Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss; Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,

Grows strong and great in substance, and in power1.

K. Rich. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not,
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders and in outrage, bloody here2;
But when from under this terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
[Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes,]
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king:
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd,
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay

imperfect, because, without them, Aumerle's reply, "He means, my lord, that we are too remiss," has no application. Why they were omitted it is difficult to understand. In the second line Pope necessarily inserted "if," which had perhaps accidentally dropped out.

1- in substance, and in POWER.] So all the quarto copies: the folio has friends for "power." Lower down it reads lightning for “light.”

2

BLOODY here ;] The quarto of 1597 has "bouldy here," which we may conjecture was a misprint for bouldly, or boldly; but all the subsequent editions have "bloody here." "Boldly here seems to accord better with the simile.

3 [Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes,] Modern editors do not notice the fact that this line is wanting in the folio, 1623, though found in every quarto edition. Six lines lower the folio properly omits "off" after "balm.”

A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,

Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.

Enter SALISBURY.

Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
Sal. Nor near, nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
O! call back yesterday, bid time return,

And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men:
To-day, to-day, unhappy day too late,

O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.

Aum. Comfort, my liege! why looks your grace so pale?

K. Rich. But now, the blood of twenty thousand

men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And till so much blood thither come again,

Have I not reason to look pale and dead? All souls that will be safe, fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride*.

Aum. Comfort, my liege! remember who you are. K. Rich. I had forgot myself. Am I not king? Awake, thou coward majestys! thou sleepest. Is not the king's name twenty thousand names? Arm, arm, my name ! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground,

4 All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;

For time hath set a blot upon my pride.] This couplet is quoted in the MS. common place book of the time, before referred to.

Awake, thou COWARD majesty !] Every quarto edition has "coward:" the folio reads sluggard, much to the injury of the force of the passage.

Is not the king's name TWENTY thousand names?] So all the quarto impressions: the folio has forty.

Ye favourites of a king: are we not high?

High be our thoughts. I know, my uncle York

Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here!

Enter SCROOP.

Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege, Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.

K. Rich. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepar'd :
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care;
And what loss is it to be rid of care?

Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be: if he serve God,
We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so'.
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God, as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay,
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
Scroop. Glad am I, that your highness is so arm'd
To bear the tidings of calamity.

Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears;

So high above his limits swells the rage

Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land

With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices,
Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows

7 We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.] This passage is extracted in the MS. before quoted, but with three variations, not found in any of the copies, which may show that the lines were put down from memory. The line, "And what loss is it to be rid of care ?" is omitted. In the preceding line we read in the MS., "why, that's my care," and in the last line equal is put instead of "fellow."

8

Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,

And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill. Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot? What is become of Bushy? where is Green? That they have let the dangerous enemy Measure our confines with such peaceful steps? If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.

I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke. Scroop. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my lord.

K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!

Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war
Upon their spotted souls for this offence?!

Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,

Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.

Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
With heads and not with hands: those whom you

curse,

Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound1o,

And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.

Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire, dead?

8 Of double-fatal yew-] "Called so," says Warburton, "because the leaves of the yew are poison, and the wood is employed for instruments of death." 9 for this OFFENCE!] The word "offence" was added by the editor of the folio, 1623. The quartos thus regulate the passage :

"Would they make peace? terrible hell

Make war upon their spotted souls for this."

It may be disputed which is the more forcible reading, but that of the folio completes the defective measure.

10 - death's destroying wOUND,] The folio, in opposition to all the quartos, and to the rhyme, reads hand for "wound."

Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. Aum. Where is the duke, my father, with his power? K. Rich. No matter where. Of comfort no man

speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so,-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:-
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,
All murder'd;-for within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court, and there the antick sits',
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell king!

1 - and there the antick sits,] In “Henry VI.,” part i. we meet with the expression, "thou antick death ;" and Douce observes, that Shakespeare may have borrowed this idea of death sitting in the king's crown from the wood-cuts called Imagines Mortis, attributed, though falsely, to Holbein. He refers to the seventh print, a fac-simile of which may be seen at the end of his learned and beautiful work, "The Dance of Death," octavo, 1833. In that cut, however, death is represented taking off an emperor's crown, and not sitting and keeping his court in it; so that though Shakespeare may have had it in his mind, he did not follow it.