Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

Wor. I cannot blame him: Was he not proclaim'd, By Richard that dead is, the next of blood 18? North. He was; I heard the proclamation: And then it was, when the unhappy king (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth Upon his Irish expedition;

From whence he, intercepted, did return

To be depos'd, and shortly, murdered.

Wor. And for whose death, we in the world's wide mouth

Live scandaliz'd, and foully spoken of.

Hot. But, soft, I pray you; Did King Richard then Proclaim my brother Mortimer

Heir to the crown?

North.

He did; myself did hear it.

Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king, That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve 19 But shall it be, that you,—that set the crown Upon the head of this forgetful man ; And, for his sake, wear the detested blot Of murd'rous subornation,-shall it be,

18 Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, was declared heir apparent to the crown in 1385: but he was killed in Ireland in 1398. The person who was proclaimed heir apparent by Richard II. previous to his last voyage to Ireland, was Edmund Mortimer, son of Roger, who was then but seven years old: he was not Lady Percy's brother, but her nephew. He was the undoubted heir to the crown after the death of Richard. Thomas Walsingham asserts that he married a daughter of Owen Glendower, and the subsequent historians copied him. Sandford says that he married Anne Stafford, daughter of Edmund Earl of Stafford. Glendower's daughter was married to his antagonist Lord Grey of Ruthven. Holinshed led Shakespeare into the error. This Edmund, who is the Mortimer of the present play, was born in 1392, and consequently, at the time when this play is supposed to commence, was little more than ten years old. The prince of Wales was not fifteen.

19 Thus the quartos. The folio has starv'd.

That you a world of curses undergo;

Being the agents, or base second means,

The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather ?— O, pardon me, that I descend so low,

To show the line, and the predicament,

Wherein you range under this subtle king.—
Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill
up chronicles in time to come,

That men of your nobility and power,
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,-
As both of you, God pardon it! have done,-
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker 20, Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off
By him, for whom these shames ye underwent?
No! yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again:
Revenge the jeering, and disdain'd 21 contempt,
Of this proud king; who studies, day and night,
To answer all the debt he owes to you,
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore, I say,

Wor.

Peace, cousin, say no more:

And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'erwalk a current, roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

Hot. If he fall in, good night :—or sink or swim :

20 The canker-rose is the dog-rose, the flower of the Cynosbaton. So in Much Ado about Nothing::-"I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace."

21 i. e. disdainful.

Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honour cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple :-O! the blood more stirs,
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare.

North. Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

Hot. By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep 22,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, a
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear,
Without co-rival, all her dignities :

But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship 23 !
Wor. He apprehends a world of figures 24 here,
But not the form of what he should attend.-
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Hot. I cry you mercy.

Wor.

That are your prisoners,

Hot.

Those same noble Scots,

I'll keep them all;

By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:

22 Warburton observes that Euripides has put the same sentiment into the mouth of Eteocles :-"I will not, madam, disguise my thoughts; I would scale heaven, I would descend to the very entrails of the earth, if so be that by that price I could obtain a kingdom." In the Knight of the Burning Pestle, Beaumont and Fletcher have put this into the mouth of Ralph the apprentice, who, like Bottom, appears to be fond of acting parts to tear a cat in.

23 Half-faced, which has puzzled the commentators, seems here meant to convey a contemptuous idea of something imperfect. As in Nashe's Apology of Pierce Pennilesse:-"With all other ends of your half-faced English."

24 A world of figures, i. e. shapes created by his imagination. Form and figures appear to be borrowed here from the terms of technical logic, and other phrases in the play indicate that Shake. speare had recently been familiar with it.

You start away,

I'll keep them, by this hand.

Wor.

And lend no ear unto my purposes.―
Those prisoners you shall keep.

Hot.
He said, he would not ransom Mortimer ;

Nay, I will; that's flat :—

Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer ;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I'll holla-Mortimer!
Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.

Wor. Hear you, Cousin ; a word.

Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy 25,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
And that same sword-and-buckler 26 prince of
Wales,-

But that I think his father loves him not,
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I'd have him poison'd with a pot of ale.

Wor. Farewell, kinsman! I will talk to you,
When you are better temper'd to attend.

25 To defy was sometimes used in the sense of to renounce, reject, refuse, by Shakespeare and his cotemporaries. Thus Constance, in King John, says:

"No, I defy all counsel, all redress."

26 Sword and buckler prince is here used as a term of contempt. The following extracts will help us to the precise meaning of the epithet :-" This field, commonly called West Smithfield, was for many years called Ruffians' Hall, by reason it was the usual place for frayes and common fighting, during the time that sword and bucklers were in use; when every serving man, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his back, which hung by the hilt or pomel of his sword."-Stowe's Survey of London. There was a poem, published in 1602, entitled Sword and Buckler, or Servingman's Defence, by William Basse. And John Florio in his First Fruites, 1578:-"What weapons bear they? Some sword and dagger, some sword and buckler.-What weapon is that buckler? A clownish dastardly weapon, and not fit for a gentleman."

North. Why, what a wasp-stung 27 and impatient

fool

Art thou, to break into this woman's mood;

Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own?

Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,

Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.

In Richard's time,-What do you call the place ?—
A plague upon't!-it is in Gloucestershire;-
"Twas where the mad-cap duke his uncle kept 28,
His uncle York ;-where I first bow'd my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,

'Sblood! when you and he came back from Ravenspurg 29.

North. At Berkley castle.

Hot. You say true:

Why, what a candy deal of courtesy

This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
Look,-when his infant fortune came to age,
And-gentle Harry Percy,—and, kind cousin,—
O, the devil take such cozeners!- -God forgive

me!

Good uncle, tell your tale,-I have done.

Wor. Nay, if you have not, to't again; We'll stay your leisure.

Hot.

I have done, i' faith.

27 The first quarto, 1598, reads wasp-stung, which Steevens thought the true reading. The quarto of 1599 reads wasp tongue. The folio altered it unnecessarily to wasp-tongued. Northumberland says Hotspur is as impatient as if stung by wasps. He replies in effect-So I am, or worse and more degrading, stung with pismires; nettled, smarting as if with the whip,-not to speak of

wasps.

28 The reader will no doubt remember that the poet uses kept for dwelt in other places. See The Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 3. 29 All the quartos have 'Sblood! when you, &c. All the folios omit it.