York. Bound to himself! what doth he with I doubt not but to ride as fast as York: a bond

That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.
Boy, let me see the writing.

Aum. I do beseech you, pardon me; I

That no man enter till my tale be done.
Boling. Have thy desire.

York. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?

York. [Within] My liege, beware: look to Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear? thyself;

Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there. 40
Boling. Villain, I'll make thee safe.

[Drawing. Aum. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.

York. [Within] Open the door, secure, fool-
hardy king:

Shall I for love speak treason to thy face?
Open the door, or I will break it open.

Enter YORK.

Boling. What is the matter, uncle? speak; Recover breath; tell us how near is danger, That we may arm us to encounter it.

York. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know

50

The treason that my haste forbids me show.
Aum. Remember, as thou read'st, thy pro-
mise pass'd:

I do repent me; read not my name there;
My heart is not confederate with my hand.

90

Duch. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me,

gentle liege.
Boling. Rise up, good aunt.
Duch.

[Kneels.

Not yet, I thee beseech:

For ever will I walk upon my knees,
And never see day that the happy sees,
Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy,
By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
Aum. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my
knee.

York. Against them both my true joints
bended be.

Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!
Duch. Pleads he in earnest? look upon his

face;

100

His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest ;
His words come from his mouth, ours from our
breast:

He prays but faintly and would be denied;
We pray with heart and soul and all beside:
His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:

York. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it His prayers are full of false hypocrisy ;

down.

Hath held his current and defiled himself!
Thy overflow of good converts to bad,
And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.

70

York. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;
And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.
Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies:
Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,
The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
Duch. [Within] What ho, my liege! for
God's sake, let me in.

Boling. What shrill-voiced suppliant makes
this eager cry?

Duch. A woman, and thy aunt, great king;
'tis I.

Speak with me, pity me, open the door:
A beggar begs that never begg'd before.

Boling. Our scene is alter'd from a serious thing,
And now changed to 'The Beggar and the King.
My dangerous cousin, let your mother in:

I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.
York. If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,
More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
This fester'd joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
This let alone will all the rest confound.

Enter DUCHESS.

81

Duch. O king, believe not this hard-hearted

man!

Love loving not itself none other can,

Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.

Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have
That mercy which true prayer ought to have. 110
Boling. Good aunt, stand up.
Duch.

Nay, do not say, 'stand up;'
Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'
An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
Pardon should be the first word of thy speech.
I never long'd to hear a word till now;
Say 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how:
The word is short, but not so short as sweet;
No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.
York. Speak it in French, king; say, 'par-
donne moi.'

Duch. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to
destroy?

120

Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That set'st the word itself against the word!
Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;
The chopping French we do not understand.
Thine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;
Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;
That hearing how our plaints and prayers do
pierce,

Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.
Boling. Good aunt, stand up.
Duch.
I do not sue to stand;
Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
130
Boling. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
Duch. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again;
Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon strong.
Boling.
I pardon him.

But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:
Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
Duch. Come, my old son: I pray God make
thee new.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. The same.

Enter EXTON and Servant.

Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,

'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?' Was it not so?

Ser.

These were his very words.

40

With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing. Music do I hear? [Music.
Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music 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 numbering
clock:

50

My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar

Exton. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he: he Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward

spake it twice,

And urged it twice together, did he not?

Serv.
Exton.

He did.

on me;

And speaking it, he wistly look'd

As who should say, 'I would thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart;'
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go: 10
I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

SCENE V. Pomfret castle.

Enter KING RICHARD.

[Exeunt.

watch,

Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my
heart,

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 music mads me; let it sound no more; 61
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!

K. Rich. I have been studying how I may For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard

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 small 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 misfortunes on the back

Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make 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 be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is

ΙΟ

20

30

Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

Enter a Groom of the Stable.
Groom. Hail, royal prince!
K. Rich.
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 70
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 royal 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. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me,
gentle friend,

How went he under him?

[Snatching an axe from a Servant and killing him. Go thou, and fill another room in hell. [He kills another. Then Exton strikes him down. That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand 110

Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own
land.

Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to
die.
[Dies.

Exton. As full of valour as of royal blood: Both have I spill'd; O would the deed were good!

For now the devil, that told me I did well,
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear:
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Windsor castle.

Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, with other Lords, and Attendants.

Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we
hear

Is that the rebels have consumed with fire
Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;

But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Welcome, my lord: what is the news?

Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to
London

The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,
Two of the dangerous consorted traitors
That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
Boling. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be
forgot;

Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

Enter PERCY, and the BISHOP OF CARLISLE.
Percy. The grand conspirator, Abbot of West-
minster,

With clog of conscience and sour melancholy 20
Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
But here is Carlisle living, to abide
Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.
Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom:
Choose out some secret place, some reverend

Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou
hast wrought

A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land.
Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did
I this deed.

Boling. They love not poison that do poison
need,

40

Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent:
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand: 50

North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all March sadly after; grace my mournings here; happiness.

In weeping after this untimely bier.

[Exeunt.

Enter KING HENRY, LORD JOHN OF LANCAS-A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
TER, the EARL OF WESTMORELAND, SIR WAL-
TER BLUNT, and others.

King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, 10
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross 20
We are impressed and engaged to fight,
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy:
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd.
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelve month old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear 30
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight: when all athwart there came
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered;
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of.

40

King. It seems then that the tidings of this
broil

Brake off our business for the Holy Land.
West. This match'd with other did, my gra-
cious lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the north and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

50

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse, 60
Uncertain of the issue any way.

King. Here is a dear, a true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours:
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see