Class 3E^££G- Rnok . A g; H fa

()opyiigtitE^__iS^5.

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT:

SHAKESPEARE'S

TRAGEDY OF

King Richard the Second

EDITED, WITH NOTES

BY

WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D.

FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK •:. CINCINNATI •:. CHICAGO

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

LIBRARY of 00N3RESS fwo Copies rtoceived

FEB 8 1905

OopyriKdi tiitry OIUaSS ^ AXc. Not I COPY Bf

TIT ^ ^ -St <9

-ShaU«f«aria«^

Copyright, 1876 and 1898, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

Copyright, 1904 and 1905, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE.

KICK. II. W. P. I

6 % •.

» C O

PREFACE

This play, which I first edited in 1876, has now been thoroughly revised on the same general plan as its predecessors in the new series.

While I have omitted the majority of the textual notes that appeared in the former edition, I have re- tained the more important of those upon the different readings of the quartos — particularly the first quarto — and the folios, on account of the variations in the best recent texts due to the preference of their editors for the one or the other authority. The Cambridge editors, who, as a rule, follow the quartos published earlier than the folios, do so almost invariably in the present play, except in the " new additions of the Par- liament scene," which are not found in the first and second quartos. They say : " For this part, therefore, the first folio is our highest authority ; for all the rest of the play the first quarto affords the best text." For myself, I agree with those editors who often regard the folio readings as better ; but I give both in the Notes, that the student or critical reader may have the means of settling the question for himself.

CONTENTS

Introduction to King Richard the Second The History of the Play . The Sources of the Plot . General Comments on the Play

King Richard the Second Act I Act II Act III Act IV Act V

Notes .

Appendix

The Time-Analysis of the Play List of Characters in the Play .

PAGE

9 9

12 12

21

23 50

77

lOI

115

143

265 267

Index of Words and Phrases Explained

269

Tomb of Edward III

The Savoy

INTRODUCTION TO RICHARD THE SECOND

The History of the Play

Richard II was written soon after Richard III, though, like that play, it was not printed until 1597, in a quarto edition without the author's name, which was added in a second edition the next year.

A third quarto appeared in 1608, " with new addi- tions of the Parhament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard," as the title-page informs us. It was reprinted in 161 5 with the same title-page. A fifth quarto, apparently from the text of the second folio (1632), was issued in 1634.

The " new additions " of the third quarto, which are retained in the succeeding editions, occur in the first scene of act iv, beginning with line 154, " May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?" and ending with line 317 (318 in editions that retain "Here,

9

lo Richard II

cousin " as line 182), " That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall." Though not printed during the life of Elizabeth, there can be little doubt that they formed part of the play as originally written ; for they agree with the act in style and rhythm, and are the natural introduction to the Abbot's speech (line 320) : "A woe- ful pageant have we here beheld." Their suppression in the earlier editions was probably for fear of offend- ing Elizabeth, who was very sensitive upon the subject of the deposition of an English sovereign. It had been often attempted in her own case, and she did not like to be reminded that it had been accomplished in Richard's. It is said that once when Lambarde, the keeper of the records in the Tower, in showing her a portion of the rolls he had prepared, came to the reign of Richard II, she exclaimed, '' I am Richard the Second; know ye not that?" In 1599 Sir John Hay- warde was severely censured in the Star Chamber, and committed to prison, for his History of the First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry IV, which con- tained an account of the deposition of Richard.

There was another play, and not improbably two other plays, on the same subject, extant in Shake- speare's time, but now lost. On the afternoon of the day preceding the insurrection of the Earl of Essex in 1 60 1, Sir Gilly Merrick, one of his friends, had a play acted before a company of his fellow-conspirators, the subject of which was " deposing Richard II." It could scarcely have been Shakespeare's, for it is described as

Introduction ii

an " obsolete tragedy," and the players are said to have complained " that the play was old, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it."

In the Bodleian Library at Oxford there is a manu- script diary by Dr. Simon Forman, in which allusion is made to a play of Richard II acted at the Globe Theatre, April 30, 161 1. This play, however, began with Wat Tyler's rebellion, and seems to have differed in other respects from Shakespeare's.

The date of the play is fixed by some of the editors in 1593 and by others in 1594 or 1595. Sidney Lee is probably right in putting it " very early in 1593." He adds, " Marlowe's tempestuous vein is less apparent in Richard II than in Richard III,'' but he believes the play "was clearly suggested by Marlowe's Edward II,'' closely imitating that drama "throughout its ex- position of the leading theme — the development and collapse of the weak king's character,"

For the text of Richard II, the quarto of 1597 and the folio of 1623 are the best authorities. In the latter the play appears to have been printed from a copy of the quarto of 1615, corrected with much care, and pos- sibly (as White suggests) the stage copy of the Globe Theatre ; but, like the rest of the folio, it is marred by many errors of the type, and also by sundry omissions, amounting to about forty-five lines in all. Some of these may have been made intentionally in revising the quarto for the printers of the folio ; but there can be no question that some are accidental, and perhaps all of

11 Richard II

them are. For supplying these deficiencies, and for the correction of typographical and other errors, the quarto is invaluable. On the other hand, in the " new addi- tions " first printed in the quarto of 1608, the imperfect text of that edition appears to have been corrected for the folio from the author's manuscript. For this part of the play, therefore, we must depend on the folio, as well as for the corrections of the 161 5 quarto already mentioned. There are but few difficulties in the text that are not removed by a careful collation of the two authorities.

The Sources of the Plot

There is no reason for thinking that Shakespeare was indebted to either of the plays mentioned above (which some critics suppose to be the same) or to any earlier one on the subject. His principal authority for the historical facts he has used was Holinshed's Chron- icles, the first edition of which was published in 1577. The dramatist used the second edition (1586-87), as the withering of the bay-trees, alluded to in ii. 4. 8 (" The bay-trees in our country are all wither 'd "), is not found in the first.

General Comments on the Play

Though " unsuited for the stage," Coleridge regarded Richard II 2,'^ " the most admirable of all Shakespeare's purely historical plays." He adds : " The two parts of

Introduction 13

HeiDj IV form a species by themselves, which may be named the mixed drama! The distinction does not de- pend on the mere qualities of historical events in the play compared with the fictions — for there is as much history in Macbeth as in Richard — but in the relation of the history to the plot. In the purely- historical plays, the history forms the plot ; in the mixed, it directs it ; in the rest, as Macbeth^ Hamlet^ Cyjubeline, Lear, it subserves it. . . . The spirit of patriotic remi- niscence is the all-permeating soul of this noble work. It is, perhaps, the most purely historical of Shake- speare's dramas. There are not in it, as in the others, characters introduced merely for the purpose of giving a greater individuality and realness, as in the comic parts of Henry IV, by presenting, as it were, our very selves. Shakespeare avails himself of every opportunity to effect the great object of the historic drama, that, namely, of familiarizing the people to the great names of their country, and thereby of exciting a steady patriot- ism, a love of just liberty, and a respect for all those fundamental institutions of social life which bind men together."

Verplanck {Illustrated Shakespeare, 1847, i^ng out of print, and to be found in few of the libraries), after quoting Johnson's criticism that the play '* is not fin- ished with the happy force of some other of Shake- speare's tragedies, nor can it be said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding," remarks : —

'' It is certainly true that this play does not ' affect the

14 Richard II

passions ' like Lear or Othello, but it is obvious that it is not addressed to the stronger and deeper sympathies springing from the domestic affections, or the experience of private life, but is strictty a drama of national incident and public characters ; and that it can therefore excite the passions and enlarge the understanding only so far as history itself can do so. But in this object its merits are of the highest order, and they are too of the very kind which no one would seem more likely to appreci- ate than Johnson himself.

"It has comparatively few of those delicate touches of description or of allusion to natural beauty, or of those slight and graceful suggestions of feeling or of imagery, to which nature had made the mind of the great English critic of the last (eighteenth) century somewhat obtuse, and his mental, like his physical, vision, dim and indistinct. But it is rich in all that the moral critic himself most delighted in. It is alive with the exhibition of men acting in great and stirring scenes, and under varied and interesting aspects of life. It paints with nice discrimination the arts of political popularity and the fickleness of popular favour — the means by which power is often unrighteously wrung from those by whom it may yet be rightfully lost — ' the in- solence of office,' and the crawling abjectness in adver- sity of him who derives dignity from office alone. It contains, in short, without the forms of ethical instruc- tion, a great moral lesson of the emptiness and uncer- tainty of human greatness — how little of dignity it

Introduction 15

confers, when not used for the beneficent ends for which it is bestowed — and how severe is the just though late retribution of shame and woe for its abuse. All this is embodied in real incidents and personages, presented with perfect truth and life, in the very spirit and language, and port and bearing, and armour and pomp of the most romantic and picturesque period of European history. The whole story with its stately personages passes before us in-one gorgeous pageant ; just as when —

" ' the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course; — '

followed by the dethroned Richard, — a continued suc- cession of scenes as vivid and magnificent as the pic- tures of the poet's great contemporary, Rubens. Nor can anything be more true, either in historical accuracy or in that higher and more pervading truth of human nature, than the several characters who pass over the scene — the crafty, bold, ambitious, resolute Boling- broke, and Richard, womanish alike in good and evil, in infirmity of purpose, in varying resolution, in elation in prosperity, and in the return of gentler and kinder feelings in the hours of sorrow and distress. It has all that solid and living truth in its representation of the old English chivalric aristocracy and their times, which has made Shakespeare's English ' Histories ' the text- book of a large portion of English history to all of Eng-

1 6 Richard II

lish blood, and rightly so, because they more than compensate for their slight inaccuracies of detail by the vividness and force which they give to the ' very form and pressure ' of those times. It is therefore that as an historical drama, in the strictest sense of the term, Richard II is eminently entitled to Coleridge's strong eulogy of being ' the first and most admirable of its author's historical plays ' ; and it may be added with equal confidence that it is, in this same strict sense, one of the most perfect of all historical dramas ever written. But it is only in the light of a purely historical play that it is entitled to claim this superiority ; for numerous as are its merits, poetical and dramatic, it must ' pale its ineffectual fires ' when compared with dramas like Antony and Cleopatra or Henry IV, founded upon history and representing historical personages, yet not restricted to a merely historical interest. In these plays the sober groundwork of historical truth is relieved by the gay contrast of comic invention, or illuminated by the flashes of that deeper tragic emotion which can be awakened only by our sympathies with man as man, in his personal and individual character. Richard //tells the story of that monarch's times, with little other aid of dramatic art than of rejecting the form of a mere dramatic chronicle, and of condensing the whole reign into its closing scenes, leaving its earlier incidents to be gathered from the dialogue and narra- tion. It thus tells the tale of the most memorable ex- ample that had yet occurred in modern times of a sov-

Introduction 17

ereign deposed for abuse of power, an event remarkable in itself, and still more interesting to Englishmen as being the origin of that long series of civil contests which for half a century stained England's fields and scaffolds with English blood shed by Englishmen. The throwing of the more odious or contemptible parts of Richard's life into narrative and allusion seems to have been adopted for the purpose, which it certainly attains with much skill, of taking off that feeling of repugnance towards him which would naturally be excited if his crimes and follies were more distinctly presented, and which it would be impossible to change into that com- miserating sympathy that we now feel at his downfall. Still the interest is purely historical and political, and we cannot mourn with the dethroned monarch for the loss of his crown as we can partake of Constance's maternal sorrows, shudder under the fiery indignation or the frenzy of Lear, or sympathize with the frailties of a noble mind in Antony. It is probably on account of the comparative weakness of the tragic interest that the poet did not care to hazard weakening its effect by the contrast of laughable or lighter scenes to which he elsewhere so willingly resorts. The adherence to substantial historical truth is preserved throughout. Nothing is added or exaggerated, unless it be that the queen (who was in reality but an affianced child, ten years old) is made to speak the language of mature con- jugal affection, and thus to present the gentler and ami- able traits of Richard's mixed and variable character

RICHARD II — 2

1 8 Richard II

That character, with all its defects and its inconsist- encies, — its insolent tyranny and its gentleness, its utter want of all moral or intellectual balance, — is painted with the discrimination of the philosophical historian, and with a far deeper and more impartial truth than the author could find in any one of the old annalists, all of whom, I believe, have described Rich- ard as he appeared to them through the medium of their personal party prejudices, Yorkish or Lancastrian. Even the peculiarities of Richard's language and im- agery in the last three acts, his tone of pious medita- tion, his moralizing on ' the flattering glass,' and on his favourite ' Roan Barbary's ' ingratitude, — all of them by no means commonplace, yet of which resemblances may often be traced in actual life, — were yet, I sus- pect, not drawn from the poet's general knowledge of man, but came directly from the historical or traditional character of the monarch. His style of thought and language certainly harmonizes with his letters and speeches preserved in the chronicles, as well as with his ' passionate exclamations and appeals to Heaven ' which Froissart describes. . . . Thus we have here a perfect specimen of the purely historical drama, turn- ing wholly upon public and political events and inci- dents ; and it may be placed by the side of Julius Cmsar (in this respect its exact counterpart) as showing the limits of excellence in this species of composition. " Such compositions as compared with dramatic inven- tions drawn from the sources of individual nature, and

Introduction 19

coming home to the domestic sensibilities, must prob- ably, like these two tragedies, suffer under a compara- tive coldness of interest, while, like them, they may be most rich in moral instruction, in splendid poetry, and in admirable pictures of life, manners, characters, and great events."

KING RICHARD II

DRAMATIS PERSONS

King Richard the Second.

ToHN OF Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, ( tt i ^ ^x. -u--

Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, (Ancles to the Kmg.

Henry, surnamed Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, Son to John of

Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV. Duke of Aumerle, Son to the Duke of York. Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Duke of Surrey. Earl of Salisbury. Lord Berkeley. Bushy, ^

Bagot, > Servants to King Richard. Green, )

Earl of Northumberland. Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, his Son. Lord Ross. Lord Willoughby. Lord Fitzwater. Bishop of Carlisle. Abbot of Westminster. Lord Marshal. Sir Pierce of Exton. Sir Stephen Scroop. Captain of a Band of Welshmen.

Queen to King Richard. Duchess of York. Duchess of Gloster. Lady attending on the Queen.

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Two Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants.

Scene: Dispersedly in England and Wales.

ACT I

Scene I. Windsor. A Room in the Castle

Enter King Richard, attended, John of Gaunt, and

other Nobles

King Richard. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band. Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son. Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,

23

24 Richard II [Act i

Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ?

Gaunt. I have, my liege.

King Richard, Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice, Or worthily, as a good subject should, lo

On some known ground of treachery in him ?

Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some apparent danger seen in him, Aim'd at your highness, — no inveterate malice.

King Richard. Then call them to our presence ; face to face, And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear The accuser and the accused freely speak. —

\_Exeunt some Attendants. High-stomach 'd are they both, and full of ire, In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Enter Attendants, with Bolingbroke a7id Norfolk

Bolingbf'oke. Many years of happy days befall 20

My gracious sovereign, most loving liege !

Norfolk. Each day still better other's happiness, Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown !

King Richard. We thank you both ; yet one but flatters us. As well appeareth by the cause you come, Namely, to appeal each other of high treason. —

Scene I] Richard II 25

Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ? Bolingbroke. First, — heaven be the record to my

speech ! — 30

In the devotion of a subject's love, Tendering the precious safety of my prince, And free from other misbegotten hate. Come I appellant to this princely presence. — Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee, And mark my greeting well ; for what I speak My body shall make good upon this earth Or my divine soul answer it in heaven. Thou art a traitor and a miscreant ; Too good to be so, and too bad to live, 40

Since the more fair and crystal is the sky. The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly. Once more, the more to aggravate the note, With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat, And wish, — so please my sovereign, — ere I move. What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may

prove. Norfolk. Let not my cold words here accuse my

zeal. 'T is not the trial of a woman's war, The bitter clamour of two eager tongues. Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain. 50

The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this ; Yet can I not of such tame patience boast As to be hush'd and nought at all to say.

0.6 Richard II [Act I

First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me

From giving reins and spurs to my free speech,

Which else would post until it had return'd

These terms of treason doubled down his throat.

Setting aside his high blood's royalty,

And let him be no kinsman to my liege,

I do defy him and I spit at him, 60

Call him a slanderous coward and a villain,

Which to maintain I would allow him odds,

And meet him, were I tied to run afoot

Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,

Or any other ground inhabitable

Where ever Englishman durst set his foot. .

Mean time, let this defend my loyalty, —

By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

Bolinghroke, Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage. Disclaiming here the kindred of the king, 70

And lay aside my high blood's royalty. Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except. If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop. By that and all the rites of knighthood else. Will I make good against thee, arm to arm, What I have spoken or thou canst devise.

Norfolk. I take it up, and by that sword I swear Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder, I '11 answer thee in any fair degree, 80

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial ;

Scene I] Richard II 27

And when I mount, alive may I not light ^

If I be traitor or unjustly fight !

