There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
And then be gone, and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?

Boling.

Name it, fair cousin.

K. Rich. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king: For, when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

I have a king here to my flatterer.

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.
Boling. Whither?

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?-Conveyers1 are you

all,

That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.2

[Exeunt K. RICH., 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 woful 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.

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

1 "To convey" is the word for sleight of hand or juggling. Richard means that it is a term of contempt "jugglers are you all."

2 This is the last of the additional lines first printed in the quarto of 1608. In the first editions there is no personal appearance of king Richard.

To bury mine intents, but also to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise.-
I see your brows are full of discontent,
Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
Come home with me to supper; I will lay
A plot, shall show us all a merry day.

[Exeunt.

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 tower,1

1

To whose flint-bosom my condemned lord
Is doomed a prisoner, by proud Bolingbroke.
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
Have any resting for her true king's queen.

Enter KING RICHARD, and Guards.

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither. Yet look up; behold;
That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.-
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
Thou map of honor; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,3

1 By ill-erected is probably meant erected for evil purposes.

2 Map is used for picture. In the Rape of Lucrece, Shakspeare calls sleep "the map of death."

3 Inn does not, probably, here mean a house of public entertainment, but a dwelling or lodging generally; in which sense the word was anciently used.

Town to Richard 11.

KING RICHARD M.

Act. b. Sel.

Why should hard-favored grief be lodged in thee,
When triumph is become an ale-house guest ?

K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awaked, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this; I am sworn brother,1 sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister there in some religious house.
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.

Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transformed and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke Deposed thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart? The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpowered; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly; kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,

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; Think I am dead; and that even here thou tak’st,

As from my death-bed, my last living leave.

In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire

With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid;

2

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable fall3 of me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compassion, weep the fire out;

1 Sworn brother alludes to the fratres jurati, who, in the age of adventure, bound themselves by mutual oaths to share fortunes together.

2 To requite their mournful stories.

3 The quarto of 1597 reads tale.