Enter YORK.

Enter DUCHESS.

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

YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know

The treason that my haste forbids me show.

AUM. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise past:

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.

BOLING. Oheinous, strong, and bold conspiracy! O loyal father of a treacherous son!

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.

YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;
And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
As thriftless sons their scraping father's gold.
Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
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.
DUCH. [Without.] What ho, my liege! for
God's sake let me in.

BOLING. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry? ['tis I. DUCH. A woman, and thine aunt, great king; Speak with me, pity me, open the door; A beggar begs that never begg'd before.

BOLING. Our scene is alter'd, from a serious thing,

And now chang'd to The Beggar and the King.
My dangerous cousin, let your mother in ;
I know she's come to pray for your foul sin.

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.

(*) First folio, had.

(+) First folio, Heaven's. a Thou sheer, immaculate,-] Sheer meant pure, unmixed. Thus in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," B. III. C. 2:

"Who having viewed in a fountain shere
Her face," &c.

b The Beggar and the King.] An evident allusion to the ancient ballad called "A Song of a Beggar and a King." See note (5), p. 101.

Ill mayst thou thrive, &c.] This line is not in the folio.

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.
BOLING. Good aunt, stand up.
DUCH.

Nay, do not say—stand up;
Say. pardon, first; and afterwards, stand up.
An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
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.
YORK. Speak it in French, king: say, pardon-
nez moy.
[destroy?
DUCH. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That sett'st the word itself against the word!
Speak, pardon, as 'tis current in our land,

(*) Quarto, walk.

d

(†) First folio, But.

a

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.
BOLING. Good aunt, stand up.
DUCH.

I do not sue to stand, Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.

BOLING. I pardon him, as God* shall pardon me. DUCH. 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.

BOLING.

I pardon him."

DUCH.

With all my heart,

A god on earth thou art.

BOLING. But for our trusty brother-in-law, and +

the abbot,

Good uncle, help to order several powers
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.
DUCH. Come, my old son ;-I pray God* make
thee new.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-The same.

Enter 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?
SERV.

b

These were his very words.

EXTON. Have I no

spake it twice.

friend? quoth he he

The old copies, regardless of the rhyming couplet, read, I pardon him with all my heart.

c And cousin mine, adieu:] The word mine, prosodially necessary, is the addition of Mr. Collier's MS. Annotator.

compare

This prison, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ;—yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll 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,
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
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,
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 misfortunes on the back

a As who should say,-] Meaning, "As one who should say." This elliptical phrase, so frequent with the old writers, has gone quite out of use.

b And will rid his foe.] That is, destroy, or get rid of. In this sense we have the word in "Henry VI." Part II. Act V. Sc. 5:"As deathsmen you have rid this sweet young prince." And again, in "The Tempest," Act I. Sc. 2.

"the red plague rid you."

e How I may compare-] So the first quarto, 1597. The subsequent quartos and the folio, 1623, read, how to compare.

d And, for because-] A tautological form of expression no longer current, though very common when Shakespeare wrote. e The outward watch,-] This passage is obscure, and no explication we have seen, nor any we are prepared to suggest, renders it as perspicuous as could be wished. The best is that by Henley: "There are three ways in which a clock notices the progress of

Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make 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 bet
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is, [Music.
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing. Music do I hear?

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 check § time, broke in a disordered 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:
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.
Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which || 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.
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 in this all-hating world.
Enter Groom.

GROOM. Hail, royal prince!
K. RICH.

Thanks, noble peer!

The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.

(*) First folio, prison. (1) First folio, am. () First folio, that.

(+) First folio, freason makes. (§) First folio, hear.

(T) First folio, hours and times. time; viz. by the vibration of the pendulum, the index on the dial, and the striking of the hour. To these, the king, in his comparison, severally alludes; his sighs corresponding to the jarring of the pendulum, which at the same time that it watches, or numbers, the seconds, marks also their progress in minutes on the dial or outward watch, to which the king compares his eyes; and their want of figures is supplied by a succession of tears, or (to use an expression of Milton) minute drops: his finger, by as regularly wiping these away, performs the office of the dial's point:-his clamorous groans are the sounds that tell the hour." "Henry IV." Part II. tears are used in a similar manner:"But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears, By number, into hours of happiness."

In

f Thanks, noble peer!] See note (e), p. 413.

What art thou? and how comest thou hither,
Where no man never comes, but that sad dog
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.

K. RICH. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,

How went he under him?

[ground."

K. RICH. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand d;
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,
Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse,
And yet I bear a burthen like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.

Enter Keeper, with a dish of meat.

KEEP. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay. [To the Groom.

(*) First quarto, spurn'd, gall'd.

e Jauncing Bolingbroke.] Jauncing may mean hard riding, as Cotgrave explains jancer, "To stir a horse in the stable 'till he sweat withal;" or as our to jaunt.

K. RICH. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.

GROOM. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. [Exit. KEEP. My lord, will 't please you to fall to? K. RICH. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do. [who KEEP. My lord, I dare not; Sir Pierce of Exton, Lately came from the king, commands the contrary. K. RICH. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee! [Strikes the Keeper. Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. KEEP. Help, help, help!

Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed.

K. RICH. How now? What means death in this rude assault? a

(*) First folio, wert.

a How now? &c.] There is some obscurity here. Perhaps we should read, How now? What? mean'st death in this rude assault?