It is not possible, it cannot be,
The king should keep his word in loving us :
He will suspect us still, and find a time
To punish this offence in other faults:
Suspicion shall be all stuck full of eyes :
For treason is but trusted like the fox;
Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd, and lock'd up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
Look how we can, or sad, or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks;
And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,
The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.
My nephew's trespass may be well forgot,
It hath the excuse of youth, and heat of blood;
And an adopted name of privilege,-
A hare-brain'd Hotspur, govern'd by a spleen:
All his offences live upon my head,
And on his father's ;- -we did train him on ;
And, his corruption being ta'en from us,
We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.
K. HENRY IV., PART I., A. 5, s. 2.
THE INTRIGUING STEP-MOTHER. THAT such a crafty devil as is his mother Should yield the world this ass! a woman, that Bears all down with her brain; and this her son Cannot take two from twenty for his heart, And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess, Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st!
Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd;
A mother hourly coining plots; a wooer,
More hateful than the foul expulsion is
Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm
The walls of thy dear honour; keep unshak'd That temple, thy fair mind; that thou may'st stand,
To enjoy thy banish'd lord, and this great land.
THE KING'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS BEFORE THE BATTLE. ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In
peace, there's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness, and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct ;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully, as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height !—On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fetch'd from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,
Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest,
That those, whom you call'd fathers, did beget
you!
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war!-And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding: which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge,
Cry-God for Harry! England! and Saint
George!
THE KING'S AGONY.
K. RICHARD. 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! 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!
Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope
to beat,
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
AUMERLE. 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 scepter, 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,
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 cou-
sin!-
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer
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,
What says king Bolingbroke? will his majesty Give Richard leave to live till Richard die? You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says—ay.
K. RICHARD II., A. 3, s. 3.
THE KING AND THE GARDENER. QUEEN. And I could weep, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.
But stay, here come the gardeners :
Let's step into the shadow of these trees.—
Enter a Gardener and two Servants.
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They'll talk of state: for every one doth so
Against a change: Woe is forerun with woe.
[QUEEN and Ladies retire. GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon' dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.-
Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth :
All must be even in our government.-
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
1ST SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass
of a pale,
Keep law, and form, and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate ?
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd
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