He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou; Free speech, and fearless, I to thee allow. For that my sovereign liege was in my debt, Upon remainder of a dear account, Since last I went to France to fetch his queen : Now swallow down that lie.-For Gloster's death,- To prove myself a loyal gentleman Even in the best blood chamber'd in his boscm: Your highness to assign our trial day. K. RICH. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me; Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed; Good uncle, let this end where it begun; • Month in the quartos; in the folio, time. When, Harry? when? When, Harry? when? When, so used, is an expression of impatience, as in 'The Taming of the Shrew,'-"Why, when, I say?" Obedience bids, I should not bid again. K. RICH. Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boota. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame : K. RICH. Give me his gage :-Lions Rage must be withstood: make leopards tame. NOR. Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame, Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; K. RICH. Cousin, throw down your gage; do you begin. And spit it bleeding, in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. K. RICH. We were not born to sue, but to command: Which since we cannot do to make you friends, [Exit GAUNT. • No boot. Boot is here used in its original sense of compensation. There is no boot, no remedy, for what is past,-nothing to be added, or substituted. Lions make leopards tame. The crest of Norfolk was a golden leopard. His spots. So the old copies. According to the custom in Shakspere's time of changing from the singular to the plural number, or from the plural to the singular, the alteration to their in modern copies was scarcely called for. But in this case Mowbray quotes the very text of Scripture -Jer. xiii. 23. Gilded loam. In 'England's Parnassus' (1600) these three lines are extracted, but the third line reads thus: "Men are but gilded trunks, or painted clay." SCENE II.-London. A Room in the Duke of Lancaster's Palace3. Enter GAUNT and DUCHESS OF GLOSTER®. GAUNT. Alas! the partd I had in Gloster's blood Doth more solicit me than your exclaims, To stir against the butchers of his life. Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt; Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all vaded, By envy's hand, and murther's bloody axe. Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine; that bed, that womb, That mettle, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee, Made him a man; and though thou liv'st and breath'st, Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent In some large measure to thy father's death, "Atone you make you in concord-cause you to be at one. You shall see. All the old copies read you; except the first quarto, which has we. 1 The part I had, &c. My consanguinity to Gloster. • He sees. All the old copies, they see. Heaven is often put as the impersonation of the Deity. Vaded. So the folio; the quartos, faded. To vade seems in some writers to have a stronger sense than to fade, although fade was often written vade. Doubtless they are the same words. In that thou seest thy wretched brother die, Hath caus'd his death: the which if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift An angry arm against his minister. DUCH. Where then, alas! may I complain myself"? GAUNT. To heaven, the widow's champion and defence. DUCH. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight: Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom3, That they may break his foaming courser's back, A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford! Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife GAUNT. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry: As much good stay with thee, as go with me! DUCH. Yet one word more ;-Grief boundeth where it falls, I take my leave before I have begun ; I shall remember more. Bid him-0, what? With all good speed at Plashy visit me. Alack, and what shall good old York there see, Complain myself. The verb is here the same as the French verb se plaindre. b Caitiff. The original meaning of this word was, a prisoner. Wickliffe has "he stighynge an high ledde caityfte caityf" (captivity captive). As the captive anciently became a slave, the word gradually came to indicate a man in a servile condition—a mean creature-a dishonest person. MAR. My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd? Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet. Flourish of trumpets. Enter KING RICHARD, who takes his seat on his throne ; GAUNT, and several Noblemen, who take their places. A trumpet is sounded, and answered by another trumpet within. Then enter NORFOLK, in armour, preceded by a Herald. K. RICH. Marshal, demand of yonder champion The cause of his arrival here in arms: Ask him his name; and orderly proceed MAR. In God's name and the king's, say who thou art, As so defend thee heaven, and thy valour! NOR. My name is Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk; (Which heaven defend a knight should violate!) To God, my king, and his succeeding issue a, • The first folio, deviating from the first three editions, reads "his succeeding issue;"- the succeeding issue of the king. My succeeding issue, the reading of the quartos, must be received in the sense that Mowbray owed to his descendants to defend his loyalty and truth to them, as well as to his God and to his king. This, however, would be to refine somewhat too much. |