“Past and to come seems best; things present worst”

“Past and to come seems best; things present worst” condenses a political accusation into a bleak observation about how people judge time. Spoken amid discussion of uncertain political hopes, it follows a pointed contrast: those who once wished Richard II dead now mourn him, and someone who threw dust at Richard as King Henry IV entered London now calls for Richard’s return. The line makes that reversal sound like a recurring human habit, not merely a change of allegiance.

Political Context

The surrounding speech recalls two moments of public judgment. When Richard II lived, some wanted his death; after his death, they became enamoured of his grave. During his passage through London behind King Henry IV, the person addressed had thrown dust upon his head. Now that same person cries for the former king to be restored and for the present ruler to be taken away. The accusation rests on the gap between these acts: yesterday’s contempt has become today’s grief, and yesterday’s submission has become a wish to undo its consequences.

The speech places this inconsistency against a present political crisis. The speakers are weighing their hopes and the means available to them, while the recalled changes of public feeling make those hopes seem uncertain. The expression does not settle the political argument; it sharpens its danger. If judgment changes with circumstance, present support may prove as unstable as past allegiance.

The Expression’s Contrast of Time

The sentence divides time into three parts, but gives them unequal emotional weight. “Past” and “to come” are joined as the periods that “seems best”; “things present” are compressed into the final, harsher verdict, “worst.” The movement from the paired temporal horizons to the immediate present gives the line its clipped force. Its grammar also matters: “seems” presents the ranking as an appearance or habit of judgment, rather than a reliable measure of what is good.

That formulation fits the speech’s example. Richard’s reign is viewed differently after his death than it was while he lived, and the future is imagined as better through the proposed return of the very king who was once rejected. Neither memory nor expectation is treated as stable evidence. The present, by contrast, bears the discomfort of actual political consequences and is therefore the easiest time to condemn.

Political Memory and Irony

The line’s generalizing cadence follows a specific rebuke. Its reflection on time is not detached wisdom: it exposes the contradiction between throwing dust on Richard’s head and later asking for him again. The invocation of “O thoughts of men accursed!” makes the shift in public feeling a moral failing as well as a political risk. The speaker’s appeal to memory turns past conduct into evidence against present claims.

There is a further irony in the call for restoration. The speech recalls that Richard was once rejected, yet presents his return as an answer to current dissatisfaction. The expression captures how nostalgia can make an earlier order seem preferable without resolving the reasons it was rejected. Its significance lies in this double edge: it describes the pull of longing for another time while warning that such longing may erase the choices and reversals that produced the present.