King Richard, What doth our cousin lay to Mow- bray's charge ? It must be great that can inherit us So much as of a thought of ill in him.

Bolingbroke. Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true : — That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers, The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments, 90 Like a false traitor and injurious villain. Besides, I say, and will in battle prove, Or here or elsewhere to the farthest verge That ever was survey'd by English eye. That all the treasons for these eighteen years Complotted and contrived in this land Fetch 'd from false Mowbray their first head and spring. Further I say, — and further will maintain Upon his bad life to make all this good, — That he did plot the Duke of Gloster's death, 100

Suggest his soon-believing adversaries. And consequently, like a traitor coward, Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood. Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries. Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth, To me for justice and rough chastisement ; And, by the glorious worth of my descent, This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

28 Richard II [Act i

King Richard. How high a pitch his resolution soars ! — Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this ? nc

Nojj^olk. O, let my sovereign turn away his face, And bid his ears a little while be deaf. Till I have told this slander of his blood How God and good men hate so foul a liar.

King Richard. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and

*

ears. Were he my brother, nay, our kingdom's heir, As he is but my father's brother's son. Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow, Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize 120

The unstooping firmness of my upright soul. He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou ; Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.

Norfolk. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart. Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest ! Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers ; The other part reserv'd I by consent, For that my sovereign liege was in my debt Upon remainder of a dear account 130

Since last I went to France to fetch his queen. Now swallow down that lie. For Gloster's death, I slew him not, but to mine own disgrace Neglected my sworn duty in that case. — For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,

Scene I] Richard II 29

The honourable father to my foe,

Once did I lay an ambush for your life,

A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul ;

But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament

I did confess it and exactly begg'd 140

Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.

This is my fault ; as for the rest appeal'd,

It issues from the rancour of a villain,

A recreant and most degenerate traitor.

Which in myself I boldly will defend,

And interchangeably hurl down my gage

Upon this overweening traitor's foot.

To prove myself a loyal gentleman

Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.

In haste whereof, most heartily I pray 150

Your highness to assign our trial day.

King Richard. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me ; Let 's purge this choler without letting blood. This we prescribe, though no physician ; Deep malice makes too deep incision. Forget, forgive ; conclude, and be agreed ; Our doctors say this is no time to bleed. — Good uncle, let this end where it begun ; We '11 calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.

Gaunt. To be a make-peace shall become my age. — 160

Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.

King Richard. And, Norfolk, throw down his.

30 Richard II [Act i

Gaunt. When, Harry, when ?

Obedience bids I should not bid again.

Kmg Richard. Norfolk, throw down, we bid ; there is no boot.

Norfolk. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame. The one my duty owes ; but my fair name, Despite of death that lives upon my grave. To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have. I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here, 170

Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom 'd spear, The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood Which breath'd this poison.

King Richard. Rage must be withstood.

Give me his gage ; ■ — lions make leopards tame.

Norfolk. Yea, but not change his spots ; take but my shame. And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation ; that away. Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest 180

Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mme honour is my life, both grow in one ; Take honour from me and my life is done. Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try ; In that I live, and for that will I die.

King Richard. Cousin, throw down your gage ; do, you begin.

Scene 11] Richard II 31

Bolingbroke. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin ! Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight ? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdar'd dastard ? Ere my tongue 190

Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear, And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face !

\Exit Gaunt. King Richard. We were not born to sue, but to com- mand. Which since we cannot do to make you friends, Be ready, as your lives shall answer it, At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day. There shall your swords and lances arbitrate 200

The swelling difference of your settled hate : Since we cannot atone you, you shall see Justice design the victor's chivalry. — Lord marshal, command our officers at arms Be ready to direct these home alarms. [Exeunt.

Scene II. London. A Room in the Duke of Lancaster'' s

Palace Enter Gaunt and Duchess of Gloster

Gaunt. Alas ! the part I had in Gloster's blood Doth more solicit me than your exclaims To stir against the butchers of his life.

32 Richard II [Act i

But since correction lieth in those hands Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven, Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

Duchess, Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur ? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire ? lo

Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one. Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root. Some of those seven are dried by nature's course, Some of those branches by the Destinies cut ; But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster, One vial full of Edward's sacred blood, One flourishing branch of his most royal root. Is crack'd and all the precious liquor spilt. Is hack'd down and his summer leaves all faded, 20 By envy's hand and murther's bloody axe. Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine ! that bed, that womb. That metal, that self mould, that fashion'd thee. Made him a man ; and though thou liv'st and breath's!.. Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent In some large measure to thy father's death, In that thou seest thy wretched brother die. Who was the model of thy father's life. Call it not patience. Gaunt, it is despair ; In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd 30

Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life, Teaching stern murther how to butcher thee.

Scene II j Richard II ;^^

That which in mean men we entitle patience Is pale cold cowardice in nobler breasts. What shall I say ? to safeguard thine own life The best way is to venge my Gloster's death.

Gaimt. God's is the quarrel ; for God's substitute, His deputy anointed in His sight, Hath caus'd his death, the which, if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift 40

An angry arm against His minister.

Duchess. Where, then, alas, may I complain myself ?

Gaimt. To God, the widow's champion and defence.

Duchess. Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold Our Cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight. O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear, That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast ! Or, if misfortune miss the first career. Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom 50

That they may break his foaming courser's back And throw the rider headlong in the lists, A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford ! Farewell, old Gaunt ; thy sometimes brother's wife With her companion grief must end her life.

Gaunt. Sister, farewell ; I must to Coventry. As much good stay with thee as go with me !

Duchess. Yet one word more. — Grief boundeth where it falls, Not with the empty hollowness, but weight. I take my leave before I have begun, 60

RICHARD n — 3

34 Richard II [Act i

For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.

Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.

Lo, this is all. — Nay, yet depart not so ;

Though this be all, do not so quickly go ;

I shall remember more. Bid him — O, what ? —

With all good speed at Flashy visit me.

Alack ! and what shall good old York there see

But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls.

Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones ?

And what hear there for welcome but my groans ? 70

Therefore commend me ; let him not come there

To seek our sorrow that dwells everywhere.

Desolate, desolate, will I hence, and die ;

The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye. \_Exeuiit.

Scene III. Gosford Green, near Coventry

Lists set out, and a throne. Heralds, etc., attending. Enter the Lord Marshal and Aumerle

Marshal. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford

arm'd? Aumerle. Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in. Marshal. The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold. Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet. Aumerle. Why, then, the champions are prepared and stay For nothing but his majesty's approach.

Scene III] Richard II 35

Flourish of trumpets. Enter King Richard, who takes his seat on his throne ; Gaunt, Bushy, Bagot, Green, and others, who take their places. A trumpet is soicnded^ and answered by another trumpet within. Then enter Norfolk in armour, preceded by a Herald

King Richard. Marshal, demand of yonder champion The cause of his arrival here in arms ; Ask him his name, and orderly proceed , To swear him in the justice of his cause. 10

Marshal. In God's name and the king's, say who thou art, And why thou com'st thus knightly clad in arms ; Against what man thou com'st, and what 's thy quarrel. Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thine oath ; As so defend thee heaven and thy valour !

Norfolk. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, Who hither come engaged by my oath, — Which God defend a knight should violate ! — Both to defend my loyalty and truth To God, my king, and his succeeding issue, 20

Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me, And, by the grace of God and this mine arm, To prove him, in defending of myself, A traitor to my God, my king, and me ; And as I truly fight, defend me heaven 1

;^6 Richard II [Act i

Trumpets sound. Enter Bolingbroke in armour^ pre- ceded by a Herald

King Richard. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms, Both who he is, and why he cometh hither Thus plated in habiliments of war ; And formally, according to our law, Depose him in the justice of his cause. 30

Marshal. What is thy name ? and wherefore com'st thou hither Before King Richard in his royal lists ? Against whom comest thou ? and what 's thy quarrel ? Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven !

Bolingbroke. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Am I, who ready here do stand in arms. To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour. In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, That he 's a traitor, foul and dangerous. To God of heaven. King Richard, and to me ; 40

And as I truly fight, defend me heaven !

Marshal. On pain of death, no person be so bold Or daring hardy as to touch the lists. Except the marshal and such officers Appointed to direct these fair designs.

Bolingbroke. Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand, And bow my knee before his majesty ; For Mowbray and myself are like two mert

Scene III] Richard II 37

That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.

Then let us take a ceremonious leave 50

And loving farewell of our several friends.

Marshal. The appellant in all duty greets your highness, And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

King Richard. We will descend and fold him in our arms. — Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right. So be thy fortune in this royal fight ! Farewell, my blood, which if to-day thou shed. Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

Bolingbroke. O, let no noble eye profane a tear For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear ; 60

As confident as is the falcon's flight Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight. — My loving lord, I take my leave of you ; — Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle ; Not sick, although I have to do with death. But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath. — Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet The daintiest last, to make the end more sweet : O thou, the earthly author of my blood, — \To Gaunt. Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate, 70

Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up To reach at victory above my head, — Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers ; And with thy blessings steel my lance's point. That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat.

3 8 Richard II [Act i

And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt Even in the lusty haviour of his son.

Gaunt. God in thy good cause make thee prosper- ous ! Be swift hke Hghtning in the execution, And let thy blows, doubly redoubled, 80

Fall like amazing thunder on the casque Of thy adverse pernicious enemy ; Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.

Bolingbroke. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive !

Norfolk. However God or fortune cast my lot, There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne, A loyal, just, and upright gentleman. Never did captive with a freer heart Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement, 90

More than my dancing soul doth celebrate This feast of battle with mine adversary. — Most mighty liege, — and my companion peers, — Take from my mouth the wish of happy years. As gentle and as jocund as to jest Go I to fight ; truth hath a quiet breast.

King Richard. Farewell, my lord ; securely I espy Virtue wdth valour couched in thine eye. — Order the trial, marshal, and begin.

Marshal. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance ; and God defend the right ! loi

Bolingbroke. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.

Scene III] Richard II 39

Marshal. Go bear this lance \Jo an Office}'\ to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.

1 Herald. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself.

On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,

A traitor to his God, his king, and him.

And dares him to set forward to the fight.

2 Herald. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke

of Norfolk, no

On pain to be found false and recreant. Both to defend himself, and to approve Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal ; Courageously, and with a free desire, Attending but the signal to begin.

Marshal. Sound, trumpets ; — and set forward, com- batants. — \_A chai'ge sounded. Stay ! the king hath thrown his warder down.

King Richard. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears. And both return back to their chairs again. 120

Withdraw with us ; and let the trumpets sound While we return these dukes what we decree. —

\_A long flourish. Draw near, \To the combatants.

And list what with our council we have done. For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd W^ith that dear blood which it hath fostered,

40 Richard II [Act i

And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords,

And for we think the eagle-winged pride

Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts, 130

With rival-hating envy, set on you

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle

Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep,

Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums.

With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray.

And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,

Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace.

And make us wade even in our kindred's blood, —

Therefore, we banish you our territories. —

You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life, 140

Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields

Shall not regreet our fair dominions.

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

Bolingbroke. Your will be done ; this must my com- fort be, — That sun that warms you here shall shine on me, And those his golden beams to you here lent Shall point on me and gild my banishment.

King Richard, Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with some unwillingness pronounce : The fly-slow hours shall not determinate 150

The dateless limit of thy dear exile ; — The hopeless word of ' never to return ' Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Scene III] Richard II 41

Norfolk. A heavy sentence, my most gracious liege, And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth. A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air, Have I deserved at your highness' hands. The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forego, 160

And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp ; Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up. Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue. Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips ; And' dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, 170

Too far in years to be a pupil now ; What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death, Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath ?

King Richard. It boots thee not to be compassionate. After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Norfolk. Then thus I turn me from my country's light. To dwell in solemn shades of endless night. [Retiring.

King Richard. Return again, and take an oath with thee. Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands ; Swear by the duty that you owe to God, — 180

Our part therein we banish with yourselves, —

42 Richard II [Act I

To keep the oath that we administer :

You never shall — so help you truth and God ! —

Embrace each other's love in banishment ;

Nor ever look upon each other's face ;

Nor ever write, regreet, nor reconcile

This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate ;

Nor ever by advised purpose meet

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. 190

Bolingbroke. I swear.

Norfolk. And I, to keep all this.

Bolingbroke. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy ; — By this time, had the king permitted us. One of our souls had wander'd in the air, Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh, As now our flesh is banish'd from this land. Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm ; Since thou hast far to go, bear not along The clogging burthen of a guilty soul. 200

Norfolk. No, Bolingbroke ; if ever I were traitor, My name be blotted from the book of life, And I from heaven banish'd, as from hence ! But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know, And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue. — Farewell, my liege. — Now no way can I stray ; Save back to England, all the world 's my way. \Exit.

King Richard. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes I see thy grieved heart ; thy sad aspect

Scene III] Richard II 43

Hath from the number of his banish'd years 210

Pluck'd four away. — [To Bolinghroke\ Six frozen win- ters spent, Return with welcome home from banishment.

Bolingbroke. How long a time lies in one little word ! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word ; such is the breath of kings.

Gaunt I thank my liege that in regard of me He shortens four years of my son's exile. But little vantage shall I reap thereby, For, ere the six years that he hath to spend Can change their moons and bring their times about, 220 My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light Shall be extinct with age and endless night; My inch of taper will be burnt and done. And blindfold death not let me see my son.

King Richard. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.

Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give. Shorten my days thou canst with sudden sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow ; Thou canst help Time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage ; 230

Thy word is current with him for my death, But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

King Richard. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice. Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave. Why at our justice seem'st thou, then, to lower?

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

44

Richard II [Act I

You urg'd me as a judge, but I had rather

You would have bid me argue Hke a father.

O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

To smooth his fault I should have been more mild ; 240

A partial slander sought I to avoid.

And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.

Alas ! I look'd when some of you should say

I was too strict, to make mine own away ;

But you gave leave to mine unwilling tongue

Against my will to do myself this wrong.

Kmg Richai'd. Cousin, farewell; — and, uncle, bid him so. Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

\Flo2n'ish. Exeunt King Richard and ti'ain.

Aumerle. Cousin, farewell ; what presence must not know. From where you do remain let paper show. 250

Marshal. My lord, no leave take I ; for I will ride As far as land will let me by your side.

Gatmt. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words. That thou return 'st no greeting to thy friends ?

Bolingbroke. I have too few to take my leave of you. When the tongue's office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

Gatmt Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.

Bolingbroke. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

Gaunt. What is six winters ? they are quickly gone. 260

Scene III] Richard II 45

Bolingbroke. To men in joy ; but grief makes one hour ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.

Bolmgbroke. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return.

Bolmgb7'oke. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make Will but remember me what a deal of world I wander from the jewels that I love. 270

Must I not serve a long apprenticehood To foreign passages, and in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a journeyman to grief ?

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus : There is no virtue like necessity ; Think not the king did banish thee. But thou the king ; woe doth the heavier sit 280

Where it perceives it is but faintly borne. Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour, And not the king exil'd thee ; or suppose Devouring pestilence hangs in our air, And thou art flying to a fresher clime. Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st. Suppose the singing-birds musicians,

4-6 Richard II [Act i

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd, The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more 290

Than a delightful measure or a dance ; For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

Bolingbi'oke. O, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast ? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer's heat ? O, no ! the apprehension of the good 300

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse ; Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.

Gaunt. Come, come, my son, I '11 bring thee on thy way ; Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

Bolingbroke. Then, England's ground, farewell ! sweet soil, adieu. My mother and my nurse, that bears me yet ! Where'er I wander, boast of this I can, — Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman. [^Exeunt,

Scene IV. The Court Enter King Richard, Bagot, and Green ; Aumerle

following King Richard, We did observe. — Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way ?

Scene IV] Richard II 47

Aumej'le. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next highway, and there I left him.

King Richard. And say, what store of parting tears

were shed ? Aumerle. Faith, none for me ; except the north-east wind, Which then blew bitterly against our faces, Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

King Richard. What said our cousin when you parted with him ? 10

Aumerle. ' Farewell ; ' And, for my heart disdained that my tongue Should so profane the word, that taught me craft To counterfeit oppression of such grief That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave, Marry, would the word ' farewell ' have lengthen 'd

hours. And added years to his short banishment. He should have had a volume of farewells ; But since it would not, he had none of me.

King Richard. He is our cousin, cousin ; but 't is doubt, 20

When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green, Observ'd his courtship to the common people ; How he did seem to dive into their hearts

48 Richard II [Act i

With humble and familiar courtesy ;

What reverence he did throw away on slaves,

Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,

And patient underbearing of his fortune

As 't were to banish their affects with him. 30

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench ;

A brace of draymen bid God speed him well.

And had the tribute of his supple knee.

With, ' Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends ; '

As were our England in reversion his,

And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

Green. Well, he is gone, and with him go these

thoughts. Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland ; Expedient manage must be made, my liege. Ere further leisure yield them further means 40

For their advantage and your highness' loss.

King Richard. We will ourself in person to this

war ; And, for our coffers, with too great a court And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light, We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm, The revenue whereof shall furnish us For our affairs in hand. If that come short. Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters, Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich, They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold, 50 And send them after to supply our wants ; For we will make for Ireland presently. —

Scene IVJ Richard II 49

Entei- Bushy

Bushy, what news ?

Bushy. Old John of Gaunt is very sick, my lord, Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste To entreat your majesty to visit him.

King Richard. Where lies he ?

Bushy. At Ely House.

King Richard. Now put it, God, in his physician's mind To help him to his grave immediately ! 60

The lining of his coffers shall make coats To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars. — Come, gentlemen, let 's all go visit him. Pray God we may make haste, and come too late !

\Exeunt.

RICHARD II

"There stands the Castle"

ACT II

Scene I. London. A Room in Ely House

Gaunt on a couch ; the Duke of York and others standing by him

Gaunt. Will the king come, that I may breathe my last In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth ?

York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath, For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

Gaunt. O, but they say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony ; Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. He that no more must say is listen 'd more 9

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze ;

50

Scene I] Richard II 51

More are men's ends mark'd than their Hves before.

The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,

My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

York. No ; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds, As praises of his state ; then, there are found Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound The open ear of youth doth always listen ; 20

Report of fashions in proud Italy, Whose manners still our tardy apish nation Limps after in base imitation. Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity — So it be new, there 's no respect how vile — That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears ? Then all too late comes counsel to be heard, Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard. Direct not him whose way himself will choose ; 'T is breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

Gaii7it. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd, 31 And thus, expiring, do foretell of him : His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves ; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short ; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes ; With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder ; Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

52 Richard II [Act II

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 40

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise ;

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war ;

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house.

Against the envy of less happier lands ;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 51

Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,

Renowned for their deeds as far from home,

For Christian service and true chivalry,

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry

Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son ;

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land.

Dear for her reputation through the world.

Is now leas'd out — I die pronouncing it —

Like to a tenement or pelting farm. 60

England, bound in with the triumphant sea.

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds.

That England, that was wont to conquer others.

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life.

How happy then were my ensuing death !

Scene I] Richard II ^^

Entei' King Richard and Queen, Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross, and Willoughby

York. The king is come ; deal mildly with his youth, For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more. 70

Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster ?

King Richard. What comfort, man ? How is 't with aged Gaunt ?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition I Old Gaunt, indeed, and gaunt in being old ; Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast. And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt ? For sleeping England long time have I watch'd ; Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt. The pleasure that some fathers feed upon Is my strict fast, — I mean my children's looks ; 80

And therein fasting hast thou made me gaunt. Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave. Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

Ki?ig Richard. Can sick men play so nicely with their names ?

Gaunt. No, misery makes sport to mock itself ; Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

King Richard. Should dying men flatter with those that live ?

Gaunt. No, no ; men living flatter those that die.

King Richard, Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flat- ter'st me. 90

54 Richard II [Act II

Gaunt. O, no ! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

King Richard. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

Gaunt. Now, He that made me knows I see thee ill ; 111 in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land Wherein thou liest in reputation sick ; And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, loo

Whose compass is no bigger than thy head ; And yet, encaged in so small a verge. The waste is no whit lesser than thy land. O, had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye. Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons. From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possess 'd, Which art possess 'd now to depose thyself. Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world. It were a shame to let this land by lease ; no

But for thy world enjoying but this land. Is it not more than shame to shame it so ? Landlord of England art thou, and not king ; Thy state of law is bondslave to the law ; And

King Richard. And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague's privilege, Dar'st with thy frozen admonition

Scene I] Richard II ^^

Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood

With fury from his native residence.

Now by my seat's right royal majesty, 120

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son.

This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head

Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

Gaunt. O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son, For that I was his father Edward's son ; That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly carous'd. My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul — Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls ! — May be a precedent and witness good 130

That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood. Join with the present sickness that I have, And thy unkindness be like crooked age. To crop at once a too-long-wither'd flower. Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee ! These words hereafter thy tormentors be ! — Convey me to my bed, then to my grave ; Love they to live that love and honour have.

[_Exit, bo7'ne out by his Attendants.

King Richard. And let them die that age and sullens have ; For both hast thou, and both become the grave. 140

York. I do beseech your majesty, impute his words To wayward sickliness and age in him ; He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear As Harry, Duke of Hereford, were he here.

^6 Richard II [Act II

Xing Richard. Right, you say true : as Hereford's love, so his ; As theirs, so mine ; and all be as it is.

Enter Northumberland

Northumberland. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

King Richai'd. What says he ?

Northumberland. Nay, nothing ; all is said.

His tongue is now a stringless instrument ; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. 150

York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so ! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

King Richard. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be. So much for that. — Now for our Irish wars : We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns. Which live like venom, where no venom else. But only they, have privilege to live. And for these great affairs do ask some charge, Towards our assistance we do seize to us 160

The plate, coin, revenues, and movables, Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

York. How long shall I be patient ? ah, how long Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong ? Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment, Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs. Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

Scene I] Richard II 57

About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,

Have ever made me sour my patient cheek.

Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face. 170

I am the last of noble Edward's sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.

In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,

In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,

Than was that young and princely gentleman.

His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,

Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours ;

But when he frown 'd, it was against the French,

And not against his friends ; his noble hand

Did win what he did spend, and spent not that 180

Which his triumphant father's hand had won ;

His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood.

But bloody with the enemies of his kin.

O Richard ! York is too far gone with grief.

Or else he never would compare between.

King Richard. Why, uncle, what 's the matter ?

York. O my liege,

Pardon me, if you please ; if not, I, pleas 'd Not to be pardon 'd, am content withal. Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford ? 190

Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live ? Was not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true? Did not the one deserve to have an heir ? Is not his heir a well-deserving son ? Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time

58 Richard II [Act ii

His charters and his customary rights ;

Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day ;

Be not thyself, for how art thou a king

But by fair sequence and succession ?

Now, afore God — God forbid I say true ! — 200

If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,

Call in the letters-patents that he hath

By his attorneys-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,

You pluck a thousand dangers on your head.

You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts.

And prick my tender patience to those thoughts

Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

King Richard. Think what you will, we seize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands. 210

York. I '11 not be by the while ; my liege, fare- well.

What will ensue hereof, there 's none can tell ;

But by bad courses may be understood

That their events can never fall out good. \_Exit.

King Richard. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight ;

Bid him repair to us to Ely House,

To see this business. To-morrow next

We will for Ireland, and 't is time, I trow ;

And we create, in absence of ourself.

Our uncle York lord governor of England, 220

For he is just and always lov'd us well. —

Scene I] Richard II 59

Come on, our queen. To-morrow must we part ; Be merry, for our time of stay is short.

\_Flourish, Exeunt King, Queen, Bushy, Aumerle, Green, and Bagot. Northumbe7'land. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster

is dead. Ross. And living too, for now his son is duke. Willoughhy. Barely in title, not in revenue. Northumberland. Richly in both, if justice had her

right. Ross. My heart is great ; but it must break with silence Ere 't be disburthen'd with a liberal tongue.

Northumberland. Nay, speak thy mind ; and let him ne'er speak more 230

That speaks thy words again to do thee harm !

Willoughby. Tends that thou 'dst speak to the Duke of Hereford ? If it be so, out with it boldly, man ; Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

Ross. No good at all that I can do for him, Unless you call it good to pity him, Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

Northtimbei'land. Now, afore God, 't is shame such wrongs are borne In him, a royal prince, and many moe Of noble blood in this declining land. 240

The king is not himself, but basely led By flatterers ; and what they will inform, Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all;

6q Richard II [Act ii

That will the king severely prosecute

'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

Ross. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes, And lost their hearts ; the nobles hath he fin'd For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

Willoughby. And daily new exactions are devis'd. As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what ; 250

But what, o' God's name, doth become of this ?

Noi-thiimberland. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not, But basely yielded upon compromise That which his ancestors achiev'd with blows. More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

Ross. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

Willoughby. The king 's grown bankrupt, like a bro- ken man.

Northumberland. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.

Ross. He hath not money for these Irish wars, His burthenous taxations notwithstanding, 260

But by the robbing of the banish 'd duke.

Northumberland. His noble kinsman ! most degen- erate king! But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing. Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm ; We see the wind sit sore upon our sails. And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

Ross. We see the very wrack that we must suffer ; And un avoided is the danger now,

Scene I] Richard II 6i

For suffering so the causes of our wrack.

Northumberland. Not so ; even through the hollow

eyes of death 270

I spy life peering, but I dare not say How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willoughby. Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou

dost ours. Ross. Be confident to speak, Northumberland. We three are but thyself, and, speaking so. Thy words are but as thoughts ; therefore, be bold. Northumberland. Then thus : — I have from Port le

Blanc, a bay In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence That Harry Duke of Hereford, Renald Lord Cobham,

******* That late broke from the Duke of Exeter, 280

His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury, Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston, Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis

Quoint, — All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne, With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war, Are making hither with all due expedience. And shortly mean to touch our northern shore ; Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay The first departing of the king for Ireland. If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke, 290

Imp out our drooping country's broken wing, Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,

62 Richard II [Act ii

Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt, And make high majesty look like itself, Away with me in post to Ravenspurg ; But if you faint, as fearing to do so. Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

jRoss. To horse, to horse ! urge doubts to them that

fear. Willoughby. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there. \^Exeunt.

Scene II. London. A Room in the Palace Enter Queen, Bushy, and Bagot

Bushy. Madam, your majesty is too much sad ; You promis'd, when you parted with the king, To lay aside life-harming heaviness And entertain a cheerful disposition.

Queen. To please the king I did, to please myself I cannot do it ; yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard. Yet, again, methinks Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, lo

Is coming towards me, and my inward soul With nothing trembles ; at some thing it grieves, More than with parting from my lord the king.

Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath tw^enty shadows, Which show like grief itself, but are not so ; For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects,

Scene II] Richard II 6^

Like perspectives, which rightly gaz'd upon

Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry

Distinguish form. So your sweet majesty, 20

Looking awry upon your lord's departure,

Finds shapes of grief more than himself to wail.

Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows

Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen.

More than your lord's departure weep not ; more 's not

seen, Or if it be, 't is with false sorrow's eye. Which for things true weeps things imaginary.

Queen. It may be so, but yet my inward soul Persuades me it is otherwise ; howe'er it be, I cannot but be sad, so heavy sad 30

As, — though, on thinking, on no thought I think, — Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.

Bushy. 'T is nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.

Queen. 'T is nothing less. Conceit is still deriv'd From some forefather grief ; mine is not so. For nothing hath begot my something grief, Or something hath the nothing that I grieve. 'T is in reversion that I do possess, But what it is, that is not yet known ; what I cannot name ; 't is nameless woe, I wot. 40

Enter Green

Green. God save your majesty! — and well met, gentlemen : — I hope the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.

64 Richard II [Act il

Queen. Why hop'st thou so ? 't is better hope he is, For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope ; Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd ?

Gi^een. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power, And driven into despair an enemy's hope. Who strongly hath set footing in this land. The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself. And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd 50

At Raven spurg.

Queen. Now God in heaven forbid !

Green. O madam, 't is too true ; and that is worse, The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy, The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

Bushy. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumber- land, And all the rest of the revolted faction, traitors ?

Green. We have ; whereupon the Earl of Worcester Hath broke his staff, resign 'd his stewardship. And all the household servants fled with him 60

To Bolingbroke.

Queen. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe. And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir ; Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy, And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother. Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.

Bushy. Despair not, madam.

Queen. Who shall hinder me ?

Scene II] Richard II 6^

I will despair, and be at enmity

With cozening hope ; he is a flatterer, '

A parasite, a keeper-back of death, 70

Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,

Which false hope lingers in extremity.

Enter York

Green, Here comes the Duke of York.

Queen. With signs of war about his aged neck. O, full of careful business are his looks ! — Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.

York. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts ; Comfort 's in heaven, and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives but crosses, care, and grief. Your husband, he is gone to save far off, 80

Whilst others come to make him lose at home ; Here am I left to underprop his land, Who, weak with age, cannot support myself. Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made ; Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

Enter a Servant

Sej'iiant. My lord, your son was gone before I came.

York. He was? — Why, so! — go all which way it Will ! — The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold, And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side. — Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloster ; 90

Bid her send me presently a thousand pound. Hold, take my ring,

RICHARD n — 5

66 Richard II [Act ll

Servant. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship, To-day, as I caitie by, I called there ; — But I shall grieve you to report the rest.

York. What is 't, knave ?

Servant. An hour before I came the duchess died.

York. God for his mercy ! what a tide of woes Comes rushing on this woeful land at once ! I know not what to do. — I would to God — So my untruth had not provok'd him to it — The king had cut off my head with my brother's ! — What, are there no posts despatch'd for Ireland? — How shall we do for money for these wars ? — Come, sister, — cousin, I would say ; pray pardon

me. — Go, fellow \to the Servani\^ get thee home, provide some

carts. And bring away the armour that is there. —

[Exit Servant. Gentlemen, will you go muster men ? If I know How or which way to order these affairs, Thus thrust disorderly into my hands, no

Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen : The one is my sovereign, w^hom both my oath And duty bids defend ; the other, again. Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd, Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. Well, somewhat we must do. — Come, cousin, I '11 Dispose of you. — Gentlemen, go, muster up your men. And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle.

Scene II] Richard II 67

I should to Plashy too,

But time will not permit ; — all is uneven, 120

And every thing is left at six and seven.

[^Exeunt York and Queen.

Bushy, The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland, But none returns. For us to levy power Proportionable to the enemy Is all unpossible.

Green. Besides, our nearness to the king in love Is near the hate of those love not the king.

Bagot. And that 's the wavering commons ; for their love Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate. 130

Bushy. Wherein the king stands generally condemn'd.

Bagot. If judgment lie in them, then so do we, Because we ever have been near the king.

Green. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle ; The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.

Bushy. Thither will I with you ; for little office The hateful commons will perform for us. Except like curs to tear us all to pieces. — Will you go along with us ?

Bagot. No ; I will to Ireland to his majesty. 140

Farewell ; if heart's presages be not vain, We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.

Bushy. That 's as York thrives to beat back Boling- broke.

68 Richard II [Act II

Green. Alas, poor duke ! the task he undertakes Is numbering sands, and drinking oceans dry ; Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.

Bagot. Farewell at once, — for once, for all, and ever.

Bushy. Well, we may meet again.

Bagot. I fear me, never.

\Exeunt.

Scene III. The Wilds in Gloster shire Enter Bolingbroke ajid Northumberland, with

Forces

Bolingbroke. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now ?

Noi'thuniberland. Believe me, noble lord, I am a stranger here in Glostershire. These high wild hills and rough uneven ways Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome ; And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, Making the hard way sweet and delectable. But I bethink me what a weary way From Ravenspurg to Cotswold will be found In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company, lo Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd The tediousness and process of my travel. But theirs is sweeten'd with the hope to have The present benefit which I possess ; And hope to joy is little less in joy Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done By sight of what I have, your noble company.

Scene III] Richard II 69

Bolingbroke. Of much less value is my company Than your good words. But who comes here ? 20

Enter Harry Percy

Northumberla7id. It is my son, young Harry Percy, Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever. — Harry, how fares your uncle ?

Percy. I had thought, my lord, to have learn 'd his health of you.

Northumberland. Why, is he not with the queen ?

Percy. No, my good lord ; he hath forsook the court, Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd The household of the king.

Northumbe7'land. What was his reason ?

He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.

Percy. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor. But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurg, 31

To offer service to the Duke of Hereford, And sent me over by Berkeley to discover What power the Duke of York had levied there, Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurg.

Northumberland. Have you forgot the Duke of Here- ford, boy ?

Percy. No, my good lord, for that is not forgot Which ne'er I did remember ; to my knowledge, I never in my life did look on him.

Northumberland. Then learn to know him now ; this is the duke. 40

Percy. My gracious lord, I tender you my service.

70 Richard II [Act II

Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young, Which elder days shall ripen and confirm To more approved service and desert.

Bolingbi-oke. I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends ; And, as my fortune ripens with thy love. It shall be still thy true love's recompense. My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it. 50

Northumberland. How far is it to Berkeley ; and what stir Keeps good old York there with his men of war ?

Percy. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees, Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard ; And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour, None else of name and noble estimate.

Enter Ross and Willoughby

Northumberland. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby, Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.

Bolingbroke. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues A banish'd traitor ; all my treasury 60

Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd, Shall be your love and labour's recompense.

Ross. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord. Willoughby. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.

Scene iiij Richard II 71

Bolingbroke. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor, Which, till my infant fortune comes to years, Stands for my bounty. — But who comes here ?

