For, when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects; being now a subject, BOLING. Yet ask. K. RICH. And shall I have? BOLING. You shall. K. RICH. Then give me leave to go. 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?-Conveyers are you all1 That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall 2. [Exeunt K. RICHARD, Some Lords, and a Guard. BOLING. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves 3. [Exeunt all but the ABBOT, Bishop of Carlisle, and AUMERle. ABBOT. A woeful 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*. 66 CONVEYERS are you all,] To convey is a term often used in an ill sense, and so Richard understands it here. Pistol says of stealing, convey the wise it call;" and to convey is the word for sleight of hand, which seems to be alluded to here. Ye are all, says the deposed prince, jugglers, who rise with this nimble dexterity by the fall of a good king. JOHNSON. 2 a true king's fall.] This is the last of the additional lines which were first printed in the quarto, 1608. MAlone. 3 On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down : Our coronation lords, prepare yourselves.] The two first quartos read: 4 : "Let it be so and loe on Wednesday next 66 Lords, be ready all." STEEVENS. as sharp to them as thorn.] This pathetic denunciation 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 5 To bury mine intents, but also to effect" I see your brows are full of discontent, 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 8, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord shows that Shakspeare intended to impress his auditors with a dislike of the deposal of Richard. JOHNSON. TO BURY-] To conceal, to keep secret. JOHNSON. So, in Every Man in his Humour, by Ben Jonson : 6 "Lock'd up in silence, midnight, buried here." STEEVENS. but to effect-] The old copies redundantly read—“ but also to effect." STEEVENS. 7 In the first edition there is no personal appearance of King Richard, so that all to the line at which he leaves the stage was inserted afterwards. JOHNSON. 8 To Julius Cæsar's ILL-ERECTED tower,] The Tower of London is traditionally said to have been the work of Julius Cæsar. JOHNSON. By-ill-erected, I suppose, is meant-erected for bad purposes. STEEVENS. Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke: But soft, but see, or rather do not see, And wash him fresh again with true-love tears. 9 Here let us rest, if, &c.] So, Milton: "Here rest, if any rest can harbour here." JOHNSON. And Browne, in his Britannia's Pastorals, b. ii. song iii. 1613: Night and day upon the hard'ned stones HOLT White. 66 Rests, if a rest can be ," &c. My fair rose wither:] Even the Cronykil of A. of Wyntown, on this occasion, is not unpoetical: "The king Richard of Yngland 66 Wes in his flowris than regnand :"Bot his flowis eftyr sone 66 Fadyt, and ware all undone." B. ix. ch. xviii. v. 61, &c. 2 Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand ;] The Queen uses comparative terms absolutely. Instead of saying, Thou who appearest as the ground on which the magnificence of Troy was once erected, she says: "Ah, thou the model, &c. Thou picture of greatness. JOHNSON. Model, it has already been observed, is used by our author, for a thing made after a pattern. He is, I believe, singular in this use of the word. Thou ruined majesty, says the Queen, that resemblest the desolated waste where Troy once stood. So, before: "Who was the model of thy father's life." In our author's Rape of Lucrece, sleep is called "the map of death." MALONE. 3-beauteous INN,] Inn does not here signify a house of publick entertainment; but a dignified habitation. 6 Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee, When triumph is become an alehouse guest? K. RICH. Join not with grief; fair woman, do not so, To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul, Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, Transform'd and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage So, in an ancient satirical song, quoted by the Rev. T. Warton, in his Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. 45 : 66 Syre Simonde de Mountfort hath suore bi ys chyn, Lord Howard's magnificent seat in Essex is still called AudleyInn. STEEVENS. I cannot agree with Steevens. Inn means a house of entertainment, and is opposed to alehouse in the following line. M. MASON. 4 Join not with grief,] Do not thou unite with grief against me; do not, by thy additional sorrows, enable grief to strike me down at once. My own part of sorrow I can bear, but thy affliction will immediately destroy me. JOHNSON. s I am swORN BROTHER," To grim necessity,] I have reconciled myself to necessity, I am in a state of amity with the constraint which I have sustained. JOHNSON. Which art a lion, and the king of beasts"? K. RICH. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts, I had been still a happy king of men 7. 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 woeful ages, long ago betid: And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. The expression-sworn brother, alludes to the fratres jurati, who, in the ages of adventure, bound themselves by mutual oaths, to share fortunes together. See Mr. Whalley's note on King Henry V. Act II. Sc. I. STEEVENS. 6 THE king of beasts?] So the original quarto. In all subsequent editions-a king of beasts. MALONE. 7- king of men.] 'Tis marvellous, that Mr. Upton did not quote this passage as an evidence of our author's learning, and observe, that a more faithful translation of Homer's avag ávöçür could not have been made. STEEVENS. 8 - to quit their griefs,] To retaliate their mournful stories. JOHNSON. 9 Tell thou the lamentable FALL of me,] Thus the folio. So, in King Henry VIII.: "And when you would say something that is sad, The reading, however, of the first quarto, 1597, is also much in our author's manner: "Tell thou the lamentable tale of me. But the consideration that fall, the reading of the folio, was not copied from the corruption of any precedent quarto, and its correspondence with the quotation from Henry VIII. induce me to think it was Shakspeare's alteration, and to depart from the original copy, which I never do without reluctance. MALONE. For why,] The poet should have ended this speech with the foregoing line, and have spared his childish prattle about the fire. JOHNSON. |