For you

have but mistook me all this while :

I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends: Subjected thus,

How can you say to me I am a king?

Car. My lord, wise men ne'er wail their present woes, † But presently prevent the ways to wail.

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight:
And fight and die, is death destroying death;
Where fearing dying, pays death servile breath.
Aum. My father hath a power, enquire of him;
And learn to make a body of a limb.

K. Rich. Thou chid'st me well: -Proud Bolingbroke,
I come

To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague-fit of fear is over-blown;

An easy task it is, to win our own.

Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day:

So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer, by small and small,

To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:-
Your uncle York hath join'd with Bolingbroke;
And all your northern castles yielded up,

And all your southern gentlemen in arms

Upon his party.

K. Rich.

Thou hast said enough.

Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth

[TO AUMERLE.

Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
What say you now? What comfort have we now?

+"wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,”. MALONE.

By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly,

That bids me be of comfort1

any more.

Go, to Flint castle; there I'll pine away;
A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
That power I have, discharge; and let them go
To ear2 the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none: - Let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

Aum. My liege, one word.
K. Rich.
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers, let them hence; -Away,
From Richard's night, to Bolingbroke's fair day.

He does me double wrong,

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Wales. Before Flint Castle.

Enter, with Drum and Colours, BOLINGBROKE and
Forces; YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others.

Boling. So that by this intelligence we learn,
The Welchmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed,
With some few private friends, upon this coast.
North. The news is very fair and good, my lord;
Richard, not far from hence, hath hid his head.

York. It would beseem the lord Northumberland,
To say-king Richard: - Alack the heavy day,
When such a sacred king should hide his head!

1 I'll hate him everlastingly,

That bids me be of comfort This sentiment is drawn from nature. Nothing is more offensive to a mind convinced that its distress is without a remedy, and preparing to submit quietly to irresistible calamity, than those petty and conjectured comforts which unskilful officiousness thinks it virtue to administer.

2 To ear- i. e. to plough it.

North. Your grace mistakes me; only to be brief,
Left I his title out.

York.
The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been so brief with you, to shorten you,
For taking so the head3, your whole head's length.

Boling. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
York. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mis-take: The heavens are o'er your head.
Boling. I know it, uncle; and oppose not+
Myself against their will. But who comes here?

Enter PERCY.

Well, Harry; what, will not this castle yield?
Percy. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,
Against thy entrance.

Boling. Royally!

Why, it contains no king?

Percy.

Yes, my good lord,

It doth contain a king; king Richard lies

Within the limits of yon lime and stone:

And with him are the lord Aumerle, lord Salisbury,
Sir Stephen Scroop; besides a clergyman
Of holy reverence, who, I cannot learn.
North. Belike, it is the bishop of Carlisle.
Boling. Noble lord,

[TO NORTH.

Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parle
Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver.

Harry Bolingbroke

On both his knees, doth kiss king Richard's hand;
And sends allegiance, and true faith of heart,

3 For taking so the head,] To take the head is, to act without restraint, to take undue liberties.

1

་

To his most royal person: hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power;
Provided that, my banishment repeal'd,
And lands restor'd again, be freely granted:
If not, I'll use the advantage of my power,

And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood,
Rain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen :
The which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
It is, such crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair king Richard's land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.

Go, signify as much; while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain. —

[NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle,
with a Trumpet.

Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,
That from the castle's totter'd battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.
Methinks, king Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, while on the earth I rain
My waters; on the earth, and not on him.
March on, and mark king Richard how he looks.

AParle sounded, and answered by another Trumpet within. Flourish. Enter on the Walls King RICHARD, the Bishop of Carlisle, AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALIS

BURY.

York. See, see, king Richard doth himself appear, As doth the blushing discontented sun,

From out the fiery portal of the east ;

When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
To dim his glory, and to stain the track

Of his bright passage to the occident.

Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
Controlling majesty; Alack, alack, for woe,
That any harm should stain so fair a show!

K. Rich. We are amaz'd; and thus long have we stood To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,

[To NORTHUMBERLAND.
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 is,)
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;1

the flower of England's face;] Dr. Warburton says, by the flower of England's face is meant the choicest youths of England, who shall be slaughtered in this quarrel, or have bloody crowns. The flower of England's face, to design her choicest youth, is a fine and noble expression, but Mr. Steevens is of opinion that the flower of England's face, means England's flowery face, the flowery surface of England's soil.