Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
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.
Duch.
A god on earth thou art. Boling. But for our trusty brother-in-law, and the abbot,
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: Sometimes am I king;
Then treason makes 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 am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd,
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,
[Exeunt. 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 numb'ring clock :
My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they jars
Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
With all the rest of that consorted crew, -
Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
Good uncle, help to order several powers1
To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:
They shall not live within this world, I swear,
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
SCENE IV.-Enter Exton, and a 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 ?
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that 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;
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!
For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch' in this all-hating world.
Enter Groom.
Groom. Hail, royal prince!
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
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
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
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world; 2 With much ado, at length have gotten leave
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
As thus, Come, little ones; and then again,-
It is as hard to come, as for a camel
To thread the postern of a 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, - This hand hath made him proud with clapping
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down
(Since pride must have a fall,) and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
(7) An ornamented buckle, and also a jewel in
general.
(8) Former.
Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy
pains;
And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
Enter Fitzwater.
Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to Lon-
don
The heads of Brocas, and sir Bennet Seely;
Two of the dangerous and 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, with the Bishop of Carlisle.
Percy. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster,
Lately came from the king, commands the contrary. With clog of conscience, and sour melancholy,
K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
But here is Carlisle, living, to abide
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
[Beats the Keeper. Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom :-
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 spilt; 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.
Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
So, as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife:
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
Enter Exton, with attendants bearing a coffin.
Exton. Great king, within this coffin I present
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
Boling. They love not poison that do poison need,
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:
[Exeunt, With Cain go wander through the shade of night,
And never show thy head by day nor night.
SCENE VI.-Windsor. A room in the castle. Lords, I protest, my soul is full of wo,
Flourish. Enter Bolingbroke, and York, with
lords and attendants.
Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire
Our town of Cicester in Glostershire;
But whether they be ta'en, or slain, we hear not.
Enter Northumberland.
Welcome, my lord: What is the news?
North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all hap
That blood should sprinkle me, to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for what 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 :-
March sadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier.
The next news is, I have to London sent
The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent: apparently revised; but as success in works of in-
The manner of their taking may appear
At large discoursed in this paper here.
[Presenting a paper.
(1) Jaunting. (2) Immediately.
This play is one of those which Shakspeare has vention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions, or enlarge the understanding.
West. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down
SCENE I.-London. A room in the palace. But yesternight: when, all athwart, there came Enter King Henry, Westmoreland, Sir Walter A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news; Blunt, and others.
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 commenc'd in stronds1 afar remote.
No more the thirsty Erinnys of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces; those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
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 oppos'd
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
We are impressed and engag'd 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 is a twelve-month
And bootless 'tis to tell you-we will go;
Therefore we meet not now: -Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.s
(1) Strands, banks of the sea.
(2) The Fury of discord.
(3) Force, army. (4) Needless. (5) Expedition.
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,
And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whose dead corps there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much shame, re-told or spoken of.
K. Hen. 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
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,
Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,
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,
Uncertain of the issue any way.
K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious
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 Douglass is discomfited;
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balk'd in their own blood, did sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains: Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest son
(6) Estimates.
(7) September 14.
(8) Covered with dirt of different colours.
(9) Piled up in a heap.
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