Enter Berkeley

Northuniberland. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.

Berkeley. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.

Bolingbroke. My lord, my answer is — to Lancaster, 70 And I am come to seek that name in England ; And I must find that title in your tongue Before I make reply to aught you say.

Berkeley. Mistake me not, my lord ; 't is not my meaning To raze one title of your honour out. To you, my lord, I come, what lord you will, From the most gracious regent of this land. The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on To take advantage of the absent time And fright our native peace with self-born arms. So

Enter York, attended

Bolingbroke. I shall not need transport my words by you; Here comes his grace in person. — My noble uncle !

\Kneels. York. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee, Whose duty is deceivable and false. Bolingbroke. My gracious uncle ! — York. Tut, tut !

72 Richard II [Act ii

Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle :

I am no traitor's uncle ; and that word ' grace '

In an ungracious mouth is but profane.

Why have those banish 'd and forbidden legs

Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground ? 90

But, then, more why, — why have they dar'd to march

So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,

Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war

And ostentation of despised arms ?

Com'st thou because the anointed king is hence ?

Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind.

And in my loyal bosom lies his power.

Were I but now the lord of such hot youth

As when brave Gaunt thy father and myself

Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men, 100

From forth the ranks of many thousand French,

O, then, how quickly should this arm of mine,

Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee

And minister correction to thy fault !

Bolingbroke. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault ; On what condition stands it, and wherein ?

York. Even in condition of the worse degree, In gross rebellion and detested treason. Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come Before the expiration of thy time, no

In braving arms against thy sovereign.

Bolingbroke. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Here- ford ;

Scene III] Richard II 73

But as I come, I come for Lancaster.

And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace

Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.

You are my father, for methinks in you

I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,

Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd

A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties

Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away 120

To upstart un thrifts ? Wherefore was I born ?

If that my cousin king be king of England,

It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.

You have a son, Aumerle, my noble kinsman ;

Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,

He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father.

To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.

I am denied to sue my livery here,

And yet my letters-patents give me leave.

My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold, 130

And these and all are all amiss employ'd.

What would you have me do ? I am a subject

And challenge law ; attorneys are denied me,

And therefore personally I lay my claim

To my inheritance of free descent.

Northiii7iberland. The noble duke hath been too much abus'd.

Ross. It stands your grace upon to do him right.

Willoiighby. Base men by his endowments are made great.

York. My lords of England, let me tell you this :

74 Richard II [Act ii

I have had feelings of my cousin's wrongs, 140

And labour'd all I could to do him right ;

But in this kind to come, in braving arms,

Be his own carver and cut out his way,

To find out right with wrong, — it may not be ;

And you that do abet him in this kind

Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.

Northumberland. The noble duke hath sworn his coming is But for his own ; and for the right of that We all have strongly sworn to give him aid, And let him ne'er see joy that breaks that oath ! 150

York. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms. I cannot mend it, I must needs confess, Because my power is weak and all ill left, But if I could, by Him that gave me life, I would attach you all, and make you stoop Unto the sovereign mercy of the king ; But since I cannot, be it known to you I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well, Unless you please to enter in the castle And there repose you for this night. 160

Bolingbroke. An offer, uncle, that we will accept ; But we must win your grace to go with us To Bristol Castle, which they say is held By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices, The caterpillars of the commonwealth, Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.

York. It may be I will go with you; but yet I '11 pause,

Scene IV] Richard II 75

For I am loth to break our country's laws. Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are ; Things past redress are now with me past care. 170

[^Exeunt. Scene IV. A Camp in Wales

Enter Salisbury and a Captain

Captain. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days, And hardly kept our countrymen together, And yet we hear no tidings from the king ; Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.

Salisbuij. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welsh- man ; The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.

Captain. 'T is thought the king is dead ; we will not stay. The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd. And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven ; The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth, 10

And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change ; Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap. The one in fear to lose what they enjoy. The other to enjoy by rage and war. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. Farewell ; our countrymen are gone and fled, As well assur'd Richard their king is dead. \Exit.

Salisbury. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind, * I see thy glory, like a shooting star,

76 Richard II [Act 11

Fall to the base earth from the firmament. 20

Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,

Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest :

Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes,

And crossly to thy good all fortune goes. [Exit.

Langley

ACT III

Scene I. Bolingbroke's Camp at Bristol

Enter Bolingbroke, York, Northumberland, Percy, WiLLOUGHBY, Ross, with BusHY and Green prisoners

Bolingbroke. Bring forth these men. — Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls — Since presently your souls must part your bodies — With too much urging your pernicious lives, For 't were no charity ; yet, to wash your blood From off my hands, here in the view of men I will unfold some causes of your deaths. You have misled a prince, a royal king, A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments, By you unhappied and disfigur'd clean ; lo

You have in manner with your sinful hours Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,

77

78 Richard II [Act ill

Broke the possession of a royal bed,

And stain 'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks

With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.

Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,

Near to the king in blood, and near in love

Till you did make him misinterpret me.

Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries.

And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds, 20

Eating the bitter bread of banishment ;

Whilst you have fed upon my signories,

Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest-woods,

From my own windows torn my household coat,

Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign,

Save men's opinions and my living blood.

To show the world I am a gentleman.

This and much more, much more than twice all this.

Condemns you to the death. — See them deliver 'd over

To execution and the hand of death. 30

Bushy. More welcome is the stroke of death to me Than Bolingbroke to England.

Green. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls, And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

Bolingbroke. My Lord Northumberland, see them de- spatch'd. — \Exeunt Nor thti nib er land and others^ with Prisoners. Uncle, you say the queen is at your house ; For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated. Tell her I send to her my kind commends ; Take special care my greetings be deliver'd,.

Scene II] Richard II 79

York. A gentleman of mine I have despatch'd 40 With letters of your love to her at large.

Bolingbroke. Thanks, gentle uncle. — Come, lords, away, To fight with Glendower and his complices ; Awhile to work, and after holiday. \_Exeunt.

Scene II. The Coast of Wales. A Castle in view

Flouiish ; drums and trumpets. Enter King Richard, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle, and Soldiers

King Richard. Barkloughly Castle call you this at hand ?

Aumei'le. Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air, After your late tossing on the breaking seas ?

King Richard. Needs must I like it well ; I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again. — Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs. As a long-parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting. So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, 10

And do thee favour with my royal hands. Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth, Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense ; But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom. And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way.

8o Richard II [Act ill

Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet

Which with usurping steps do trample thee.

Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies ;

And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,

Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder, 20

Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch

Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies. —

Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords :

This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones

Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king

Shall falter under foul rebellious arms !

Carlisle. Fear not, my lord ; that Power that made you king Hath power to keep you king in spite of all. The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd And not neglected ; else, if heaven would, 30

And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse, The proffer 'd means of succor and redress.

Aumerle. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss, Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security. Grows strong and great in substance and in friends.

King Richai'd. Discomfortable cousin \ know'st thou not That when the searching eye of heaven is hid Behind the globe, that lights the lower world. Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen. In murthers and in outrage, boldly here ; 40

But when from under this terrestrial ball He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines

Scene II] Richard II 8i

And darts his light through every guilty hole,

Then murthers, treasons, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves ?

So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,

Who all this while hath revell'd in the night

Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes.

Shall see us rising in our throne, the east, 5c

His treasons wdll sit blushing in his face,

Not able to endure the sight of day,

But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm from an anointed king ;

The breath of worldly men cannot depose

The deputy elected by the Lord.

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press 'd

To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,

God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay 60

A glorious angel ; then, if angels fight.

Weak man must fall, for heaven still guards the right. —

Enter Salisbury

Welcome, my lord : how far off lies your power ?

Salts/)!/ ?y. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord, Than this weak arm ; discomfort guides my tongue, And bids me speak of nothing but despair. One day too late, I fear, my noble lord. Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

RICHARD II — 6

82 Richard II [Act iii

And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men ! 70

To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,

O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;

For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,

Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.

Aumerle. Comfort, my liege ! why looks your grace so pale ?

King Richard. But now the blood of twenty thousand men Did triumph in my face, and they are fled ; And till so much blood thither come again. Have I not reason to look pale and dead ? All souls that will be safe fly from my side, 80

For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

Aumerle. Comfort, my liege ! remember who you are.

King Richard. I had forgot myself ; am I not king ?

Awake, thou sluggard majesty ! thou sleep'st.

Is not the king's name forty thousand names ?

Arm, arm, my name ! a puny subject strikes

At thy great glory. — Look not to the ground.

Ye favourites of a king ; are we not high ?

High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York

Hath power enough to serve our turn. — But who comes

here ? 90

Enter Scroop

Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege Than can my care-tun 'd tongue deliver him.

King Richard. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.

Scene II] Richard II 83

The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.

Say, is my kingdom lost ? why, 't was my care ;

And what loss is it to be rid of care ?

Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we ?

Greater he shall not be ; if he serve God,

We '11 serve Him too, and be his fellow so.

Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend ; 100

They break their faith to God as well as us.

Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay ;

The worst is death, and death will have his day.

Scroop. Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd To bear the tidings of calamity. Like an unseasonable stormy day. Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores. As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears. So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land no

With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel. White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices. Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown. Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double-fatal yew against thy state ; Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills Against thy seat ; both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than I have power to tell. 120

King Richard. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.

84 Richard II [Act ill

Where is the Earl of Wiltshire ? where is Bagot ? What has become of Bushy ? where is Green ? That they have let the dangerous enemy Measure our confines with such peaceful steps ? If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it ; I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke. Scroop. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my

lord. King Richard. O villains, vipers, damn'd without re- demption ! Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man ! 130

Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart ! Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas ! Would they make peace ? Terrible hell make war Upon their spotted souls for this offence !

Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate. Again uncurse their souls ; their peace is made With heads, and not with hands. Those whom you

curse Have felt the worst of death's destroying hand, And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground. 140

Aumerle. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire

dead ? Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. Aumerle. Where is the duke my father with his

power ? King Richard. No matter where ; of comfort no man speak.

Scene 11] Richard II 85

Let 's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

Let 's choose executors, and talk of wills ;

And yet not so, — for what can we bequeath,

Save our deposed bodies to the ground ? 150

Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own but death.

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,

And tell sad stories of the death of kings :

How some have been depos'd, some slain in war.

Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,

Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,

All murther'd ; for within the hollow crown 160

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits

Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchise, be fear'd, and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit.

As if this flesh, which walls about our life,

W^ere brass impregnable, and humour'd thus

Comes at the last, and with a httle pin

Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell king! 170

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence ; throw away respect.

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

86 Richard II [Act ill

For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, Need friends ; — subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king ?

Carlisle. My lord, wise men ne'er wail their present woes. But presently prevent the ways to wail. To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, i8o

Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe. And so your follies fight against yourself. Fear, and be slain ; no worse can come to fight ; And fight and die is death destroying death, Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

Aunierle. My father hath a power ; inquire of him, And learn to make a body of a limb.

King Richard. Thou chid'st me well. — Proud Bol- ingbroke, I come To change blows with thee for our day of doom. This ague-fit of fear is over-blown ; 190

An easy task it is to win our own. — Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power ? Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.

Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky The state and inclination of the day ; So may you by my dull and heavy eye, My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. I play the torturer, by small and small To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken. Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke, 200

Scene III] Richard II 87

And all your northern castles yielded up, And all your southern gentlemen in arms Upon his faction.

King Richard. Thou hast said enough. — Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth

\^To Aumerle. Of that sweet way I was in to despair ! What say you now ? what comfort have we now ? By heaven, I '11 hate him everlastingly That bids me be of comfort any more. Go to Flint Castle. There I '11 pine away ; A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey. 210

That power I have, discharge ; and let them go To ear the land that hath some hope to grow. For I have none. — Let no man speak again To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

Aumerle. My liege, one word.

King Richai'd. He does me double wrong

That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. Discharge my followers ; let them hence away, From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.

\Exeunt.

Scene III. Wales. Before Flint Castle

Enter, with drum and colours, Bolingbroke a7id Forces ; York, Northumberland, and others

Bolingb7'oke. So that by this intelligence we learn The Welshmen are dispers'd ; and Salisbury

88 Richard II [Act ill

Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed With some few private friends upon this coast.

Northumberland. The news is very fair and good, my lord; Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.

York. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland To say ' King Richard.' — Alack the heavy day When such a sacred king should hide his head !

Northumbej'land. Your grace mistakes ; only to be brief lo

Left I his title out.

York. The time hath been,

Would you have been so brief with him, he would Have been so brief with you to shorten you. For taking so the head, your whole head's length.

Bolingbroke. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.

Yoi'k. Take not, good cousin, further than you should, Lest you mistake ; the heavens are o'er your head.

Bolingbroke. I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself Against their will. — But who comes here ?

Enter Percy

Welcome, Harry ; what, will not this castle yield ? 20 Percy. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,

Against thy entrance. Bolingbroke. Royally !

Why, it contains no king ?

Percy. Yes, my good lord,

Scene III] Richard II 89

It doth contain a king ; King Richard lies

Within the hmits of yond lime and stone,

And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,

Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman

Of holy reverence, — who, I cannot learn.

Northumberland. O, belike it is the Bishop of Car- lisle. 30 BoUngbroke. Noble lord, \To No7'thumbeidand. Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle; Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parle Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver : — Henry BoUngbroke

On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand. And sends allegiance and true faith of heart To his most royal person ; hither come Even at his feet to lay my arms and power, Provided that my banishment repeal'd, 40

And lands restor'd again, be freely granted. If not, I '11 use the advantage of my power. And la}^ the summer's dust with showers of blood Rain'd from the wounds of slaughter 'd Englishmen ; The which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke It is such crimson tempest should bedrench The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land, My stooping duty tenderly shall show. Go, signify as much, while here we march Upon the grassy carpet of this plain. — 50

\NorthinnberIand advances to the Castle with a trumpet. Let 's march without the noise of threatening drum,

90 Richard II [Act ill

That from the castle's tatter'd battlements

Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.

Methinks King Richard and myself should meet

With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water, when their thundering shock

At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.

Be he the fire, I '11 be the yielding water ;

The rage be his, while on the earth I rain

My waters, — on the earth, and not on him. 60

March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.

A park sounded, and answered by another tri^npet with- in. Flourish. Enter on the walls King Richard, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle, Scroop and Salisbury

York. See, see, King Richard doth himself appear, As doth the blushing discontented sun From out the fiery portal of the east, When he perceives the envious clouds are bent To dim his glory and to stain the track Of his bright passage to the Occident. Yet looks he like a king ; behold, his eye, As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe, 70

That any harm should stain so fair a show !

King Richard. We are amaz'd, and thus long have we stood \To Northumberland.

To watch the fearful bending of thy knee. Because we thought ourself thy lawful king ;

Scene III] Richard II 91

And if we be, how dare thy joints forget To pay their awful duty to our presence ? If we be not, show us the hand of God That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship ; For well we know, no hand of blood and bone Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre, 80

Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. And though you think that all, as you have done. Have torn their souls by turning them from us, And we are barren and bereft of friends, Yet know, my master, God omnipotent. Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf, Armies of pestilence ; and they shall strike Your children yet unborn and unbegot. That lift your vassal hands against my head And threat, the glory of my precious crown. 90

Tell Bolingbroke — for yond methinks he stands — That every stride he makes upon my land Is dangerous treason ; he is come to ope The purple testament of bleeding war, But ere the crown he looks for live in peace. Ten thousand bloody crowns of mother's sons Shall ill become the flower of England's face. Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace To scarlet indignation, and bedew

Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood. 100

No7'thumbe7iand. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the king Should so with civil and uncivil arms

92 Richard II [Act III

Be rush'd upon ! Thy thrice-noble cousm, Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand, And by the honourable tomb he swears That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones, And by the royalties of both your bloods — Currents that spring from one most gracious head — And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt, And by the worth and honour of himself, no

Comprising all that may be sworn or said, His coming hither hath no further scope Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg Enfranchisement immediate on his knees ; Which on thy royal party granted once, His glittering arms he will commend to rust, His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart To faithful service of your majesty. This swears he, as he is a prince, is just ; And, as I am a gentleman, I credit him. 120

King Richard. Northumberland, say thus the king returns : His noble cousin is right welcome hither ; And all the number of his fair demands Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction. With all the gracious utterance thou hast Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends. — We do debase ourself, cousin, do we not, \To Ainncjie. To look so poorly and to speak so fair ? Shall we call back Northumberland, and send Defiance to the traitor, and so die ? 130

Scene III] Richard II 93

Aumerle. No, good my lord ; let 's fight with gentle words Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.

King Richard. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine. That laid the sentence of dread banishment On yond proud man, should take it off again With words of sooth ! O that I were as great As is my grief, or lesser than my name ! Or that I could forget what I have been. Or not remember what I must be now ! Swell'st thou, proud heart ? I '11 give thee scope to beat, Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me. \\\

Aumerle. Northumberland comes back from Boling- broke.

