gardener criticises the King:
"All superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down."]

shows the extravagance of Shakespeare's love of hierarchy, and shows
also that his power of realizing character is as yet but slight. The
abdication follows, when Richard in exquisite speech after speech
unpacks his heavy heart. To the very last his irresolution comes to show
as often as his melancholy. Bolingbroke is sharply practical:
"Are you contented to resign the crown?"

Richard answers:

"Ay, no; no, ay;--for I must nothing be;
Therefore, no, no, for I resign to thee."

When he is asked to confess his sins in public, he moves us all to pity:

"Must I do so? and must I ravel out
My weaved up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
If thy offences were upon record,
Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop,
To read a lecture of them?"

His eyes are too full of tears to read his own faults, and sympathy
brings tears to our eyes also. Richard calls for a glass wherein to see
his sins, and we are reminded of Hamlet, who advises the players to hold
the mirror up to nature. He jests with his grief, too, in quick-witted