An if my word be sterling yet in England, glass. BOLING. Go some of you and fetch a looking[Exit an Attendant. NORTH. Read o'er this paper, while the glass doth come. K. RICH. Fiend! thou torment'st me ere I come to hell. BOLING. Urge it no more, my lord Northumber land. NORTH. The commons will not then be satisfied. K. RICH. They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough, When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that's-myself. Give me the glass, and therein will I read * - And made no deeper wounds?-O, flattering glass, Like to my followers in prosperity, Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face†, That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men'? Was this the face, That, like the sun, did make beholders wink? 8 * Quarto omits, and therein will I read. + Quarto, Was this the face. Quarto omits this line and the four preceding words. of His majesty.] i. e. of its majesty. Our poet, and the writers of his time, frequently used the personal for the neutral pronoun. MALONE. 9 the very BOOK indeed WHERE ALL MY sins are wRIT,] This phrase is from the 129th Psalm, v. 15: and in thy book were all my members written." STEEVENS. 1 Did KEEP ten thousand men ?] Shakspeare is here not quite accurate. Our old chronicles only say 66 'that to his household came every day, to meate, ten thousand men." MALONE. Was this the face, that fac'd so many follies, As brittle as the glory is the face; [Dashes the Glass against the ground. For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.- The shadow of your face. K. RICH. Say that again. The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see:'Tis very true, my grief lies all within ; And these external manners of lament 2 There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king, 2 BOLING. Name it, fair cousin. K. RICH. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king": * Quarto omits, There lies the substance. my grief lies all within ; And these external manners of lament, &c.] So, in Hamlet: "But I have that within which passeth show; "These but the trappings and the suits of woe." The old copies read laments. Malone. 3 Fair cousin? I am greater than a king :] So the folio. The quarto 1608, reads: "Fair coose, why? I am greater than a king." The modern editors: "Fair cousin? Why, I am greater than a king.” BOSWELL. For, when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects; being now a subject, Being so great, I have no need to beg. BOLING. Yet ask. K. RICH. And shall I have? BOLING. You shall. K. RICH. Then give me leave to go. K. RICH. Whither you will, so I were from your sights. BOLING. Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower. K. RICH. O, good! Convey?-Conveyers are you all That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall2. Exeunt K. RICHARD, Some Lords, and a Guard. BOLING. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves. [Exeunt all but the ABBOT, Bishop of CARLISLE, and AUMERle. ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld. CAR. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn*. 66 CONVEYERS are you all,] To convey is a term often used in an ill sense, and so Richard understands it here. Pistol says of stealing, convey the wise it call;" and to convey is the word for sleight of hand, which seems to be alluded to here. Ye are all, says the deposed prince, jugglers, who rise with this nimble dexterity by the fall of a good king. JOHNSON. a true king's fall.] This is the last of the additional lines which were first printed in the quarto, 1608. MALONE. 3 On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down Our coronation lords, prepare yourselves.] The two first quartos read: 66 'Let it be so: and loe on Wednesday next "We solemnly proclaim our coronation : "Lords, be ready all." STEEVENS. as sharp to them as thorn.] This pathetic denunciation AUM. You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot? ABBOT. Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament To bury mine intents, but also to effect Whatever I shall happen to devise: I see your brows are full of discontent, ACT V. SCENE I. London. A Street leading to the Tower. Enter QUEEN, and Ladies. QUEEN. This way the king will come; this is the way To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected towers, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord shows that Shakspeare intended to impress his auditors with a dislike of the deposal of Richard. JOHNSON. 6 S TO BURY] To conceal, to keep secret. JOHNSON. So, in Every Man in his Humour, by Ben Jonson : "Lock'd up in silence, midnight, buried here." STEEVENS. but to effect-] The old copies redundantly read" but also to effect." STEEVENS. 7 In the first edition there is no personal appearance of King Richard, so that all to the line at which he leaves the stage was inserted afterwards. JOHNSON. 8 To Julius Cæsar's ILL-ERECTED tower,] The Tower of London is traditionally said to have been the work of Julius Cæsar. JOHNSON. By-ill-erected, I suppose, is meant-erected for bad purposes. STEEVENS. Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke: But soft, but see, or rather do not see, 9 Here let us rest, if, &c.] So, Milton: "Here rest, if any rest can harbour here." JOHNSON. And Browne, in his Britannia's Pastorals, b. ii. song iii. 1613: Night and day upon the hard'ned stones -," &c. HOLT WHITE. 66 "Rests, if a rest can be see, My fair rose wither:] Even the Cronykil of A. of Wyntown, on this occasion, is not unpoetical: "The king Richard of Yngland "Wes in his flowris than regnand : 66 66 Bot his flowis eftyr sone Fadyt, and ware all undone." B. ix. ch. xviii. v. 61, &c. 2 Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;] The Queen uses comparative terms absolutely. Instead of saying, Thou who appearest as the ground on which the magnificence of Troy was once erected, she says: "Ah, thou the model, &c. "Thou map of honour ;" Thou picture of greatness. JOHNSON. Model, it has already been observed, is used by our author, for a thing made after a pattern. He is, I believe, singular in this use of the word. Thou ruined majesty, says the Queen, that resemblest the desolated waste where Troy once stood. So, before: "Who was the model of thy father's life." In our author's Rape of Lucrece, sleep is called " the map of death." MALONE. 3-beauteous INN,] Inn does not here signify a house of publick entertainment; but a dignified habitation. |