Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,

Enter SALISBURY. Nor with thy sweets comfort his rav'nous sense : Welcome, my lord : how far off lies your power? But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom, Sal. Nor near nor further off, my gracious lord, And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,

Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue, Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet

And bids me speak of nothing but despair. Which with usurping steps do trample thee. One day too late, I fear, my noble lord, Yield stinging-nettles to mine enemies :

Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, O, call back yesterday, bid time return, Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men: Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late, Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies. O'erthrows thyjoys, friends, fortune, and thy state! Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords : For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and filed. Prove arméd soldiers, ere her native king

Aum. Comfort, my liege: why looks your grace Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.

so pale? Bishop. Fear not, my lord: that power that | K. Rich. But now the blood of twenty thousand made you king,

men Hath power to keep you king, in spite of all. Did triumph in my face, and they are fled: The means that heaven yields must be embraced, And till so much blood come thither again, And not neglected : else, if heaven would,

Have I not reason to look pale and dead ? And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse; All souls that will be safe, fly from my side; The proffered means of succour and redress. For time hath set a blot upon my pride. Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too

Aum. Comfort, my liege : remember who you remiss;

are. Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,

K. Rich. I had forgot myself. Am I not king? Grows strong and great in substance and in Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleep'st. friends.

Is not the King's name forty thousand names? K. Rich. Discomfortable cousin ! know'st thou

Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes not

At thy great glory.—Look not to the ground, That when the searching eye of heaven is hid Ye favourites of a king. Are we not high? Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,

High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen, Hath power enough to serve our turn.-But who In murders and in outrage bloody, here:

comes here? But when, from under this terrestrial ball, He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,

Enter SCROOP. And darts his light through every guilty hole, Scroop. More health and happiness betide my Then murders, treasons, and detested sins

liege (The cloak of night being plucked from off their Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him. backs),

K. Rich. Mine ear is open and my heart preStand bare and naked, trembling at themselves ?

pared : So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold. (Who all this while hath revelled in the night, Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 't was my care : Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes), And what loss is it to be rid of care ? Shall see us rising in our throne the east,

Strives Boling broke to be as great as we? His treasons will sit blushing in his face,

Greater he shall not be: if he serve God, Not able to endure the sight of day,

We 'll serve him too, and be his fellow so. But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.

Revolt our subjects ? that we cannot mend :
Not all the water in the rough rude sea

They break their faith to God as well as us.
Can wash the balm from an anointed king : Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay:
The breath of worldly men cannot depose

The worst is death, and death will have his day. The deputy elected by the Lord.

Scroop. Glad am I that your highness is so armed For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed To bear the tidings of calamity. To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, I Like an unseasonable stormy day, God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores, A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,

As if the world were all dissolved to tears ; Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the So high above his limits swells the rage right.

! Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land

sent woes.

With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel. | Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; White-beards have armed their thin and hairless Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed: scalps

All murdered !-For within the hollow crown Against thy majesty: boys with women's voices That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits, In stiff unwieldly arms against thy crown: Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp; The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Allowing him a breath, a little scene, Of double-fatal yew against thy state :

To monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks: Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills

Infusing him with self and vain conceit Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel, (As if this flesh which walls about our life And all goes worse than I have power to tell. Were brass impregnable) :-and, humoured thus, K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale Comes at the last, and with a little pin so ill!

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king! Where is the Earl of Wiltshire; where is Bagot; Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood What is become of Bushy; where is Green; With solemn reverence : throw away respect, That they have let the dangerous enemy

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; Measure our confines with such peaceful steps ? For you have but mistook me all this while. If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it. I live with bread like you; feel want, taste grief, I warrant they have made peace with Boling- | Need friends :-subjécted thus, broke.

How can you say to me-I am a king ? Scroop. Peace have they made with him, in Car. My lord, wise men ne'er wail their pre

deed, my lord. K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damned without But presently prevent the ways to wail. redemption !

To fear the foe (since fear oppresseth strength), Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe; Snakes in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my And so your follies fight against yourself. heart!

Fear and be slain : no worse can come to fight: Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas! And fight and die is death destroying death, Would they make peace ? terrible hell make war Where fearing dying pays death servile breath. Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Aum. My father hath a power: inquire of him, Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, And learn to make a body of a limb. Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.

