Cry, woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay; The worst is death, and death will have his day. Like an unseasonable stormy day, Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores, So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land A With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel. K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill. 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. K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption! Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man! Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart! Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate: With heads, and not with hands: those whom you curse And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground. Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire, dead? Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. Aum. Where is the duke my father with his power? K. Rich. No matter where. Of comfort no man speak : 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? 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.b For heaven'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 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 monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit,As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin 1 с Bores through his castle walls, and—farewell king! a Model. The word is, probably, here used for something formed or fashioned. The earth assumes the shape of the body which it covers. Douce seems to think it means only measure, portion, or quantity,- -a modicum. b We copy a remark of Johnson upon this line, to show what criticism upon Shakspere used to be, even in the hands of one of the ablest of modern writers: "A metaphor, not of the most sublime kind, taken from a pie." c Ghosts they have deposed. Ghosts of those whom they have deposed. This sort of ellipsis is very frequently used by our poet. Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while : I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, How can you say to me-I am a king? Car. My lord, wise men ne'er wail their present woes, To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, K. Rich. Thou chid'st me well :-Proud Bolingbroke, I come To change blows with thee for our day of doom. Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power? So may you by my dull and heavy eye; To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken K. Rich. Thou hast said enough. : Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth [To AUM. Of that sweet way I was in to despair! What say you now? What comfort have we now? a This line is omitted in the folio. By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly Aum. My liege, one word. SCENE III.-Wales. Before Flint Castle. [Exeunt. Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE and Forces; Boling. So that by this intelligence we learn, York. It would beseem the lord Northumberland Would you have been so brief with him, he would For taking so the head, your whole head's length. a Ear the land-plough the land. So in Shakspere's dedication of Venus and Adonis' to the Earl of Southampton, "never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest." Ear is the same as the Latin arare, to plough, to till. Arable is ear-able. b Hanmer added me ;-make a pause after the emphatic mistakes, and the metre wants no such addition. с Taking so the head. Johnson thinks that to take the head is to take undue liberties. We incline to Douce's opinion, that the expression means to take away the sovereign's chief title. Boling. Mistake not, uncle, farther than you should. York. Take not, good cousin, farther than you should, Lest you mis-take: The heavens are o'er your head. Boling. 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? Against thy entrance. Boling. Royally? Why, it contains no king? Percy. Yes, my good lord, It doth contain a king; king Richard lies North. Oh! belike it is the bishop of Carlisle. Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle : [To NORTH. Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parle Upon his knees doth kiss king Richard's hand; The fresh green lap of fair king Richard's land, • Welcome, Harry. In Steevens, who followed Hanmer, we must put up with the feeble Well, Harry. |