An easy task it is to win our own."

But when Scroop tells him that York has joined with Bolingbroke, he
believes him at once, gives up hope finally, and turns as if for comfort
to his own melancholy fate:

"Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
Of that sweet way I was in to despair!"

That "sweet way" of despair is Romeo's way, Hamlet's, Macbeth's and
Shakespeare's way.

In the next scene Richard meets his foes, and at first plays the king.
Shakespeare tells us that he looks like a king, that his eyes are as
"bright as an eagle's"; and this poetic admiration of state and place
seems to have got into Richard's blood, for at first he declares that
Bolingbroke is guilty of treason, and asserts that:

"My master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf,
Armies of pestilence."

Of course, he gives in with fair words the next moment, and the next
rages against Bolingbroke; and then comes the great speech in which the
poet reveals himself so ingenuously that at the end of it the King he
pretends to be, has to admit that he has talked but idly. I cannot help
transcribing the whole of the passage, for it shows how easily
Shakespeare falls out of this King's character into his own:

"What must the King do now? Must he submit?