But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier sit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say, I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not-the king exíl'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;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd' ;

The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more

6 Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king:] The same thought occurs in Coriolanus:

"I banish you." M. MASON.

"All places that the eye of heaven visits,

"Are to a wise man ports and happy havens :"Think not, the king did banish thee;

"But thou the king." Shakspeare, when he wrote the passage before us, probably remembered that part of Lyly's Euphues, 1579, in which Euphues exhorts Botonio to take his exile patiently. Among other arguments he observes, that "Nature hath given to man a country no more than she hath a house, or lands, or livings. Socrates would neither call himself an Athenian, neither a Græcian, but a citizen of the world. Plato would never accompt him banished, that had the sunne, fire, ayre, water, and earth, that he had before; where he felt the winter's blast, and the summer's blaze; where the same sunne and the same moone shined: whereby he noted that every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind.-When it was cast in Diogenes' teeth, that the Sinoponetes had banished him Pontus, yea, said he, I them of Diogenes." MALONE.

7

the presence strew'd ;] Shakspeare has other allusions to the ancient practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence chamber. HENLEY.

So, in Cymbeline:

66

Tarquin thus

"Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd

"The chastity he wounded." STEEVENS.

See Hentzner's account of the presence chamber, in the palace at Greenwich, 1598. Itinerar. p. 135. MALONE.

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.
BOLING. 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 fantastick summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good,
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.
* Quarto 1597, he bites.

A measure was a formal

8 Than a delightful MEASURE,] court dance. So, in King Richard III. :

"Our dreadful marches to delightful measures."

STEEVENS.

It is described by our author as being "full of state and ancientry." See Much Ado About Nothing, vol. vii. p. 36.

MALONE.

9 O, who can hold a FIRE in his hand, &c.] Fire is here, as in many other places, used as a dissyllable. MALONE.

It has been remarked, that there is a passage resembling this in Tully's Fifth Book of Tusculan Questions. Speaking of Epicurus, he says:- "Sed unà se dicit recordatione acquiescere præteritarum voluptatum: ut si quis æstuans, cum vim caloris non facile patiatur, recordari velit se aliquando in Arpinati nostro gelidis Aluminibus circumfusum fuisse. Non enim video, quomodo sedare possint mala præsentia præteritæ voluptates." The Tusculan Questions of Cicero had been translated early enough for Shakspeare to have seen them. STEEVENS.

The Tusculan Questions were translated by John Dolman, and published in 1561.

Shakspeare, however, I believe, was thinking on the words of Lyly, which are found in the page preceding that from which an extract has been already made: "I speake this to this end, that though thy exile seem grievous to thee, yet guiding thy selfe with the rules of philosophie, it shall be more tolerable: he that is colde doth not cover himselfe with care but with clothes; he that is washed in the rayne, drieth himselfe by the fire, not by his fancie; and thou which art banished," &c. MALONE.

GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on

thy way:

Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay. BOLING. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where-e'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman 1.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

The Same. A Room in the King's Castle.

Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN;
AUMERLE following.

K. RICH. We did observe 2.-Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
AUM. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
But to the next highway, and there I left him.
K. RICH. And, say, what store of parting tears
were shed?

I

AUM. 'Faith, none for me3: except the northeast wind,

yet a trueborn Englishman.] Here the first Act ought to end, that between the first and second Acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his son, return, and fall sick. Then the first scene of the second Act begins with a natural conversation, interrupted by a message from John of Gaunt, by which the King is called to visit him, which visit is paid in the following scene. As the play is now divided, more time passes between the last two scenes of the first Act, than between the first Act and the second. JOHNSON.

2 We did OBSERVE.-] The King here addresses Green and Bagot, who we may suppose had been talking to him of Bolingbroke's "courtship to the common people," at the time of his departure. "Yes, (says Richard,) we did observe it." MALONE.

3 'Faith, none FOR ME :] i. e. none on my part. Thus, we say, "For me, I am content; Where those words have the same signification as here.

6

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awak'd the sleeping rheum; and so, by chance,
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. RICH. What said our cousin, when you parted with him?

AUM. 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.

K. RICH. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,

When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green 3,

Thus the authentick copies, the quarto 1597, and the folio 1623. The reviser of the second folio, 1632, who altered whatever he did not understand, substituted-by me, instead of the words in the text, and has been followed by all the subsequent editors. MALONE.

If we read for me, the expression will be equivocal, and seem as if it meant-no tears were shed on my account. So, in the preceding scene:

66

O, let no noble eye profane a tear "For me," &c. STEEVENS.

According to the doctrine here laid down, if the words of an author clearly and precisely admit of the meaning which he intends to convey, but at the same time may also bear a different sense, we are always to suppose that the passage is corrupt. I conceive, however, that if a writer has expressed his meaning, in proper and significant words, he may rest satisfied, though the words may be distorted to another sense from that which he intended.

MALONE.

3 Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,] The first quarto, 1597, has only-"Ourself and Bushy," in which way the line

Observ'd his courtship to the common people:-
How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
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 'twere, to banish their affects with him.
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 3.

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,
For their advantage, and your highness' loss.

K. RICH. We will ourself in person to this war.

appears in the subsequent quartos of 1597, 1608, and 1615. The folio reads:

"Ourself, and Bushy here, Bagot, and Greene." Which was perhaps what the author wrote, intending to point differently, by placing a comma after here; for it appears from the scenical direction of the quarto 1597, that Bushy was now on the stage: "Enter the King, with Bushie," &c. But in the folio the direction is "Enter the King, Aumerle, Greene, and Bagot," because it was observed that Bushy comes in afterwards with news (as the old quarto terms it.) On this account we cannot read Bushy here, and are obliged to adopt a transposition made in the quarto 1634:

"Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green." MALONE. 4 -the tribute of his supple knee,] To illustrate this phrase, it should be remembered that courtesying, (the act of reverence now confined to women,) was anciently practised by men.

STEEVENS.

5 And he our subjects' next degree in hope.] Spes altera Romæ. Virg. MALONE.

6 Expedient i. e. expeditious. So, in King John:

"His marches are expedient to this town." STEEVENS.