King Richard. What must the king do now ? Must he submit ? The king shall do it. Must he be depos'd ? The king shall be contented. Must he lose The name of king? O' God's name, let it go. I '11 give my jewels for a set of beads. My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, My gay apparel for an alms-man's gown, My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood, 150

My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff, My subjects for a pair of carved saints, And my large kingdom for a little grave, A little little grave, an obscure grave ; Or I '11 be buried in the king's highway,

94 Richard II [Act iii

Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet

May hourly trample on their sovereign's head,

For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,

iind, buried once, why not upon my head ? —

Aumerle, thou weep'st ; my tender-hearted cousin ! —

We '11 make foul weather with despised tears ; i6i

Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn.

And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Or shall we play the wantons with our woes.

And make some pretty match with shedding tears ?

As thus : — to drop them still upon one place,

Till they have fretted us a pair of graves

Within the earth ; and, therein laid, there lies

Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.

Would not this ill do well? — Well, well, I see 170

I talk but idly, and you mock at me. — •

Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,

What says King Bolingbroke ? will his majesty

Give Richard leave to live till Richard die ?

You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.

Northumberland. My lord, in the base court he doth

attend To speak with you ; may it please you to come down ? King Richard. Down, down I come ; like glistering

Phaeton, Wanting the manage of unruly jades. —

\_Northumberland retires to Bolingbroke. In the base court ? Base court, where kings grow

base, 180

Scene III] Richard II 95

To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.

In the base court ? Come down ? Down, court ! down,

king ! For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing. \_Exeunt from above.

Bolingbroke. What says his majesty ? Northmnberland. Sorrow and grief of heart

Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man ; Yet he is come.

Enter King Richard and his Attendants below

Bolingbroke. Stand all apart, And show fair duty to his majesty. — My gracious lord, — \_K7ieeling.

King Richard. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee 190

To make the base earth proud with kissing it ; Me rather had my heart might feel your love Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy. Up, cousin, up ; your heart is up, I know, Thus high at least, although your knee be low.

Boli7igbi'oke, My gracious lord, I come but for mine

own. King Richard. Your own is yours, and I am yours,

and all. Bolingbi'oke. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord, As my true service shall deserve your love.

King Richard, Well you deserve ; they well deserve to have 200

96 Richard II [Act iii

That know the strong'st and surest way to get. — Uncle, give me your hand. Nay, dry your eyes ; Tears show their love, but want their remedies. — Cousin, I am too 3^oung to be your father, Though you are old enough to be my heir. What you will have, I '11 give, and willing too ; For do we must what force will have us do. — Set on towards London ; — cousin, is it so ?

Bolingbroke. Yea, my good lord.

King Richard. Then I must not say no.

[^Flourish. Exeunt.

Scene IV. 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 ?

I Lady. Madam, we '11 play at bowls.

Queen. 'T will make me think the world is full of rubs, And that my fortune runs against the bias.

I Lady. Madam, we '11 dance.

Qiieen. My legs can keep no measure in delight When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief. Therefore, no dancing, girl ; some other sport.

I Lady. Madam, we '11 tell tales. lo

Queen. Of sorrow or of joy ?

I Lady. Of either, madam.

Scene IV] Richard II 97

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. For what I have, I need not to repeat ; And what I want, it boots not to complain.

I Lady. Madam, I '11 sing.

Queen. ' T is well that thou hast cause ;

But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.

I Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.

Queen. And I could sing, would weeping do me good, And never borrow any tear of thee. — 23

But stay, here come the gardeners ; Let 's step into the shadow of these trees. My wretchedness unto a row of pins. They '11 talk of state, for every one doth so Against a change ; woe is forerun with woe.

\^Queen and Ladies retire.

Enter a Gardener and two Servants

Gardener. Go, bind thou up yond dangling apri- cocks, Which, like unruly children, make their sire 30

Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight ; 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 ;

RICHARD II — 7

98 Richard 11 [Act iii

All must be even in our government. — You thus employ 'd, I will go root away The noisome weeds which without profit suck The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

I Servant. Why should we, in the compass of a pale, Keep law and form and due proportion, 41

Showing, as in a model, our firm estate, When our sea-walled garden, the whole land. Is full of weeds ; her fairest flowers chok'd up. Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd, Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars ?

Gardejier. Hold thy peace.

He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf. The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shel- ter, 50 That seem'd in eating him to hold him up, Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke, — I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

I Servant. What, are they dead ?

Gardener. They are ; and Bolingbroke

Hath seiz'd the wasteful king. — O, what pity is it That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land As we this garden ! We at time of year Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees. Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood. With too much riches it confound itself ; 60

Had he done so to great and growing men,

Scene IV] Richard II ^^

They might have liv'd 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. I Servant. What ! think you, then, the king shall be

depos'd ? Gardener. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd 'T is doubt he will be ; letters came last night To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's 70

That tell black tidings.

Queen. O, I am press 'd to death through want of

speaking ! — [ Coming forward.'] Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden. How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleas-

ing news ? What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee To make a second fall of cursed man ? Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd ? Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth, Divine his downfall ? Say, where, when, and how Cam'st thou by this ill tidings ? speak, thou wretch. 80

Gardener. Pardon me, madam ; little joy have I To breathe this 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 ; But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,

LofC.

lOO Richard II [Act ill

Besides himself, are all the English peers, And with that odds he weighs King Richard down. Post you to London, and you '11 find it so ; 90

I speak no more than every one doth know.

Queen. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot, Doth not thy embassage belong to me. And am I last that knows it ? O, thou think'st To serve me last, that I may longest keep Thy sorrow in my breast. — Come, ladies, go, 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, 100

Pray God 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 fall a tear ; here, in this place, I '11 set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace. Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

Throwing the Gage

ACT IV

Scene I. London. West?nifisfer Hall. The Lords spir- itual on the right side of the throne ; the Lords tem- poral on the left ; the Co?mnons below

Enter Bolingbroke, Aumerle, Surrey, Northum- berland, Percy, Fitzwater, another Lord, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and Attendants. Officers behind with Bagot

Bolingbi'oke. Call forth Bagot. — Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind, What thou dost know of noble Gloster's death, —

lOI

I02 Richard II [Act iv

Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd The bloody office of his timeless end.

Bagot. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.

Bolingbroke, Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.

Bagot. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd. In that dead time when Gloster's death was plotted lo I heard you say, — ' Is not my arm of length, That reacheth from the restful English Court As far as Calais, to my uncle's head ? ' Amongst much other talk, that very time, I heard you say that you had rather refuse The offer of an hundred thousand crowns Than Bolingbroke's return to England ; Adding withal, how blest this land would be In this your cousin's death.

Aumerle. Princes, and noble lords.

What answer shall I make to this base man ? 20

Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars, On equal terms to give him chastisement ? Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd With the attainder of his slanderous lips. — There is my gage, the manual seal of death. That marks thee out for hell ; I say, thou liest, And will maintain what thou hast said is false In thy heart-blood, though being all too base To stain the temper of my knightly sword.

Bolingbroke. Bagot, forbear ; thou shalt not take it up.

Scene I] Richard II 103

Aumerle. Excepting one, I would he were the best In all this presence that hath mov'd me so. 32

Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine ; By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand 'st, I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it, That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death. If thou deni'st it twenty times, thou liest; And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart. Where it was forged, with my rapier's point. 40

Aumerle. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day.

Fitzwater. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

Aumej'k. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.

Percy. Aumerle, thou liest ; his honour is as true In this appeal as thou art all unjust, And that thou art so, there I throw my gage. To prove it on thee to the extremest point Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.

Aumerle. And if I do not, may my hands rot off, And never brandish more revengeful steel 50

Over the glittering helmet of my foe !

Lord. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle ; And spur thee on with full as many lies As may be holla'd in thy treacherous ear From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn ; Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.

Aumerle. Who sets me else ? by heaven, I '11 throw at all!

I04 Richard II [Act IV

I have a thousand spirits in one breast, To answer twenty thousand such as you.

Surrey. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well 60 The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

Fitzwater. My lord, 't is very true ; you were in presence then, And you can witness with me this is true,

Surrey. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.

Fitzwater. Surrey, thou liest.

Surrey. Dishonourable boy!

That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword That it shall render vengeance and revenge Till thou, the lie-giver, and that lie do lie In earth as quiet as thy father's skull. In proof whereof, there is mine honour's pawn ; 7c

Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.

Fitzwater. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse ! If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live, I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness, And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies. And lies, and lies ; there is my bond of faith, To tie thee to my strong correction. As I intend to thrive in this new world, Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal ; Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say 80

That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men To execute the noble Duke at Calais.

Aumetie. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage,

Scene I] Richard II 105

That Norfolk lies ; here do I throw down this, If he may be repeal'd, to try his honour.

Bolifigbroke. These differences shall all rest under gage Till Norfolk be repeal'd ; repeal'd he shall be, And, though mine enemy, restor'd again To all his lands and signories. When he 's return'd, Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial. 90

Carlisle. That honourable day shall ne'er be seen. Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens, And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself To Italy ; and there, at Venice, gave His body to that pleasant country's earth, And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long. 100

Bolingbroke. Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead ?

Carlisle. As surely as riiv£, my lord.

Bolingbroke. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom Of good old Abraham ! — Lords appellants. Your differences shall all rest under gage Till we assign you to your days of trial.

E filer York, attended

York. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with walling soul

io6 Richard II [Act iv

Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields To the possession of thy royal hand. no

Ascend his throne, descending now from him, — And long live Henry, of that name the fourth !

Bolingbroke. In God's name I '11 ascend the regal throne.

Carlisle. Marry, God forbid ! — Worst in this royal presence may I speak, Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth. Would God that any in this noble presence Were enough noble to be upright judge Of noble Richard ! then true noblesse would Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong. 120

What subject can give sentence on his king ? And who sits here that is not Richard's subject.'* Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear, Although apparent guilt be seen in them ; And shall the figure of God's majesty. His captain, steward, deputy elect, Anointed, crowned, planted many years. Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath, And he himself not present ? O, forbid it, God, That, in a Christian climate, souls refin'd 130

Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed ! I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king. My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king, Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king. And if you crown him, let me prophesy, —

Scene I] Richard II 107

The blood of English shall manure the ground, And future ages groan for this foul act ; Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels, And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars 140

Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound ; Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny- Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls. O, if you rear this house against this house, It will the woefullest division prove That ever fell upon this cursed earth. Prevent, resist it, let it not be so, Lest children's children cry against you woe!

Northumberland. Well have you argued, sir ; and,

for your pains, 150

Of capital treason we arrest you here. — My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge To keep him safely till his day of trial. — .May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit? BoUngbroke. Fetch hither Richard, that in common

view He may surrender ; so we shall proceed Without suspicion.

York. I will be his conduct. \^Exit.

BoUngbroke. Lords, you that here are under our

arrest, Procure your sureties for your days of answer. — Little are we beholding to your love, \To Carlisle, 160 And little look'd for at your helping hands.

io8 Richard II [Act IV

Re-enter York, ivith King Richard, and Officers dearing the croivn^ etc.

King Richard. Alack ! why am I sent for to a king Before I have shook off the regal thoughts Wherewith I reign'd ? I hardly yet have learn 'd To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee ; Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me To this submission. Yet I well remember The favours of these men ; were they not mine ? Did they not sometime cry All hail ! to me ? So Judas did to Christ ; but he in twelve 170

Found truth in all but one, I in twelve thousand none. God save the king ! — Will no man say amen ? Am I both priest and clerk ? Well then, amen. God save the king ! although I be not he ; And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me. — To do what service am I sent for hither ?

York. To do that office of thine own good will Which tired majesty did make thee offer, — The resignation of thy state and crown To Henry Bolingbroke. 180

King Richai'd. Give me the crown. — Here, cousin, seize the crown ; On this side my hand, and on that side thine. Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets, filling one another ; The emptier ever dancing in the air. The other down, unseen, and full of water.

Scene I] Richard II IO9

That bucket down and full of tears am I, Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

BoUngbroke. I thought you had been willing to resign.

Ki7ig Richai'd. My crown I am ; but still my griefs are mine. 190

You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs ; still am I king of those.

BoUngbroke. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.

King Richai'd. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down, My care is loss of care, by old care done ; Your care is gain of care, by new care won. The cares I give I have, though given away ; They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.

BoUngbroke. Are you contented to resign the crown ?

King Richard, Ay, no ; — no, ay ; for I must nothing be : 200

Therefore no no, for I resign to thee. Now mark me, how I will undo myself. — I give this heavy weight from off my head, And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, The pride of kingly sway from out my heart ; With mine own tears I wash away my balm, With mine own hands I give away my crown. With mine own tongue deny my sacred state. With mine own breath release all duteous oaths. All pomp and majesty I do forswear ; 210

My manors, rents, revenues I forego ;

no Richard II [Act IV

My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny.

God pardon all oaths that are broke to me !

God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee !

Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd.

And thou with all pleas'd, that hast all achiev'd !

Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,

And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit 1

God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says.

And send him many years of sunshine days ! — 220

What more remains ?

Northumberland. No more, but that you read

[ Offering a paper. These accusations, and these grievous crimes Committed by your person and your followers Against the state and profit of this land ; That, by confessing them, the souls of men May deem that you are worthily depos'd.

Ki7ig Richard. Must I do so ? and must I ravel out My weav'd-up follies ? Gentle Northumberland, If thy offences were upon record.

Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop 230

To read a lecture of them ? If thou wouldst. There shouldst thou find one heinous article. Containing the deposing of a king, And cracking the strong warrant of an oath, Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven. — Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me, Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself, Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,

Scene ij Richard II iii

Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates

Have here deUver'd me to my sour cross, 240

And water cannot wash away your sin.

Northumbe7'land. My lord, despatch ; read o'er these articles.

King Richard. Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see ; And yet salt water blinds them not so much But they can see a sort of traitors here. Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest ; For I have given here my soul's consent To undeck the pompous body of a king, Made glory base and sovereignty a slave, 250

Proud majesty a servant, state a peasant.

Northumberland. My lord,

King Richard. No lord of thine, thou haught insult- ing man, » Nor no man's lord ; I have no name, no title, No, not that name was given me at the font, But 't is usurped. — Alack the heavy day, That I have worn so many winters out, And know not now what name to call myself! O that I were a mockery king of snow, Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, 260 To melt myself away in water drops ! — Good king, — great king, — and yet not greatly good, — And if my word be sterling yet in England, Let it command a mirror hither straight,

112 Richard 11 [Act IV

That it may show me what a face I have, Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.

Bolingbroke. Go, some of you, and fetch a looking- glass. \_Exit an Attendant. Northumberland. Read o'er this paper while the glass

doth come. King Richard. Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come

to hell ! Bolingbroke. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumber- land. 270' Northumberland. The commons will not then be

satisfied. King Richard. They shall be satisfied ; I '11 read enough, When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that 's myself. —

Re-enter Attendant with a glass

Give me the glass, and therein will I read. —

No deeper wrinkles yet ? hath sorrow struck

So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds ? — O flattering glass,

Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me ! Was this face the face 280

That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men ? Was this the face

That, like the sun, did make beholders wink ?

Was this the face that fac'd so many follies,

And was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke ?

Scene I] Richard II II3

A brittle glory shineth in this face : As brittle as the glory is the face ;

\Dashes the glass against the ground. For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers. — Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, — How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face. 290

Bolingbroke. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd The shadow of your face.

King Richard. Say that again.

The shadow of my sorrow ? Ha ! let 's see : — 'T is very true, my grief lies all within. And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul. There lies the substance ; and I thank thee, king, For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way 300

How to lament the cause. I '11 beg one boon, And then begone and trouble you no more. Shall I obtain it ?

Bolingbj^oke. Name it, fair cousin.

King Richard. Fair cousin ! I am greater than a king. For when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects ; being now a subject, I have a king here to my flatterer. Being so great, I have no need to beg.

Bolingbroke. Yet ask.

King Richard. And shall I have ? 310

Bolingbroke. You shall.

RICHARD II — 8

114 Richard 11 [Act IV

Kmg Richard. Then give me leave to go.

Bolingbroke. Whither ?

King Richard. Whither you will, so I were from your

sights. Bolingbroke. Go, some of you, convey him to the

Tower. King Richard. O, good! Convey? — conveyers are you all That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

\Exeiint King Richard^ some Lords and a Guard. Bolingbroke. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation ; lords, prepare yourselves.

S^Exeunt all but the Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of Ca^'lisle., and Aumerle, Abbot. A woeful pageant have we here beheld. 320 Carlisle. The woe 's to come ; the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

Aumei'le. You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot ?

Abbot. My lord. Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament To bury mine intents, but also to eifect Whatever I shall happen to devise.

I see your brows are full of discontent, 330

Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears. Come home with me to supper ; I will lay A plot shall show us all a merry day. \Exeunt.

