
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:  
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,  
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,  
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,  
All murthered—for within the hollow crown 160
That rounds the mortal temples of a king  
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,  
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,  
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,  
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks; 165
Infusing him with self and vain conceit  
As if this flesh which walls about our life  
Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus  
Comes at the last, and with a little pin  
Bores thorough his castle wall, and farewell king!  170
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood  
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,  
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;  
For you have but mistook me all this while.  
I live with bread like you, feel want,  175
Taste grief, need friends—subjected thus,  
How can you say to me, I am a king?  

 

RICHARD II

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