SCENE I.-London.

ACT IV.

Westminster Hall. The Lords spiritual on the right

side of the throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below.

Enter BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, BISHOP OF CARLISLE, ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and Attendants. Officers behind with BAGOT.

BOLING. Call forth Bagot.

Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;

What thou dost know of noble Gloster's death;
Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd
The bloody office of his timeless a end.

BAGOT. Then set before my face the lord Aumerle.
BOLING. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
BAGOT. My lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
Scorns to unsay what it hath once deliver'd.

In that dead time when Gloster's death was plotted,
I heard you say,-Is not my arm of length,
That reacheth from the restful English court
As far as Calais, to my uncle's head?-

Timeless-untimely.

Amongst much other talk, that

very time,
I heard you say, that you had rather refuse
The offer of an hundred thousand crowns,
Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
Adding withal, how bless'd this land would be
In this your cousin's death.

AUM.

Princes, and noble lords,
What answer shall I make to this base man?
Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars,
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd
With the attainder of his sland'rous lips.
There is my gage, the manual seal of death,
That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,
And will maintain what thou hast said is false,
In thy heart-blood, though being all too base
To stain the temper of my kuightly sword.
BOLING. Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it up.
AUM. Excepting one, I would he were the best

In all this presence, that hath mov'd me so.
FITZ. If that thy valour stand on sympathies a,

There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st,
I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death.
If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
AUM. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day.
FITZ. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUM. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,
In this appeal, as thou art all unjust:
And, that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
Το
prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of mortal breathing; seize it, if thou dar'st.
AUM. And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
And never brandish more revengeful steel

A

Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

Aumerle thinks that to challenge

Sympathies. Sympathy is, passion with,-mutual passion. Bagot would dishonour his "fair stars;" the stars that presided over his birth made him Bagot's superior. Fitzwater, who is his equal in blood, throws down his gage with the retort,

"If that thy valour stand on sympathies."

Rapier's point. The rapier was a weapon not known in the time of Richard. This is an anachronism which the commentators dwell on, but which is justified upon the principle of employing terms which were familiar to an audience.

[LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
And spur thee on with full as many lies

As may be holla'd in thy treacherous ear
From sun to sun b: there is my honour's pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.

AUM. Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:
I have a thousand spirits in one breast,
To answer twenty thousand such as you.]
SURREY. My lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

FITZ. T is very trued: you were in presence then;
And you can witness with me, this is true.
SURREY. AS false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
FITZ. Surrey, thou liest.

SURREY.

Dishonourable boy!
That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,
That it shall render vengeance and revenge,
Till thou the lie-giver, and that lie, do lie
In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.

In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.

FITZ. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,

I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,

And spit upon him, whilst I say, he lies,

And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,

To tie thee to my strong correction.

As I intend to thrive in this new world,

Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal:

Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say

That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men
To execute the noble duke at Calais.

AUM. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage,
That Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,

If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.

• Task the earth. This is the reading of the first quarto. The subsequent editions read take. When the lord threw down his gage, he tasked the earth, in the same way that Percy had done by throwing down his gage. Johnson would read thy oath instead of the earth. Whiter, although he does not suppose that there was a connection between an oath and the earth, when the gage was thrown or as Warner has it in his 'Albion's England,' when the glove was terr'd"-yet points at an etymological affinity between the Gothic aith (juramentum) and airtha (terra).

From sun to sun. The old copies read from sin to sin. The time appointed for the combats of chivalry was betwixt the rising and the setting sun. Shakspere, in Cymbeline,' uses the phrase in this sense.

• The challenge of the anonymous lord to Aumerle, and his answer (eight lines in brackets), are omitted in the folio.

'Tis very true. So the quarto of 1597. The folio reads, "My lord, 't is very true."

BOLING. These differences shall all rest under gage,
Till Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,
And, though mine enemy, restor'd again

To all his land and seignories; when he 's return'd,
Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
BISHOP. That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.
Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
For Jesu Christ; in glorious Christian field
Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross,
Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens :
And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
His body to that pleasant country's earth 20,
And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
BOLING. Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?
BISHOP. As sure as I live, my lord.

BOLING. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
Of good old Abraham !-Lords appellants,
Your differences shall all rest under gage,
Till we assign you to your days of trial.

Enter YORK, attended.

YORK. Great duke of Lancaster, I come to thee

From plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields

To the possession of thy royal hand :
Ascend his throne, descending now from him,-
And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!
BOLING. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.
BISHOP. Marry, Heaven forbid !—

Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
Would God, that any in this noble presence
Were enough noble to be upright judge
Of noble Richard; then true nobleness a would
Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
What subject can give sentence on his king?
And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,
Although apparent guilt be seen in them:

And shall the figure of God's majesty,

• Nobleness. So the folio, and other old copies. The first quarto, nobless. We have authority for the use of nobless in the sense of nobleness, in Ben Jonson (Epigram 102):—

"But thou, whose noblesse keeps one stature still."

His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,

And he himself not present? O, forfenda it, God,
That, in a Christian climate, souls refin'd
Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!

I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
Stirr'd up by heaven, thus boldly for his king.
My lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:
And if you crown him, let me prophesy,-
The blood of English shall manure the ground,
And future ages groan for this foul act;
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And, in this seat of peace, tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,

Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
The field of Golgotha, and dead men's skulls.
O, if you rear this house against this house,
It will the woefullest division prove

That ever fell upon this cursed earth:
Prevent it, resist it, and let it not be so,

Lest child, child's children, cry against you--woe!
NORTH. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,
Of capital treason we arrest you here:

My lord of Westminster, be it your charge

To keep him safely till his day of trial.

May 't please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?
BOLING. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
He may surrender; so we shall proceed
Without suspicion.

BOLING. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
Procure your sureties for your days of answer:
Little are we beholden to your love,

And little look'd for at your helping hands.

[Exit.

[TO CARLISLE.

Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and Officers bearing the crown, &c.

K. RICH. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,
Before I have shook off the regal thoughts

Forfend. So the quarto of 1597. The folio, forbid. We cling to the less common word, as in 'Othello:'

"No, heavens forfend, I would not kill thy soul."

Rear, in the folio; in the quartos, raise.