ACT V

Scene I. Londofi. A Street leading to the Tower

Enter Queen and Ladies

Queen. This way the king will come ; this is the way To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke. Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth Have any resting for her true king's queen. —

Enter King Richard and Guards

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,

"5

ii6 Richard II [Act v

My fair rose wither ; yet look up, behold, That you in pity may dissolve to dew, And wash him fresh again with true-love tears. — lo Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand, Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb, And not King Richard, thou most beauteous inn, Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee, When triumph is become an alehouse guest ?

King Richard. Join not with grief, fair woman, do

not so. To make my end too sudden ; learn, good soul. To think our former state a happy dream. From which awak'd, the truth of what we are Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet, 20

To grim Necessity ; and he and I Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, And cloister thee in some religious house ; Our holy lives must win a new world's crown. Which our profane hours here have stricken down. Queen. What ! is my Richard both in shape and

mind Transform 'd and weakened ? Hath Bolingbroke Depos'd thine intellect ? Hath he been in thy heart ? The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw, And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage 30

To be o'erpower'd ; and wilt thou, pupil-like, Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod. And fawn on rage with base humility, Which art a lion and a king of beasts ?

Scene I] Richard II 117

Kitig Richard. A king of beasts, indeed ; if aught but beasts, I had been still a happy king of men. Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France ; Think I am dead, and that even here thou tak'st. As from my death-bed, thy last living leave. In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire 40

With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages long ago betid ; And ere thou bid good-night, to quit their griefs Tell thou the lamentable tale of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. For why, the senseless brands will sympathize The heavy accent of thy moving tongue. And in compassion weep the fire out ; And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black. For the deposing of a rightful king. 50

Enter Northumberland attended

Northumberland. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd ; You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower. — And, madam, there is order ta'en for you ; With all swift speed you must away to France.

King Richard. Northumberland, thou ladder where- withal The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne. The time shall not be many hours of age More than it is, ere foul sin, gathering head,

ii8 Richard II [Act v

Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,

Though he divide the realm and give thee half, 60

It is too little, helping him to all ;

And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way

To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again.

Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way

To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.

The love of wicked friends converts to fear.

That fear to hate ; and hate turns one or both

To worthy danger and deserved death.

Nor tMimber land. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave and part ; for you must part forthwith. 70 King Richard. Doubly divorc'd ! — Bad men, ye vio- late A twofold marriage ; 'twixt my crown and me, And then betw^ixt me and my married wife. — Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me ; And yet not so, for with a kiss 't was made. — Part us, Northumberland ; I towards the north. Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime, My wife to France, from whence, set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May, Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day. 80

Queen. And must we be divided ? must we part ? King Richai'd. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and

heart from heart. Queen. Banish us both, and send the king with me.

Scene I] Richard 11 119

Northuinberland. That were some love, but little

policy. Queen. Then whither he goes thither let me go. King Richard. So two, together weeping, make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here ; Better far off than near be, ne'er the near. Go, count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans. Queen. So longest way shall have the longest moans. 90

King Richard. Twice for one step I '11 groan, the way being short. And piece the way out with a heavy heart. Come, come, in wooing sorrow let 's be brief. Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief. One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part ; Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

\They kiss. Queen. Give me mine own again ; 't were no good part To take on me to keep and kill thy heart. —

[They kiss again.

So, now I have mine own again, begone,

That I may strive to kill it with a groan. 100

Ki?tg Richard. We make woe wanton with this fond

delay.

Once more, adieu ; the rest let sorrow say. [Exeunt.

I20 Richard II [Act v

Scene II. London. A Room in the Duke of York's

Palace

Enter York and his Duchess

Duchess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off, Of our two cousins coming into London.

York. Where did I leave ?

Duchess. At that sad stop, my lord,

Where rude misgovern 'd hands from windows' tops Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.

York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course, lo

While all tongues cried, ' God save thee, Bolingbroke ! ' You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage ; and that all the walls With painted imagery had said at once, ' Jesu preserve thee ! welcome, Bolingbroke ! ' Whilst he, from one side to the other turning. Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus, — ' I thank you, countrymen ; ' 20 And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.

Duchess. Alas, poor Richard ! where rides he the whilst ?

Scene 11] Richard II 121

York. As in a theatre the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious, Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on gentle Richard. No man cried, ' God

save him ! ' No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home ; But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, 30

Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, — His face still combating with tears and smiles. The badges of his grief and patience, — That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted And barbarism itself have pitied him. But Heaven hath a hand in these events, To whose high will we bound our calm contents. To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now, Whose state and honour I for aye allow. 40

Duchess. Here comes my son Aumerle.

York. Aumerle that was ;

But that is lost for being Richard's friend, And, madam, you must call him Rutland now. I am in Parliament pledge for his truth And lasting fealty to the new-made king.

Enter Aumerle

Duchess. Welcome, my son ; who are the violets now That strew the green lap of the new-come spring ?

122 Richard II [Act V

Aumerle. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not; God knows I had as lief be none as one.

Yo7'k. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time, Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime. 51

What news from Oxford? hold those justs and tri- umphs ?

Aumerle. For aught I know, my lord, they do.

York. You will be there, I know.

Aitmerle. If God prevent it not, I purpose so.

York. What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom ? Yea, look'st thou pale ? let me see the writing.

Aumerle. My lord, 't is nothing.

York. No matter, then, who sees it.

I will be satisfied ; let me see the writing.

Aumerle. I do beseech your grace to pardon me. 60 It is a matter of small consequence, Which for some reasons I would not have seen.

York. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see. I fear, I fear, —

Ditchess. What should you fear ?

'T is nothing but some bond that he is enter'd into For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.

York. Bound to himself ! w^hat doth he with a bond That he is bound to ? Wife, thou art a fool. — Boy, let nie see the writing.

Aumerle. I do beseech you, pardon me ; I may not show it. 10

Scene II] Richard II 1 23

Yo7'k. I will be satisfied ; let me see it, I say. —

\Snatches it, and reads. Treason ! foul treason ! — villain 1 traitor ! slave ! Duchess. What 's the matter, my lord ? York. Ho ! who 's within there ? —

Enter a Servant

Saddle my horse. — God for his mercy, what treachery is here !

Duchess. Why, what is 't, my lord ?

York. Give me my boots, I say ; saddle my horse. — Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth, I will appeach the villain. \_Exit Se^-vant.

Duchess. What 's the matter ?

York. Peace, foolish woman. 80

Duchess. I will not peace. — What is the matter, son?

Aumerle. Good mother, be content ; it is no more Than my poor life must answer.

Duchess. Thy life answer !

York. Bring me my boots. — I will unto the king.

Re-enter Servant with boots

, Duchess. Strike him, Aumerle. — Poor boy, thou art amaz'd. — Hence, villain ! never more come in my sight.

\To the Servant York. Give me my boots, I say. Duchess. Why, York, what wilt thou do ? Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own ? Have we more sons, or are we like to have ? 90

124 Richard II [Act V

Is not my teeming date drunk up with time ? And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age, And rob me of a happy mother's name ? Is he not like thee ? is he not thine own ?

York. Thou fond mad woman, Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy ? A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament, And interchangeably set down their hands, To kill the king at Oxford.

Duchess. He shall be none.

We '11 keep him here ; then what is that to him ? loo

York. Away, fond woman ! were he twenty times my son I would appeach him.

Duchess. Hadst thou groan'd for him

As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful. But now I know thy mind ; thou dost suspect That I have been disloyal to thy bed, And that he is a bastard, not thy son. Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind ; He is as like thee as a man may be, Not like to me nor any of my kin, And yet I love him.

York. Make way, unruly woman ! \^Exit. no

Duchess. After, Aumerle ! mount thee upon his horse ; Spur, post, and get before him to the king. And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee. I '11 not be long behind ; though I be old,

Scene IIIJ Richard II 125

I doubt not but to ride as fast as York, And never will I rise up from the ground Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, begone !

\_Exetint.

Scene III. Windsor. A Room in the Castle Enter Bolingbroke as King, Percy, and other Lords

Bolingbroke. Can no man tell of my unthrifty son ? 'T is full three months since I did see him last ; If any plague hang over us, 't is he. I would to God, my lords, he might be found. Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there, For there, they say, he daily doth frequent With unrestrained loose companions. Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, And beat our watch and rob our passengers, While he, young wanton and effeminate boy, 10

Takes on the point of honour to support So dissolute a crew.

Percy. My lord, some two days since I saw the prince, And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford.

Bolingbroke. And what said the gallant ?

Percy. His answer was, — he would unto the stews. And from the common 'st creature pluck a glove, And wear it as a favour ; and with that He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.

Bolingbf'oke. As dissolute as desperate ; yet through both 20

I see some sparks of better hope,

126 Richard II [Act V

Which elder days may happily bring forth. — But who comes here ?

Enter Aumerle hastily

Aumerle. Where is the king ?

Bolingbroke. What means

Our cousin, that he stares and looks so wildly ?

Atimerle. God save your grace ! I do beseech your majesty, To have some conference with your grace alone.

Bolingbroke. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone. — \_Exeunt Percy and Lords.

What is the matter with our cousin now?

Aumerle. For ever may my knees grow to the earth, [Kneels. 30

My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth. Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.

Bolingbroke. Intended or committed was this fault ? If on the first, how heinous e'er it be. To win thy after love I pardon thee.

Aumerle. Then give me leave that I may turn the key, That no man enter till my tale be done.

Bolingbroke. Have thy desire.

\Aumerle locks the door.

York \%vithirL\. My liege, beware ! look to thyself ; Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there. 40

Bolingbroke. Villain, I '11 make thee safe. [^Drawing.

Aumerle. Stay thy revengeful hand ; thou hast no cause to fear.

Scene III] Richard II 127

Yor'k [wifhiit]. Open the door, secure foolhardy kmg. Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face ? Open the door, or I will break it open.

\_Bolingb7^oke opens the door and locks it again.

Enter York

Bolingbroke. What is the matter, uncle ? speak ; Recover breath ; tell us how near is danger. That we may arm us to encounter it.

Yoi'k. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know The treason that my haste forbids me show. 50

Aiimerle. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd. I do repent me ; read not my name there. My heart is not confederate with my hand.

York. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down. — I tore it from the traitor's bosom, king ; Fear, and not love, begets his penitence. Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.

Bolingbroke. O heinous, strong, and bold conspir- acy! — O loyal father of a treacherous son ! 60

Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain. From whence this stream through muddy passages Hath held his current and defil'd himself ! Thy overflow of good converts to bad, And thy abundant goodness shall excuse This deadly blot in thy digressing son.

128 Richard II [Act V

York. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd, And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold. Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies, 70

Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies. Thou kill'st me in his life ; giving him breath. The traitor lives, the true man 's put to death.

Duchess \_withiii\. What ho, my liege ! for God's sake, let me in.

Bolingbroke. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry ?

Duchess. A woman, and thine aunt, great king ; 't is I. Speak with me, pity me, open the door ; A beggar begs that never begg'd before.

Bolingbroke. Our scene is alter'd from a serious thing, And now chang'd to The Beggar and the King. — 80 My dangerous cousin, let your mother in ; I know she 's come to pray for your foul sin.

\_A71me7de unlocks the door.

York. If thou do pardon, whosoever pray. More sins for this forgiveness prosper may. This fester'd joint cut off, the rest rests sound ; This let alone will all the rest confound.

Enter Duchess

Duchess. O king, believe not this hard-hearted man ! Love, loving not itself, none other can.

York. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?

Scene III] Richard II 129

Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear ? 90

Duchess. Sweet York, be patient. — Hear me, gentle liege. \Kneels,

Bolingbroke. Rise up, good aunt.

Duchess. Not yet, I thee beseech ;

For ever will I kneel upon my knees, And never see day that the happy sees Till thou give joy, until thou bid me joy. By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.

Aumerle. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.

{^Kneels.

York. Against them both my true joints bended be.

\Kneels. Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace !

Duchess. Pleads he in earnest ? look upon his face ; His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest ; loi His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast. He prays but faintly, and would be denied ; We pray with heart and soul, and all beside. His weary joints would gladly rise, I know ; Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow. His prayers are full of false hypocrisy ; Ours of true zeal and deep integrity. Our prayers do out-pray his ; then let them have That mercy which true prayers ought to have. no

Bolingbroke. Good aunt, stand up.

Duchess. Nay, do not say ' stand up ;'

But ' pardon ' first, and afterwards ' stand up,' And if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,

RICHARD II — 9

130 Richard II [Act V

' Pardon ' should be the first word of thy speech. I never long'd to hear a word till now ; Say 'pardon,' king, let pity teach thee how. The word is short, but not so short as sweet ; No word like ' pardon ' for kings' mouths so meet.

Yoj-k. Speak it in French, king; s^iy pardonnez-moi.

Duchess. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy : Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord, 121

That sett'st the word itself against the word ! — Speak ' pardon ' as 't is current in our land ; The chopping French we do not understand. Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there ; Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear, That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce, Pity may move thee ' pardon ' to rehearse.

Bolingbroke. Good aunt, stand up.

Duchess. I do not sue to stand ;

Pardon is all the suit I have in hand. 130

Bolingbroke. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.

Duchess. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee ! Yet am I sick for fear ; speak it again ; Twice saying ' pardon ' doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong.

Bolingbroke. With all my heart

I pardon him.

Duchess. A god on earth thou art.

Bolingbroke. But for our trusty brother-in-law, and the abbot,

Scene IV] Richard 11 13 1

With all the rest of that consorted crew, Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels. — Good uncle, help to order several powers 140

To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are. They shall not live within this world, I swear. But I will have them, if I once know where. Uncle, farewell, — and, cousin mine, adieu ; Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true. Duchess. Come, my old son. — I pray God make thee new. \Exeuni.

Scene IV. The Saine Enter Sir Pierce of Exton and a Servant

Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake ? — ' Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear ? ' Was it not so ?

Servant. Those were his very words.

Exton. '■ Have I no friend ? ' quote he ; he spake it twice. And urg'd it twice together, did he not ?

Servant. He did.

Exton. And, speaking it, he wistly look'd on me, As who should say, — I w^ould thou wert the man That would divorce this terror from my heart, — Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let 'sgo ; 10

I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe. \_Exeunt.

132 Richard II [Act V

Scene V. Pomfret The Dungeon of the Castle

Enter King Richard

King Richard. I have been studying how I may com- pare This prison where I Hve unto the world, And, for because the world is populous And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it ; yet I '11 hammer it out. My brain I '11 prove the female to my soul, My soul the father ; and these two beget A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world, In humours like the people of this world, ic

For no thought is contented. The better sort. As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word ;

As thus, — ' Come, little ones ; ' and then again, — ' It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a needle's eye.' Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot Unlikely wonders, — how these vain weak nails May tear a passage through the flinty ribs 2c

Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls, And, for they cannot, die in their own pride. Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves That they are not the first of fortune's slaves, Nor shall not be the last, like silly beggars.

Scene vj Richard II 133

Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,

That many have, and others must sit there ;

And in this thought they find a kind of ease.

Bearing their own misfortune on the back

Of such as have before endur'd the hke. 30

Thus play I, in one person, many people,

And none contented. Sometimes am I king,

Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar.

And so I am ; then crushing penury

Persuades me I was better when a king.

Then am I king'd again ; and by and by

Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,

And straight am nothing. — But whate'er I am.

Nor I, nor any man that but man is.

With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd 40

With being nothing. — Music do I hear ? \^Music.

Ha, ha ! keep time. — How sour sweet music is

When time is broke and no proportion kept !

So is it in the music of men's lives ;

And here have I the daintiness of ear

To hear time broke in a disorder'd string,

But, for the concord of my state and time.

Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.

I wasted time, and now doth Time waste me,

For now hath Time made me his numbering clock ; - 50

My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar

Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,

Whereto my finger, like a dial's point.

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.

134 Richard II [Act V

Now, for the sounds that tell what hour it is,

Are clamorous groans that strike upon my heart,

Which is the bell ; so sighs, and tears, and groans

Show minutes, times, and hours, but my time

Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy

While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock. 60

This music mads me ; let it sound no more.

For though it have holp madmen to their wits,

In me it seems it will make wise men mad.

Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me !

For 't is a sign of love, and love to Richard

Is a strange brooch ia this all-hating world.

Enter Groom

Groom. Hail, royal prince !

King Richard. Thanks, noble peer ;

The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. What art thou? and how com'st thou hither. Where no man ever comes but that sad dog 70

That brings me food to make misfortune live ?

Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king. When thou wert king, who, travelling towards York, With much ado at length have gotten leave To look upon my sometimes royal master's face. O, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld In London streets that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary, '"

That horse that thou so often hast bestrid, That horse that I so carefully have dress 'd 1 80

Scene V] Richard II 135

King Richard. Rode he on Barbary ? Tell me, gen- tle friend, How went he under hhn ?

Groom. So proud as if he had disdain 'd the ground.

