To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
I am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,
Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
Which breathed this poison.

K. Rich.

Rage must be withstood:

Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame.

Mow. Yea, but not change his spots: take but
my shame,

And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford

Is spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done :
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live and for that will I die.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you
begin.

Boling. O, God defend my soul from such deep
sin!

Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight?
Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue.
Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
The slavish motive of recanting fear,

And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,

Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's

face.

170. baffled, ignominiously punished, like a recreant knight. 189. impeach my height, detract from my high dignity.

190. out-dared, cowed down.

[Exit Gaunt.

170

180

190

191. feeble wrong, one that implies weakness in the man who submits to it.

193. motive, instrument (viz. his tongue).

K. Rich. We were not born to sue, but to

command;

Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
The swelling difference of your settled hate:
Since we can not atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor's chivalry.
Lord marshal, command our officers at arms
Be ready to direct these home alarms.

[Exeunt.

200

SCENE II. The DUKE OF LANCASTER's palace.

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS

OF GLOUCESTER.

Gaunt. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's

blood

Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,

To stir against the butchers of his life!
But since correction lieth in those hands
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper
spur?

Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,

Or seven fair branches springing from one root:

ΤΟ

I. Woodstock, Thomas of
Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester.

Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,

Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.

Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that
womb,

That metal, that self mould, that fashion'd thee
Made him a man; and though thou livest and
breathest,

Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we intitle patience
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
Gaunt. God's is the quarrel; for God's sub-
stitute,

His deputy anointed in His sight,

Hath caused 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 God, the widow's champion and defence.

20

30

40

23. self, very.

28. model, copy.

Duch. Why, then, I will.

Farewell, old Gaunt.
Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
Or, if misfortune miss the first career, t
Be Mowbray's sin so heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courser's back,
And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife
With her companion grief must end her life.

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,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun,
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
Lo, this is all-nay, yet depart not so;
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
I shall remember more. Bid him-ah, what?—
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack, and what shall good old York there see
But empty lodgings and unfurnish❜d walls,
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones ?

And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

50

60

70

68. unfurnish'd, not hung with arras.

L

SCENE III. The lists at Coventry.

Enter the Lord Marshal and the DUKE OF
AUMERLE.

Mar. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford
arm'd ?

Aum. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
Mar. The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and
bold,

Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.
Aum. Why, then, the champions are prepared,

and stay

For nothing but his majesty's approach.

The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles, GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set, enter MOWBRAY in arms, defendant, with a Herald.

K. Rich. Marshal, demand of yonder champion
The cause of his arrival here in arms :
Ask him his name and orderly proceed
To swear him in the justice of his cause.

Mar. In God's name and the king's, say who thou art

And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,

at

Sc. 3. The meeting Coventry actually occurred five months after the event represented in i. I., on Sept. 16, 1398.

The Lord Marshal. This was, according to Holinshed, the Duke of Surrey, who had been appointed to serve 'for that tourne (Holinshed, iii.

ΤΟ

493), Norfolk himself normally holding the office.

6. Bushy, Bagot, Green. Sir John Bushy, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1394; Sir Henry Green, son of a judge of the Court of Queen's Bench; Sir William Bagot, sometime Sheriff of Leicestershire.