Act III scene 4 - 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 1
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. 5
Lady 2
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 1
Madam, we'll tell Tales.
QUEEN
Of Sorrow, or of Grief? 10
Lady 1
Of either, Madam.
QUEEN
Of neither, Girl.
For if 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: 15
For what I have, I need not to repeat;
And what I want, it boots not to complain.
Lady 2
Madam, I'll sing.
QUEEN
'Tis well that thou hast cause:
But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.
Lady 2
I could weep, Madam, would it do you good. 20
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, 25
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: 30
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. 35
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome Weeds, that 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, 40
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 Knots disorder'd, and her wholesome Herbs
Swarming with Caterpillars.
Gardener
Hold thy peace. 45
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: 50
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
Servant
What, are they dead?
Gardener
They are,
And Bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful King.
Oh, what pity is it, that he had not so trimm'd 55
And dress'd his Land as we this garden, at time of year,
And wound the Bark, the skin of our Fruit-trees,
Lest being over-proud in Sap and Blood,
With too much riches it confound itself?
Had he done so to great and growing men, 60
They might have lived to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the Crown,
Which waste and idle hours hath quite thrown down. 65
Servant
What think you then the King shall be deposed?
Gardener
Depress'd he is already, and deposed
'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
To a dear Friend of the Duke of York's,
That tell black tidings. 70
QUEEN
O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking.
How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
What Eve? what Serpent, hath suggested thee
To make a second fall of cursed man? 75
Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?
Darest thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how
Camest thou by this ill tidings? Speak thou wretch.
Gardener
Pardon me Madam. Little joy have I 80
To breathe these news; yet what I say, is true;
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke, their Fortunes both are weigh'd:
In your Lord's Scale is nothing but himself,
And some few Vanities that make him light: 85
But in the Balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English Peers,
And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
Post you to London, and you’ll find it so,
I speak no more than everyone doth know. 90
QUEEN
Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
Doth not thy Embassage belong to me?
And am I last that knows it? Oh thou think'st
To serve me last, that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come Ladies, go, 95
To meet at London, London's King in woe.
What, was I born to this: that my sad look,
Should grace the Triumph of great Bolingbroke.
Gardener, for telling me this news of woe,
I would the Plants thou graft'st may never grow.
Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies
GARDENER
Poor Queen, so that thy State might be no worse,
I would my skill were subject to thy curse:
Here did she drop a tear; here in this place
I'll set a Bank of Rue, sour Herb of Grace:
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, 105
In the remembrance of a Weeping Queen.
Exeunt
The sound designer and I worked for months to find the right transition music. We never found anything that worked. It's a hard transition - from this strong, military, masculine space to the private, feminine space of the garden. We had a few more things we were going to try when rehearsals resumed, but 'Rona had other plans.
This scene is a delicate balance. On the one hand, the Queen is racked with worry and sadness; her words sharply undercut her ladies. On the other hand, her ladies are working hard to cheer her up; they have likely been present throughout many hard times in her life and there is genuine care and friendship there. I was adamant that we had to find the love; I didn't want our only all-female scene to consist of women sniping at each other and pulling each other down.
In the end, we let the scene be complicated; the Queen could laugh, only to be overtaken by sadness, then snap at her ladies, who let her because they knew it came from grief.
Lady #2 even did the Fortnite dance at line 6.
The Gardener entered SR, carrying rose-gold baskets filled with tools. As the other two gardeners entered, she handed them the baskets and gave them instructions to tend the plants hanging on the trellis CS. Then she joined them, sitting on the bench to sort through the tools.
We decided the Gardener was like a gardener to the stars - the woman who landscapes the yards of Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, and Lady Gaga. She likes having privileged knowledge and showing off her understanding of the world. But she's also someone who has earned her way up in the business, and can't help gossiping just a wee bit about the people she works for.
As soon as the Queen appeared, the gardener's ladies were shocked into silence. The Queen and her ladies took over the SL side of the trellis while the Gardener and her ladies stayed SR.
The Gardener pulled the Queen DSC to give her the bad news. In the background, the gardener's ladies surreptitiously pulled out their cellphones and started recording the interaction. There was a great pantomimic showdown between the gardener's ladies and the queen's ladies, who caught them and deleted the video that would've undoubtedly been sold to TMZ.
As the Queen turned back to her ladies, realizing the weight of the Gardner's news, the gardener's lady managed to snap just a few more photos.
In choosing to cast the Gardener and her companions as women, this became the only scene in the play that is entirely female. It's a rare thing in Shakespeare's history plays, but for our production, it worked well with the concept and created a heightened difference between the natural world and the political sphere. There is a sense in this scene that if women were running the country, there would be more empathy and logic, and less ego and emotional reaction.