King Richai'd. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back ! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand ; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble ? would he not fall down, — Since pride must have a fall, — and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back ? — Forgiveness, horse ! why do I rail on thee, 90

Since thou, created to be awed by man. Wast born to bear ? I was not made a horse ; And yet I bear a burden like an ass, Spur-gall'd and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke.

Enter Keeper with a dish

Keeper. Fellow, give place ; here is no longer stay.

\To the Groom. King Richard. If thou love me, 't is time thou wert

away. Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. \Exit.

Keeper. My lord, will 't please you to fall to ? King Richard. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do. Keeper. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton, who lately came from the king, commands the con- trary. 102

136 Richard II [Act V

King Richard. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee ! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

[Beats the Keeper. Keeper. Help, help, help !

Enter Exton and Servants armed

King Richard. How now I what means death in this rude assault ? Villain, thine own hand yields thy death's instrument. — [Snatching a weapon, and killing one. Go thou, and fill another room in hell.

\He kills another ; then Exton strikes him down. That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire That staggers thus my person. — Exton, thy fierce hand Hath with the king's blood stain 'd the king's own land. Mount, mount, my soul ! thy seat is up on high, 112

Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.

[Dies. Exton. As full of valour as of royal blood ! Both have I spilt ; — O, would the deed were good ! For now the devil, that told me I did w'ell. Says that this deed is chronicled in hell. This dead king to the living king I '11 bear. — Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.

[Exeunt.

Scene VI] Richard II 137

Scene VI. Windsor. A Room in the Castle

Flourish. Enter Bolingbroke as King, York, Lords, «?/^ Attendants

Bolingbi'oke. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire Our town of Cicester in Glostershire ; But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not. —

Enter Northumberland

Welcome, my lord ; what is the news ?

Northtcmberland. P'irst, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness. The next news is, I have to London sent The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent. The manner of their taking may appear At large discoursed in this paper here. 10

\Presenting a paper. Bolingbroke. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains, And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

Enter Fitzwater

Fitzwater. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely, Two of the dangerous consorted traitors That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.

138 Richard II [Act V

Bolingbroke. Thy pains, Fitz water, shall not be for- got; Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

Enter Percy, with the Bishop of Carlisle

Percy. The grand conspirator. Abbot of Westminster, With clog of conscience and sour melancholy, 20

Hath yielded up his body to the grave ; But here is Carlisle living, to abide Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.

Bolingbroke. Carlisle, this is your doom : — Choose out some secret place, some reverend room. More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life. So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife ; For though mine enemy thou hast ever been. High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

Enter Exton, with Attendants bearing a coffin

Exton. Great king, within this c.ofHn I present 30 Thy buried fear ; herein all breathless lies The mightiest of thy greatest enemies, Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

Bolingbroke. Exton, I thank thee not ; for thou hast wrought A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand. Upon my head and all this famous land.

Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this

deed. Bolingbroke. They love not poison that do poison need.

Scene VI] Richard II 139

Nor do I thee ; though I did wish him dead,

I hate the murtherer, love him murthered. 40

The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,

But neither my good word nor princely favour ;

With Cain go wander through the shades of night.

And never show thy head by day nor light. —

Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,

That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.

Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,

And put on sullen black incontinent.

I '11 make a voyage to the Holy Land,

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. — 50

March sadly after ; grace my mournings here,

In weeping after this untimely bier. \ Exeunt.

NOTES

Funeral of Richard II

Gold Noble

NOTES

Introduction

The Metre of the Play. — It should be understood at the outset that metre, or the mechanism of verse, is something alto- gether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule, the other of taste and feeling. Music is not an absolute necessity of verse ; the metrical form is a necessity, being that which consti- tutes the verse.

The plays of Shakespeare (with the exception of rhymed pas- sages, and of occasional songs and interludes) are all in unrhymed or blank verse ; and the normal form of this blank verse is illus- trated by i. I. i6 of the present play: "And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear."

This line, it will be seen, consists of ten syllables, with the even syllables (2d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and loth) accented, the odd syllables (ist, 3d, etc.) being unaccented. Theoretically, it is made up of five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second sylla- ble. Such a foot is called an iambus (plural, iambuses, or the Latin iambi'), and the form of verse is called iambic.

This fundamental law of Shakespeare's verse is subject to certain modifications, the most important of which are as follows : —

I. After the tenth syllable an unaccented syllable (or even two such syllables) may be added, forming what is sometimes called a

143

144 Notes

female line; as in i. I. 6: "Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray." The rhythm is complete with the first syllable of Mowbray, the second being an extra eleventh syllable. In i. i. 12 (" As near as I could sift him on that argument ") we have two extra syllables, the rhythm being complete with the first syllable of argutneni.

2. The accent in any part of the verse may be shifted from an even to an odd syllable; as in i. I. 4: "Here to make good the boisterous late appeal ; " and 8 : " Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him." In both lines the accent is shifted from the second to the first syllable. This change occurs very rarely in the tenth syl- lable, and seldom in the fourth (though we have an instance in i. I. 19) ; and it is not allowable in two successive accented syllables.

3. An extra unaccented syllable may occur in any part of the Hne; as in i. I. 4, 14, and 17. In 4 the second syllable of boisterous is superfluous; in 14 the third syllable of inveterate; and in 17 the word the (twice). In line 27 (a female line) the word to is superfluous.

4. Any unaccented syllable, occurring in an even place immedi- ately before or after an even syllable which is properly accented, is reckoned as accented for the purposes of the verse ; as, for instance, in lines i and 1 1. In I the last syllable of Lancaster, and in 1 1 that of treachery, are metrically equivalent to accented syllables ; and so with the first syllable of misbegotten in t^i, the last of mis- creant in 39, and of aggravate in 43.

5. In many instances in Shakespeare words must be lengthened in order to fill out the rhythm : —

(a) In a large class of words in which e or i is followed by another vowel, the e or i is made a separate syllable ; as ocean, opinion, soldier, patience, partial, marriage, etc. For instance, in this play, i. i. 154 ("This we prescribe, though no physician "), appears to have only nine syllables, but physician is a quadri- syllable ; and the same is true of incision in the next line. This lengthening occurs most frequently at the end of the line.

Notes 145

(<5) Many monosyllables ending in r, re, rs, res, preceded by a long vowel or diphthong, are often made dissyllables ; 2A fare, fear, dear, hair, hour (see on i. 2. 7), your, etc. In i. 3. 294 (" O, who can hold a fire in his hand?") fire is a dissyllable. If the word is repeated in a verse it is often both monosyllable and dissyllable ; as in M. of V. iii. 2. 20: "And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so," where either yours (preferably the first) is a dissylla- ble, the other being a monosyllable. In y. C. iii. I. 172 : "As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity," the first fire is a dissyllable.

(r) Words containing / or r, preceded by another consonant, are often pronounced as if a vowel came between or after the con- sonants ; as in redoubled [redoubl(e)ed] in i. 3. 80 ; and England [Engl(e)and] in iv. I. 17. See also T. of S. ii. I. 158: "While she did call me rascal fiddler" [fiddl(e)er]; AlPs Well, iii. 5. 43: "If you will tarry, holy pilgrim" [pilg(e)rim] ; C. of E. v. I. 360: " These are the parents of these children " (childeren, the original form of the word) ; W. T. iv. 4. 76 : " Grace and remembrance [rememb(e) ranee] be to you both ! " etc.

(</) Monosyllabic exclamations {ay, O, yea, nay, hail, etc.) and monosyllables otherwise emphasized are similarly lengthened (cf. stay in i. 3. 118); also certain longer words; as commandement in M. of V. iv. I. 451; safety (trisyllable) in Ham. i. 3. 21; business (trisyllable, as originally pronounced) in ii. i. 217 of this play: " To see this business. To-morrow next " (so in several other passages) ; and other words mentioned in the notes to the plays in which they occur.

6. Words are also contracted for metrical reasons, like plurals and possessives ending in a sibilant, as balance, horse (for horses and horse's), princess, sense, marriage (plural and possessive), image, etc. So with many adjectives in the superlative (like coldest, sternest, kindest, secret' st, etc.), and certain other words.

7. The accent of words is also varied in many instances for met- rical reasons. Thus we find both revenue and revenue in the present play (see on iv. i. 211), cdnfine (noun) and confine, Sbscure

RICHARD II — 10

146 Notes

(see on iii. 3. 154) and obscure, presage and presdge (see on ii. 2. 141), sepulchre (noun) and sepulchre (see on i. 3. 196), distinct and distinct, etc.

These instances of variable accent must not be confounded with those in which words were uniformly accented differently in the time of Shakespeare ; like aspect (see on i. 3. 127), impSrtune, sepulchre (verb), per sever (never persevere^, perseverance, rheu- matic, etc.

8. Alexandrines, or verses of twelve syllables, with six accents, occur here and there in the plays. They must not be confounded with female lines with two extra syllables (see on I above) or with other lines in which two extra unaccented syllables may occur.

9. Incomplete verses, of one or more syllables, are scattered through the plays. See i. i. 7, i. 3. 123, 191, 192, etc.

10. Doggerel measure is used in the earliest comedies (Z. L. L. and C. of E. in particular) in the mouths of comic characters, but nowhere else in those plays, and never anywhere in plays written after 1598. There is none in Rich. I I.

11. Rhyme occurs frequently in the early plays, but diminishes with comparative regularity from that period until the latest. Thus, in L. L. L. there are about 1 100 rhyming verses (about one- third of the whole number), in the M. N. D. about 900, in the present play and R. and Ji about 500 each, while in Cor. and A. and C. there are only about 40 each, in Temp, only two, and in

W. T. none at all, except in the chorus introducing act iv. Songs, interludes, and other matter not in ten-syllable measure are not included in this enumeration.

Alternate rhymes are found only in the plays written before 1599 or 1600. In Z. Z. Z. we find 242 lines, in C. of E. 64, and in M. N. D. 96. In the present play there are only four lines (ii. I. 9-12). In M. of V. there are also four lines at the end of iii. 2. In Much Ado and A. Y. Z., we also find a few lines, but none at all in subsequent plays.

Rhymed couplets, or "rhyme-tags" are often found at the end of

Notes 147

scenes; as in 13 of the 19 scenes of the present play. In Ham. 14 out of 20 scenes, and in Much. 21 out of 28, have such " tags ; " but in the latest plays they are not so frequent. In Temp., for instance, there is but one, and in IV. T. none.

12. In this edition of Shakespeare, the final -ed of past tenses and participles iji verse is printed -V when the word is to be pro- nounced in the ordinary way ; as in twie-hoiiour^d, line i, and aini'd, line 14, of the first scene. But when the metre requires that the -ed be made a separate syllable, the e is retained ; as in accused, line 17, where the word is a trisyllable. The only variation from this rule is in verbs like cry, die, sue, etc., the -ed oi which is very rarely, if ever, made a separate syllable.

Shakespeare's Use of Verse and Prose in the Plays. — This is a subject to which the critics have given very little attention, but it is an interesting study. In most of the plays we find scenes en- tirely in verse or in prose, and others in which the two are mixed; but the present play, like King John, is wholly in verse. In gen- eral, we may say that verse is used for what is distinctly poetical, and prose for what is not poetical. The distinction, however, is not so clearly marked in the earlier as in the later plays. The second scene of iM. of V., for instance, is in prose, because Portia and Nerissa are talking about the suitors in a familiar and playful way ; but in T. G. of V., where Julia and Lucetta are discussing the suitors of the former in much the same fashion, the scene is in verse. Dowden, commenting on Rich. 11. , remarks : " Had Shakespeare written the play a few years later, we may be certain that the gar- dener and his servants (iii. 4) would not have uttered stately speeches in verse, but would have spoken homely prose, and that humour would have mingled with the pathos of the scene. The same re- mark maybe made with reference to the subsequent scene (v. 5) in which his groom visits the dethroned king in the Tower." Comic characters and those in low life generally speak in prose in the later plays, as Dowden intimates, but in the very earliest ones doggerel verse is much used instead. See on 10 above.

148 Notes

The change from prose to verse is well illustrated in the third scene of ]\L of V. It begins with plain prosaic talk about a busi- ness matter ; but when Antonio enters, it rises at once to the higher level of poetry. The sight of Antonio reminds Shylock of his hatred of the Merchant, and the passion expresses itself in verse, the ver- nacular tongue of poetry. We have a similar change in the first scene of y. C, where, after the quibbling " chaff " of the mechanics about their trades, the mention of Pompey reminds the Tribune of their plebeian fickleness, and his scorn and indignation flame out in most eloquent verse.

The reasons for the choice of prose or verse are not always so clear as in these instances. We are seldom puzzled to explain the prose, but not unfrequently we meet with verse where . we might expect prose. As Professor Corson remarks (^Inti'odudion to Shake- speare, 1889), "Shakespeare adopted verse as the general tenor of his language, and therefore expressed much in verse that is within the capabilities of prose ; in other words, his verse constantly en- croaches upon the domain of prose, but his prose can never be said to encroach upon the domain of verse." If in rare instances we think we find exceptions to this latter statement, and prose actually seems to usurp the place of verse, I believe that careful study of the passage will prove the supposed exception to be apparent rather than real.

Some Books for Teachers and Students. — A few out of the many books that might be commended to the teacher and the criti- cal student are the following: Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (7th ed. 1887) ; Sidney Lee's Life of Shake- speare (1898 ; for ordinary students the abridged ed. of 1899 is pref- erable) ; Homo's LAfe of Shakespeare (1904) ; Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon (3d ed. 1902) ; Littledale's ed. of Dyce's Glossary (1902) ; Bartlett's Concordance to Shakespeare (1895) ; Abbott's Shake- spearian Grammar (1873); Furness's "New Variorum" ed. of the plays (encyclopaedic and exhaustive) ; Dowden's Shakspere : His Mind and Art (American ed. 1881) ; Hudson's Life, Art, and

Notes

149

Characters of Shakespeare (revised ed. 1882) ; Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of Women (several eds. ; some with the title, Shake- speare Heroines^ ; Ten Brink's Five Lectures on Shakespeare (1895) > Boas's Shakespeare and His Predecessors (1895) > Dyer's Folk-lore of Shakespeare (American ed. 1884) ; Gervinus's Shakespeare Com- mentaries (Bunnett's translation, 1875) » Wordsworth's Shake- speare^ s Knozvledge of the Bible (3d ed. 1880) ; Elson's Shakespeare in Music (1901).

Some of the above books will be useful to all readers who are interested in special subjects or in general criticism of Shakespeare. Among those which are better suited to the needs of ordinary readers and students, the following may be mentioned : Mabie's William Shakespeare: Poet, Dramatist, and Man (1900); Dow- den's Shakspere Primer (1877; small but invaluable); Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy (1896 ; not a mere juvenile book, but treating of the home and school life, the games and sports, the manners, customs, and folk-lore of the poet's time) ; Guerber's Alyths of Greece and Rome (for young students who may need information on mythological allusions not explained in the notes).

Black's Judith Shakespeare (1884 ; a novel, but a careful study of the scene and the time) is a book that I always commend to young people, and their elders will also enjoy it. The Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare is a classic for beginners in the study of the dramatist ; and in Rolfe's edition the plan of the authors is car- ried out in the Notes by copious illustrative quotations from the plays. Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's Girlhood of Shakespeare' s Heroines (American ed. 1904) will particularly interest girls ; and both girls and boys will find Bennett's Master Skylark (1897) ^'^d Imogen Clark's Will Shakespeare's Little Lad (1897) equally entertaining and instructive.

H. Snowden Ward's Shakespeare's Tozvn and Times (2d ed. 1902) and John Leyland's Shakespeare Country (2d ed. 1903) are copiously illustrated books (yet inexpensive) which may be par- ticularly commended for school libraries.

150 Notes

For the English historical plays B. E. Warner's English History in Shakespeare's Plays (1894) will be good collateral reading, par- ticularly in secondary schools.

Abbreviations in the Notes. — The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's plays will be readily understood ; as T. A'', for Tzvelfth Night, Cor. for Coriolanus, 3 Hen. VI. for The Third Pari of King Henry the Sixth, etc. P. P. refers to The Passionate Pilgrim; V. and A. to Vetius and Adonis ; L. C. \.o Lover's Complaint ; and Sonn. to the Sonnets.

Other abbreviations that hardly need explanation are Cf. {confer, compare), Fol. (following), Id. {idem, the same), and Prol. (pro- logue). The numbers of the lines in the references (except for the present play) are those of the "Globe" edition (the cheapest and best edition of Shakespeare in one compact volume), which is now generally accepted as the standard for line-numbers in works of ref- erence (Schmidt's Lexicon, Abbott's Grammar, Dowden's Primer, the publications of the New Shakspere Society, etc.).

Eleanor Bohun

ACT I

Scene I. — Most of the editors place the scene in London, but according to Holinshed (see extract below) it occurred " within the castle of Windsor." The early quartos and folios do not indi- cate where the scene is laid.

