My stooping duty tenderly shall show.

Go, signify as much; while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.

[NORTH. advances to the castle with a trumpet.
Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,
That from this castle's totter'da 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 thund'ring shock ↳
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water :
The rage be his, while on the earth I rain
My waters; on the earth, and not on him.
March on, and mark king Richard how he looks.

A parle sounded, and answered by another trumpet within. 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.c
Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
Controlling majesty; Alack, alack, for woe,
That any harm should stain so fair a show!

K. Rich. We are amaz'd; and thus long have we stood To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,

a

Totter'd, for tottering; the passive for the active participle. b Thundering shock. All the old copies read smoke.

[TO NORTH.

We cannot trace how shock

has been substituted; yet we feel it right to adopt it. The passage was written long before the properties of electricity were known; and the poet attributes, therefore, the thundering shock which "tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven" to the meeting of "the elements of fire and water,""—some obscure notion of the days of conjectural

science.

In all the old copies the first six lines of this speech are given to Bolingbroke.

Because we thought ourself thy lawful king :
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,
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.
Tell Bolingbroke, (for yond', methinks, he is,)
That every stride he makes
stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason: He is come to ope
The purple testament of bleeding war;a
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' 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.

North. The king of heaven forbid, our lord the king Should so with civil and uncivil arms

Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice-noble cousin,

Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;

a There is a very similar line in the first part of 'Jeronimo,' a play which, it is supposed, was produced in 1588 (see Dodsley's 'Old Plays,' edition 1825, vol. iii., p. 51):

"Then I unclasp the purple leaves of war.”

Whiter pointed this out in his 'Specimen of a Commentary,' in 1794, but none of the editors have noticed it. Steevens believed that Shakspere here used the word testament in its legal sense. Whiter says, "Whatever be the direct meaning of the words in question, I am persuaded that the idea of a book with a purple covering suggested this combination of words to the mind of our poet."

And by the honourable tomb he swears,

2

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,
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.

K. Rich. 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 look so poorly, and to speak so fair?
Shall we call back Northumberland, and send
Defiance to the traitor, and so die?

[To AUMERLE.

Aum. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words, Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords. K. Rich. O God! O God! that e'er this tongue of mine, That laid the sentence of dread banishment

On yon proud man, should take it off again

With words of sooth!a 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!

a Words of sooth-words of assent-assuaging, soothing words.

As sooth, in its

first meaning, is true or truth; so to soothe is to receive as true; and thence to assent, -and further to propitiate.

VOL. IV.

2 G

Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat, Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.

Aum. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke,

K. Rich. 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'll 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;
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'll be buried in the king's highway,

a

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;
And, buried once, why not upon my head?
Aumerle, thou weep'st; My tender-hearted cousin!-
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
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

I talk but idly, and you mock at me.-

Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,

• Some way of common trade. The early meddling editors changed trade into tread. The original meaning of trade is a course-a path traded or trodden continuously. The trade-winds are not winds favourable to commerce, but winds blowing in a regular course. Our modern usage of the word as intercourse for buying and selling is a secondary meaning engrafted upon the original meaning of habitual course or practice.

What says king Bolingbroke? will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says-ay.

a

North. My lord, in the base court he doth attend To speak with you; may 't please you to come down? K. Rich. Down, down, I come; like glistering Phaeton, Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

[NORTH. retires to BOLING. In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base, 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.

Boling. What says his majesty?
North.

[Exeunt from above.

Sorrow and grief of heart

Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man:

Yet he is come.

Enter KING RICHARD, and his Attendants below.

Boling. Stand all apart,

And show fair duty to his majesty.

My gracious lord,

[Kneeling.

K. Rich. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee,

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, [touching his own head] although your

knee be low.

Boling. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
K. Rich. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
Boling. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,

As my true service shall deserve your love.

K. Rich. Well you deserve:-They well deserve to have 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.

a Base court-lower court-bas cour.