The scene shows Richard imprisoned in Pomfret Castle soliloquizing his present state. He ruefully reflects upon his fallen condition. He establishes a parallel between his prison cell and the world outside: "I have been studying how I may compare / This prison where I live unto the world." He says that the world is filled with people while he is alone in his prison cell. Thus the comparison between the two is apparently untenable. But Richard pursues the parallel further. His brain acts as the female to his soul, the father, and the result of the consummation of their union is "a generation of still-breeding thoughts" which people his world. Richard is alone for the first time and is thus confronted with himself as he has no other role to play. He "plays in one person many people / And none contented." The drifting notes of music being played outside his prison have a contradictory effect upon Richard, who exclaims, "This music mads me: let it sound no more." Music is a sign of love, and for Richard love "is a strange brooch in this all-hating world."

Exton repents of having spilled royal blood and laments, "O ! would the deed were good; For now the devil, that told me I did well, / Says this deed is chronicled in hell." He decides to take Richard's body to Bolingbroke.

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