The following is Holinshed's account of the events referred to in this scene, the spelling being modernized : —

"It fell forth that in this parliament holden at Shrewsbury, Henry, Duke of Hereford, accused Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, of certain words which he should utter in talk had betwixt them, as they rode together lately before betwixt London and Brainford, sounding highly to the King's dishonour. And for further proof thereof, he presented a supplication to the King, wherein he appealed the Duke of Norfolk in field of battle for a traitor, false and disloyal to the King, and enemy unto the realm.

152 Notes [Act I

This supplication was read before both the dukes in presence of the King : which done, the Duke of Norfolk took upon him to answer it, declaring that whatsoever the Duke of Hereford had said against him other than well he lied falsely, like an untrue knight as he was : and when the King asked of the Duke of Hereford what he said to it, he, taking his hood off his head, said : ' My sovereign lord, even as a supplication which I took you import- eth, right so I say for truth, that Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Nor- folk, is a traitor, false and disloyal to your Royal Majesty, your crown, and to all the states of your realm.'

"Then the Duke of Norfolk being asked what he said to this, he answered : ' Right dear lord, with your favour that I make answer into your cousin here, I say (your reverence saved) that Henry of Lancaster, Duke of Hereford, like a false and disloyal traitor as he is, doth lie in that he hath or shall say of me otherwise than well.' *No more,' said the King; 'we have heard enough :' and here- with commanded the Duke of Surrey, for that turn Marshal of England, to arrest, in his name, the two dukes."

The narrative proceeds to state that Norfolk was imprisoned in Windsor Castle, while the Duke of Lancaster and others became sureties for the appearance of Hereford.

The play opens with the facts described as follows : " Now, after the dissolving of the parliament at Shrewsbury, there was a day appointed, about six weeks after, for the King to come unto Wind- sor to hear and to take some order betwixt the two dukes which had thus appealed each other. There was a great scaffold erected within the Castle of Windsor for the King to sit with the lords and prelates of his realm ; and so, at the day appointed, he, with the said lords and prelates, being come thither and set in their places, the Duke of Hereford, appellant, and the Duke of Norfolk, defend- ant, were sent for to come and appear before the King sitting there in his seat of justice. . . . The King commanded the Dukes of Aumerle and Surrey, the one being constable and the other mar- shal, to go unto the two dukes, appellant and defendant, requiring

Scene I] Notes 153

them, on his behalf, to go to some agreement, and, for his part, he would be ready to pardon all that had been said or done amiss be- twixt them touching any harm or dishonour to him or his realm ; but they answered both assuredly that it was not possible to have any peace or agreement made betwixt them. When he heard what they had answered, he commanded that they should be brought forthwith before his presence, to hear what they would say. . . . When they were come before the King and lords, the King spake himself to them, willing them to agree and make peace together, ' for it is,' said he, ' the best way ye can take.'

"The Duke of Norfolk, with due reverence, hereunto answered that it could not be so brought to pass, his honour saved. Then the King asked of the Duke of Hereford what it was that he de- manded of the Duke of Norfolk, and what is the matter that ye cannot make peace together, and become friends ?

"Then stood forth a knight, that asking and obtaining a license to speak for the Duke of Hereford, said : ' Right dear and sover- eign lord, here is Henry of Lancaster, Duke of Hereford and Earl of Derby, who saith, and I for him likewise say, that Thomas Mow- bray, Duke of Norfolk, is a false and disloyal traitor to you and your Royal Majesty, and to your whole realm : and likewise the Duke of Hereford saith, and I for him, that Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, hath received 8000 nobles to pay the soldiers that keep your town of Calais, which he hath not done as he ought : and furthermore, the said Duke of Norfolk hath been the occasion of all the treason that hath been contrived in your realm for the space of these eighteen years, and by his false suggestions and malicious counsel hath caused to die and to be murdered your right dear uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, son to King Edward. Moreover, the Duke of Hereford saith, and I for him, that he will prove this with his body, against the body of the said Duke of Norfolk, within lists.'

"The King herewith waxed angry, and asked the Duke of Here- ford if these were his words, who answered : ' Right dear lord,

154 Notes [Act I

they are my words, and hereof I require right and the battle against him.'

" There was a knight also that asked license to speak for the Duke of Norfolk, and obtaining it, began to answer thus : ' Right dear sovereign lord, here is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, who answereth and saith, and I for him, that all that Henry of Lan- caster hath said and declared (saving the reverence due to the King and his council) is a lie, and the said Henry of Lancaster hath falsely and wickedly lied, as a false and disloyal knight, and both hath been and is a traitor against you, your crown, Royal Majesty, and realm. This will I prove and defend as becometh a loyal knight to do, with my body against his.' . . .

"The King then demanded of the Duke of Norfolk if these were his words, and whether he had any more to say. The Duke of Norfolk then answered for himself : ' Right dear sir, true it is that I have received so much gold to pay your people of the town of Calais, which I have done ; and I do avouch that your town of Calais is as well kept at your commandment as ever it was at any time before, and that there never hath been by any of Calais any complaint made unto you of me. Right dear and my sovereign lord, for the voyage that I made into France about your marriage I never received either gold or silver of you, nor yet for the voyage that the Duke of Aumerle and I made into Almaigne, where we spent great treasure. Marry, true it is that once I laid an ambush to have slain the Duke of Lancaster that there sitteth ; but, neverthe- less, he hath pardoned me thereof, and there was good peace made betwixt us, for the which I yield him hearty thanks. This is that which I have to answer, and am ready to defend myself against mine adversary, I beseech you, therefore, of right, and to have the battle against him in upright judgment.'

" After this, when the King had communed with his council a little, he commanded the two dukes to stand forth, that their an- swers might be heard. The King then caused them once again to be asked if they would agree and make peace together, and they

Scene I] Notes Iff

both flatly answered that they would not ; and withal the Duke of Hereford cast down his gage, and the Duke of Norfolk took it up. The King, perceiving this demeanour betwixt them, swore by St. John Baptist that he would never seek to make peace betwixt them again. And therewith Sir John Bushy, in name of the King and his council, declared that the King and his council had com- manded and ordained that they should have a day of battle ap- pointed them at Coventry. Here writers disagree about the day that was appointed ; for some say it was upon a Monday in August ; others upon St. Lambert's Day, being the 17th of Sep- tember ; others on the nth of September. But true it is that the King assigned them not only the day, but also appointed them lists and place for the combat ; and thereupon great preparation was made, as to such a matter appertained."

1. Old John of Gaunt. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward IH., was born at Ghent in Flanders ; whence his surname. As he was born in 1340, he was only tifty-eight years of age at the time when the play opens. Some of the editors seem to think that it is for poetical effect that S. represents Gaunt as a very old man ; but he speaks in accordance with the common esti- mate of age!* in that day, when the average duration of life was considerably less than now. Daniel, in his poem of Rosamo7id, de- scribes King Henry as extremely old, though he was only fifty-six when he died. Spenser calls Robert, Earl of Leicester, an old man in 1582, but he was not then fifty; and Coligny is represented by his biographer, Lord Huntington, as an aged man, though he died at fifty-three. Many other examples of the kind might be given.

2. Band. That is bond, the words being formerly interchange- able. Cf. C. of E. iv. 2. 49 : " Tell me, was he arrested on a band?" and again Id. iv. 3. 32: "he that brings any man to an- swer it that breaks his band." The reference here is to the pledges that Gaunt had given for his son's appearance. See extract from Holinshed above.

3. Hereford. The word is generally spelled Herford or Harford

156

Notes [Act I

in the early eds. It is to be pronounced as a dissyllable. Henry was called Bolingh'oke from his birthplace in Lincolnshire.

4. The boisterous late appeal. The violent accusation at Shrews- bury six weeks before. See Holinshed above. Appeal = impeach- ment. Cf. A. and C. iii. 5. 12 : " upon his own appeal." The verb is used in a similar sense, as below in lines 9 and 27 ; also in i. 3. 21 : " the Duke of Hereford that appeals me."

5. Which then our leisure, etc. Which then we had no leisure to hear. We still often use leisure in the sense of " lack of lei- sure."

12. Argument. Matter, subject ; as often. Cf. I Hen. IV. ii. 2. 100 : " it would be argument for a week," etc.

13. Apparent. Evident, manifest. Cf. y. C. ii. I. 198: "these apparent prodigies." It is used in the same sense in iv. i. 124: " apparent guilt."

16. Ourselves. S. uses otir selves and our self interchangeably in this "regal " sense. Cf. y. C. iii. i. 8: " What touches us ourself," etc. In iii. 3. 127, below, the quartos have our selves, the folio our selfe.

18. High-stomached. High-tempered, proud. Cf. stomach = pride, in Hen. VIII. iv. 2. 34; "Of an unbounded stomach." In Temp. i. 2. 157 it means courage, as in Hen. V. iv. 3. 35: "He which hath no stomach to this fight," etc.

19. Deaf as the sea. Cf. M. of V. \v. 1. 'ji-. —

" You may as well go stand upon the beach. And bid the main flood bate his usual height," etc.

20. Alany years, etc. Pope suggested " May many," which some adopt. Abbott (^Grammar, 480) thinks that years may perhaps be read as a dissyllable ; but that is hardly possible.

22. Other'' s. On the omission of the article, cf. J. C. i. 2. 230 : "every time gentler than other;" 0th. ii. 3. 183: "tilting one at other's breast ; " M. N'. D. iii. 2. 239 : " Wink each at other," etc.

23. Envying. Some would accent the second syllable, as in T.

Scene I] Notes 157

of S. ii. I. 18 "Is it for him you do envy me so?" but this is not absolutely necessary, though we find that accent in Spenser, F. Q. iii. I. 13: "Let later age that noble use envy; " and Id. iv. 4. 44: " Which Cambell seeing much the same envyde."

26. The cause you come. That is, on or for which you come.

Cf. I en. VI. ii. 5. 55 : —

" Declare the cause My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head ; "

28. Object. Used transitively and in a stronger sense than now. Cf. I Hen. VI. ii. 4. 116: "This blot that they object against your house." The preposition to is used after it in Rich. III. ii. 4. 17: " In him that did object the same to thee."

32. Tendering. Cherishing, holding dear ; as often in S. Cf.

Rich. III. ii. 4. 72 : —

" and so betide to me As well I tender you and all of yours ! "

Hen. V. ii. 2. 175 : " But we our kingdom's safety must so tender ; '' . R. and J. iii. i. 74 : " which name I tender As dearly as my own ; " etc.

'^l. Misbegotten. " Of a bad origin " (Schmidt).

34. Appellant. The modern spelling of appealant = impeacher, accuser. See on 4.

38. Divine. Partaking of the nature of God, proceeding from God. Cf. A. IV. iii. 6. 2,Z' "the divine forfeit of his soul" = the forfeit of his divine soul.

40. Too good. Because of your noble descent.

43. To aggravate the note. To intensify the stigma. Cf. R. of

I. 208 : —

" That my posterity, sham'd with the note Shall curse my bones ; "

and L. L. L. v. 2. 75 : —

" Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote."

46. Right-drawn. " Drawn in a right or just cause " (Johnson).

158

Notes [Act I

49. Eager. Sharp. Cf. Ham. i. 4. 2 : "a nipping and an eager air ; " 3 Hen. VI. ii. 6. 68 : " vex him with eager swords." The word is the French aigrc, Latin acer, sharp, sour. It means sour in Ham. i. 5. 69: "hke eager droppings into milk; " and also refers to taste in Sonn. 118. 2 : —

" Like as, to make our appetites more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge ; "

that is, with piquant or "bitter sauces," as explained in the context.

50. Can arbitrate. That can decide ; a common ellipsis.

54. Fair reverence. Just or becoming reverence. Cf. below, iii. 3. 188: "fair duty to his majesty."

56, Post. Speed, hasten. Cf. iii. 4. 90 and v. 2. 112.

59. And let hi7n be, etc. Marshall points the line as a paren- thesis, paraphrasing it thus: "And consider him, for the moment, as no kinsman of yours, my liege." He thinks this is confirmed by Richard's speech in 115 fol. below. It seems to me that the mean- ing is substantially the same with the ordinary pointing, and con- necting it directly with what precedes ( = and ignoring for the time his relationship to you).

63. Tied. Bound, obliged. Cf. T. ^/ 5. i. i. 217 : " And I am tied to be obedient."

65. Inhabitable. Not habitable. Steevens quotes Jonson, Cati- line, V. I. 54: "And pour'd on some inhabitable place." Cf. T. Heywood's Gen. Hist, of Women (1624) : "Where all the country was scorched by the heat of the sun, and the place almost inhabit- able for the multitude of serpents." S. uses the word nowhere else. On the passage, cf. Macb. iii. 4. 104 : " dare me to the desert with thy sword."

67. This. That is, this protest.

70. The king. The reading of quarto of 1 597. The other quartos and the folio have "a king," which White prefers, as it makes Bolingbroke " disclaim not only the protection and alliance of his particular sovereign, but all immunity of royal blood."

Scene I] Notes 159

72. Except. Staunton says the word is used in " the old sense of to put a bar to, or stay action." Schmidt makes it = to object to. Cf. T. N. i. 3. 7 : " Let her except before excepted." We find " except against " in T. G. of V. i. 3. 2>t, and ii. 4. 155.

74. Hononrh pawn. The gage thrown down. The expression is used in the same sense in iv. i. 55 and 70.

75. Else. Other, besides this. Cf. 2. Hen. IV. v. 5. 26: "put- ting all affairs else in oblivion," etc. ^.^

80, 81. "The general sense of these somewhat obscure lines seems to be : 'I will meet you on any fair terms, or in any form of combat prescribed by the laws of chivalry'" (Wright).

82. Light. Alight, dismount. Cf. J. C. v. 3. 31 : "Now some light. O, he lights too ; " also Genesis, xxiv. 64, 2 Kings, v. 21, etc.

85. Inherit us. Put us in possession ; the only instance of this use of the word in S. For inhe?'it = possess, see below, ii. i. 83; also R. mtd /. i. 2. 30, T. A. ii. 3. 3 ; Cymb. iii. 2. 63, etc.

88. Nobles. A gold coin, worth 6s. Sd. See on v. 5. 67 below.

89. Lendings. Money in trust. It should have been used for paying the garrison of Calais. The word is used by S. nowhere else except in Lea?-, iii. 4. 113: "Off, off, you lendings!" that is, the clothes which the mad king throws away.

90. Lewd. Base, wicked. Cf. i Hen. IV. iii. 2. 13 : " Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts ! " See also Milton, Z'. Z. 192: —

" So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold ; So since into his church, lewd hirelings climb."

The word first meant laical as opposed to clerical ; thence, un- learned, ignorant ; thence, mean, vile ; and at last it got its present restricted meaning.

91. Injurious. Insolent in wrong-doing. Cf. Cymb. iv. 2. 86: "Thou injurious thief ! "

95. Eighteen years. That is, since the insurrection of Wat Tyler, in 1381.

i6o Notes [Act I

96. Complotted. Plotted. So below, i. 3. 189: "To plot, con- trive, or complot any ill." The noun complot is similarly used ; as in 2 Hen. VI. iii. i. 147 : "Their complot is to have my life ; " T. of A. ii. 3. 265 : "the complot of this timeless tragedy ; " Id. v. I. 65: " complots of mischief," etc.

100. The Duke of Gloster. Thomas of Woodstock, seventh son of Edward III., one of the leaders in the opposition to Richard's favourites. He was accused of treason by the Duke of Norfolk, then Earl of Nottingham, and the Duke of Aumerle, and was put to death at Calais in 1397.

loi. Suggest his soon-believing adversaries. Secretly incite his enemies ready to believe anything against him. Cf. Sonn. 144: • —

" Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still."

The noun suggestion is used in the sense of prompting to evil, temptation, in Temp. ii. i. 288, Id. iv. i. 26, etc.

104. Which blood. The repetition of the antecedent is not uncommon. Cf. Genesis, iv. 10.

106. To me. As the son of his eldest surviving brother.

107. Worth. Excellence, dignity. Cf. T. G. of V. ii. 4. 56 : —

" I know the gentleman To be of worth and worthy estimation ; "

Id. iii. I. 107: "a youthful gentleman of worth."

109. How high a pitch, etc. The expression is taken from the language of falconry. Cf. I Hen. VI. ii. 4. ii: "Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch ; " J. C. i. i. 78: —

" These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing Will make him fiy an ordinary pitch," etc.

113. Slatider of his blood. "This reproach to his ancestry" (Steevens). "This disgrace of his race" (Schmidt). CL Hen. V. iii. 6. 84 : " Such slanders of the age," etc.

Scene I] Notes i6i

119. Neighbour. An adjective, as in V. and A. 830, L. L. L. V. 2. 94, A. Y. L. iv. 3. 79, 7?. and J. ii. 6. 27, and other passages. </