SCENE I.-London. A Street leading to the Tower. QUEEN. This way the king will come; this is the way To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected a tower, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord Have any resting for her true king's queen. Enter KING RICHARD and Guards. But soft, but see, or rather do not see, And wash him fresh again with true-love tears. Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, Our holy lives must win a new world's crown, Which our profane hours here have stricken down. And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod; Which art a lion, and a king of beasts? K. RICH. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts, I had been still a happy king of men. Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France: • The Queen, in a series of bold metaphors, compares her "condemned lord" to a ruin, or a mere outward form of greatness. He is "the model where old Troy did stand"—the representation of the waste on which the most renowned city of antiquity once stood. Inn. We doubt whether the word is here used as Falstaff uses it-" Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" An inn was originally a dwelling-a place of cover or protection. We have still the Inns of Court; Lord Braybrook's seat in Essex, commonly called Audley-End, is, properly, Audley-Inn. When the Queen opposes the term alehouse to inn, she certainly does not mean, as Monck Mason thinks, to discriminate between two classes of houses of entertainment, but between a public-house and a "beauteous mansion." • Sworn brother. Military adventurers were sometimes leagued to share each others' fortunes -to divide their plunder, and even their honours. They were then fratres jurati-sworn brothers. As from my death-bed, my last living leave. And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. For why, the senseless brands will sympathise And, in compassion, weep the fire out: And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, For the deposing of a rightful king. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended. NORTH. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd; And, madam, there is order ta'en for you; many It is too little, helping him to all: And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, Being ne'er so little urg'd another way, To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. The love of wicked friends converts to fear; NORTH. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith. Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north, Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; • Fall. So the folio. The quartos, tale. The kiss was an established form of the ancient ceremony of affiancing. (See Illustrations of 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act II., Scene 2.) My queen to France; from whence, set forth in pomp, Sent back like Hallowmas, or short'st of day. K. RICH. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart. NORTH. That were some love, but little policy. Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans. K. RICH. Twice for one step I 'll groan, the way being short, Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief, K. RICH. We make woe wanton with this fond delay; Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. [They kiss. [Kiss again. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. A Room in the Duke of York's Palace. Enter YORK and his DUCHESS 21. DUCH. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off Of our two cousins coming into London. YORK. Where did I leave? DUCH. At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgovern'd hands, from window's tops, YORK. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, • Queen. So the folio. The quartos, wife. Hallowmas. The first of November,-opposed to "sweet May." Ne'er the near. Some deem this a proverbial expression, meaning not nearer to good. It appears to us here to mean never the nearer." With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course, -- DUCH. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the whilst? After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes The badges of his grief and patience, That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, But heaven hath a hand in these events; To whose high will we bound our calm contents. To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now, Whose state and honour I for aye allow. Enter AUMERLE. DUCH. Here comes my son Aumerle. YORK. Aumerle that was; But that is lost, for being Richard's friend, I am in parliament pledge for his truth, • It is pleasant, in reading what has been written upon Shakspere, to meet occasionally with the genial criticism of one who understands him. Dryden, speaking of this celebrated passage, says, "The painting of this description is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read anything comparable to it in any other language.” b Aumerle that was. Aumerle was deprived of his dukedom by an act of Henry's first parliament; but was suffered to retain his earldom of Rutland. |