K. Rich. Thou chid'st me well.-Proud BoAgain uncurse their souls: their peace is made

lingbroke, I come With heads, and not with hands. Those whom To change blows with thee for our day of doom. you curse

This ague-fit of fear is over-blown: Have felt the worst of death's destroying wonnd, An easy task it is to win our own.And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground. Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power!

Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wilt- Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour. · shire dead?

Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. The state and inclination of the day:

Aum. Where is the duke my father, with his So may you, by my dull and heavy eye, . power ?

My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. K. Rich. No matter where. Of comfort no I play the torturer by small and small, man speak:

To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken :Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Your uncle York hath joined with Bolingbroke; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

And all your northern castles yielded up, Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

And all your southern gentlemen in arms Lets choose executors, and talk of wills: Upon his party. And yet not 80; for what can we bequeath, K. Rich. Thou hast said enough.Save our deposéd bodies to the ground?

Beshrew thee, cousin, which did lead me forth Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

[To AUMERLE. And nothing can we call our own but death, Of that sweet way I was in to despair! And that small model of the barren earth

What say you now? What comfort have we now? Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. By heaven, I 'll hate him everlastingly For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground, That bids me be of comfort any more. And tell sad stories of the death of kings: Go, to Flint Castle: there I 'll pine away: How some lave been deposed; some slain in war; | A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.

That power I have, discharge; and let them go | Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parle
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow, Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver :-
For I have none.—Let no man speak again Harry Boling broke
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand, Aum. My liege, one word.

And sends allegiance and true faith of heart K. Rich. He does me double wrong To his most royal person : hither come That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. Even at his feet to lay my arms and power; Discharge my followers, let them hence:-Away, Provided that my banishment repealed, From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day! And lands restored again, be freely granted :

[Exeunt.

If not, I 'll use the advantage of my power,
And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood,
Rained from the wounds of slaughtered English-

men:

Scene III.—Wales. Before Flint Castle. The which how far off from the mind of Boling

broke Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE and

It is, such crimson tempest should bedrench Forces; YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, and others.

The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land, Boling. So that by this intelligence we learn My stooping duty tenderly shall shew. The Welshmen are dispersed; and Salisbury Go, signify as much; while here we march Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed, Upon the grassy carpet of this plain. With some few private friends, upon this coast.

[NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the castle, North. The news is very fair and good, my lord:

with a trumpet. Richard not far from hence hath hid his head. Let's marchwithout the noise of threatening drum, York. It would beseem the Lord Northum That from the castle's tottered battlements berland,

Our fair appointments may be well perused. To say “ King Richard."-Alack the heavy day, | Methinks King Richard and myself should meet When such a sacred king should hide his head ! With no less terror than the elements

North. Your grace mistakes me: only to be brief Of fire and water, when their thundering shock Left I his title out.

At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven. York. The time hath been,

Be he the fire, I 'll be the yielding water: Would you have been so brief with him, he would The rage be his, while on the earth I rain Have been so brief with you to shorten you, My waters ;-on the earth, and not on him. Por taking so the head, your whole head's length. March on, and mark King Richard how he looks. Boling. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.

A parle sounded, and answered by another trumYork. Take not, good cousin, further than

pet within. Flourish. Enter, on the walls,

King Richard, the Bishop OF CARLISLE, you should, Lest you mis-take. The heavens are o'er your head.

AUMERLE, Scroop, and SalisburY. Boling. I know it, uncle; and oppose not York. See, see, King Richard doth himself Myself against their will.—But who comes here?

appear,

As doth the blushing discontented sun
Enter Percy.

From out the fiery portal of the east,
Welcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield ? When he perceives the envious clouds are bent

Percy. The castle royally is manned, my lord, To dim his glory, and to stain the track
Against thy entrance.

Of his bright passage to the occident.
Boling. Royally!

Yet looks he like a king: behold, his eye, Why, it contains no king.

As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth Percy. Yes, my good lord,

Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe, It doth contain a king: King Richard lies That any harm should stain so fair a show! Within the limits of yon lime and stone:

K. Rich. We are amazed; and thus long have And with him are the lord Aumerle, Lord Salis

we stood bury,

To watch the fearful bending of thy knee, Sir Stephen Scroop: besides a clergyman

[To NORTHUMBERLAND. Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.

Because we thought ourself thy lawful king: · North. Belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle. And if we be, how dare thy joints forget

Boling. Noble lord, [To NORTHUMBERLAND. To pay their awful duty to our presence? Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle: If we be not, shew us the hand of God