1

SCENE IV.-The Court.

Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN at one door; and the
DUKE OF AUMERLE at another.

K. Rich. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,

How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next highway, and there I left him.

K. Rich. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
Aum. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

1

5

K. Rich. What said our cousin when you parted with him? IO
Aum. "Farewell: "

And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft

To counterfeit oppression of such grief,

That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.

15

Marry, would the word "farewell" have lengthen'd hours
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells;
But since it would not, he had none of me.
K. Rich. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green

SCENE IV.

20

6. for] Qq 1, 2, 3, 4, F 1; by F 2, Q 5, Ff 3, 4. 8. sleeping] Qq_1, 2; sleepy the remainder. 22-23. friends Green] Qq 1, 2, 3, 4 omit Bagot here and Green; Q 5 reads friends, Our selfe, and Bushy, Bagot here and Greene; the Ff have friends, Our selfe, and Bushy: heere Bagot and Greene.

Green. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means
For their advantage and your highness' loss.
K. Rich. We will ourself in person to this war :

And, for our coffers, with too great a court
And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
We are inforced to farm our royal realm; →→
The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand: if that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold
And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.

40

445

50

45. to farm] to hand over the right of taxing, or of receiving the national revenues, to the highest bidder for cash payment. See Gaunt's speech, II. i. 60, infra.

48-50. The procedure seems to have been the forcing of rich men to sign documents wherein they promised to pay any amount written in by the king's substitutes. See Holinshed, ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 90: "But yet to content the King's mind, manie blanke charters were devised, and brought into the citie [of London] which manie of the substantiall and wealthie citizens were feign to seale [i.e. to sign as we should now say], to their great charge, as in the end appeared. And the like

Enter BUSHY,

де

Bushy, what news?

Bushy. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken; and hath sent post haste
To entreat your majesty to visit him.

K. Rich. Where lies he?

Bushy. At Ely House.

K. Rich. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind
To help him to his grave immediately!

The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:

Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!
All. Amen.

charters were sent abroad into all shires
within the realme, whereby great
grudge and murmuring arose among
the people; for, when they were so
sealed [signed], the King's officers
wrote in the same what liked them, as

[Exeunt.

55

60

65

well for charging the parties with paiments of monie, as otherwise."

58. Ely House] "at the bishop of Elies place in Holborne." Shakespere's Holinshed, Boswell-Stone, p. 91.

ACT II

SCENE I.-Ely House.

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, &c.

Gaunt. Will the king come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?

York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

Gaunt. O, but they say the tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony:

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listen'd more

5

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose; 10
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering so
sounds,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,

ACT II. SCENE 1.

15

18. of. •fond] A reading conjectured by Collier, adopted by the Cambridge and other editors; of whose taste the wise are found Q1; of whose state the wise are found Q 2 ; of his state : then there are found Qq 3, 4, Ff (but F 1 sound), Q 5.

SCENE 1.

10. glose] to speak flatteringly and deceptively.

12. close] The term close is still used in music in the technical sense for the last chords of a passage. These generally keep within a somewhat limited and conventional range. It is obvious that Shakespeare here cannot be referring to a close or cadence, in the purely technical sense, for a few conventional chords could hardly form the sweetest part of a piece of music. We must therefore interpret the word in a wider sense as "closing passages."

14. Writ past] Vaughan would put this line after line 11, declaring that as it stands line 14 is "balderdash." There is no difficulty, however, in understanding an absolute construction, writ being writ.

18. As praises . . . fond] The reading of Delius is worthy of note: "As praises of his state: then there are fond": the last four words are rather too weak to be convincing. Cartwright suggested lost lines. The reading in the text must be taken to mean, praises, of which [even] the wise [much more King Richard] are fond."

66

Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-
So it be new, there's no respect how vile—
That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.

Direct not him whose way himself will choose:

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25

'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose. 30 Gaunt. Methinks I am a prophet new inspired,

And thus expiring do foretell of him :

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,

For violent fires soon burn out themselves;

Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; 35
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise;
This fortress built by Nature for herself

23. We should like to think that the
limp of this line-i.e. the change in
accentuation in order to echo the sense
—is intentional on Shakespeare's part.
Pope read base awkward imitation and
Bulloch imitation's track. Shakespeare
is reading an abuse of his own time
into the time of Richard II. England
did not become depravedly " Italianate
until Shakespeare's early days.

25. So... vile] so long as it is new no thought is given to its vileness; respect meaning "consideration," as so often in Shakespeare:

"There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life"

(Hamlet, III. i. 68).

28. Where .

=

regard] Where the will rebels against what the understanding knows to be right. With here against, as in withstand, and in King John, v. i. 48: "Be stirring as the time: be fire with fire."

33-35. The sound is here an echo to

40

the sense, and the devices by which this result is obtained are worth noting. The weighty yet rapid monosyllables, rash, fierce, lead up to the equally weighty but longer-vowelled blaze in a way exactly parallel to the actual meaning of the words; contrast the suggestion of length in last long with that of shortness in are short and mark the cross-alliteration.

40-55. This passage is quoted in England's Parnassus (1600). It had evidently attracted attention when it first appeared. Unfortunately in England's Parnassus it is attributed to M. Dr. i.e. Michael Drayton. The mis-, taken attribution is easy to understand if we remember that Drayton in his Heroical Epistles (1598), Queen Isabel to Richard the Second, and Richard the Second to Queen Isabel, dealt with much of Shakespeare's material. There are some slight variations in the Parnassus version and line 50 is omitted.