ACT III.-SCENE 3.

K. Richard (to Northumberland).—We are amazed, and thus long

have we stood

To watch the fearful bending of thy knee

Because we thought ourself thy lawful king;

And if we be how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.

And though you think, that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls, by turning them from us,
And we are barren, and bereft of friends;-
Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf,
Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn, and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head,
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke (for yond', methinks, he stands),
That every stride he makes upon my land,
Is dangerous treason: He is come to ope
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
Shall ill become the flower of England's face;
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation, and bedew

Her pasture's grass with faithful English blood.

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. Richard. 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 almsman's gown;
My figured goblets, for a dish of wood;
My sceptre, 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?

In the Fifth Act the doom of the time is reflected in the words of the Queen when she says to Richard

What, is my Richard both in shape and mind

Transformed and weaken'd? Hath Bolingbroke deposed

Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?

The last scene in which Shakespeare exhibits the reflective tendencies of the idle king is in his "dungeon at Pomfret"

K. Richard. I have been studying how I may 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 misfortune on the back
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 treason makes 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 am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be cas'd
With being nothing.-Music do I hear?

Ha, ha! keep time:-How sour sweet musick is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the musick of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear,
To check time broke in a disorder'd 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 numb'ring 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 sounds that tell what hour it is,

Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,

[Music.

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 musick 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 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter GROOM.

Groom.-Hail, royal prince!

K. Richard.—

Thanks, noble peer;

The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. 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 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. Richard.-Rode he où Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground.

K. Richard. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This band 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 burden like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke.
Enter KEEPER, with a dish.

Keep.-Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.

[To the Groom.

K. Richard. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.

Keep.-My lord, wilt please you to fall to?

K. Richard.-Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
Keep. My lord, I dare not; sir Pierce of Exton, who

[Erit.

Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.
K. Richard. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

Keep.-Help, help, help!

Enter EXTON and armed men.

[Beats the Keeper.

K. Richard. How now? what means Death in this rude assault? Villain, thine own hand yields death's instrument.

(Snatching an axe from a servant, and killing him.)

Go thou, and fill another room in hell.

(He kills another. Then Erton strikes him down.) That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire

That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand

Hath with the king's blood stained the king's own land.
Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;

While my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die. [Dies. Exton. As full of valour as of royal blood:

Both have I spilled; O would the deed were good!

For now the devil that told me I did well,

Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.

When Shakespeare's Henry IV., Part I., was put on the stage in 1596 or 1597, his hold upon public attention was complete. Not only his King John, Richard II. and Richard III., but his Romeo and Juliet, and his Merchant of Venice had made known to the London world that a prophet had arisen amongst them, able to teach them higher things than had been "dreamt of in their philosophy." It is true that he gave them fun and frolic also. The world furnished materials and he used them lavishly. In another part of this work the question whether he was too lavish in some of his presentments may be dealt with. Here the play itself must be described.