Pity may move thee, pardon to rehearse.

Boling. Good aunt, stand up.

Duch. I do not sue to stand,

Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.

Boling. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
Duch. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again;
Twice saying pardon, doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon strong.

Boling. With all my heart

I pardon him.

Duch. A god on earth thou art.

Boling. But for our trusty brother-in-law, and the abbot,

With all the rest of that consorted crew,

Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.-
Good uncle, help to order several powers
To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are :
They shall not live within this world, I swear,
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell,—and cousin too, adieu :
Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
Duch. Come, my old son ;-I pray God, make thee
[Exeunt

new.

SCENE IV.

Enter EXTON, and a Servant.

Exton. Did'st thou not mark the king, what words he spake ?

Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?

Was it not so?

Serv. Those were his very words.

Exton. Have I no friend? quoth he; he spake it twice, And urg'd it twice together; did he not?

Serv. He did.

Exton. And, speaking it, he wistfully look'd on me ; As, who should say,-I would, thou wert the man That would divorce this terror from my heart; Meaning, the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go ; I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

[Exeunt.

[6] The brother-in-law meant, was John duke of Exeter and earl of Huntingdon (own brother to King Richard II.) and who had married with the lady Eliza beth, sister of Henry Bolingbroke. THEOBALD.

SCENE V.

Pomfret. The Dungeon of the Castle. Enter king RICHARD.
K. Rich. I have been studying how I may compare
This prison, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ;-Yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul;*
My soul, the father: and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

And these same thoughts people this little world;
In humours, like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better sort,-
As thoughts of things divine,-are intermix'd
With scruples, and do set the word itself
Against the word :"

As thus,-Come, little ones; and then again,-
It is as hard to come, as for a camel

To thread the postern of a needle's eye.
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves,-
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,-
That many have, and others must sit there :
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: Sometimes am I king;
Then treason makes we wish myself a beggar,
And so I am Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again and, by-and-by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing :-But, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd

[7] By the word, I suppose, is meant, the holy word. MALONE,

With being nothing.-Music do I hear?

[Music.

Ha, ha! keep time :-How sour sweet music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear,
To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
But, for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they jar
Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: So sighs, and tears, and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours :-but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' th' clock..
This music mads me, let it sound no more;
For, though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me, it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter Groom.

Groom. Hail, royal prince!

K. Rich. Thanks, noble peer;
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou? and how com'st thou hither,
Where no man never comes, but that sad dog
That brings me food, to make misfortune live?
Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
With much ado, at length have gotten leave

To look upon my sometimes master's face.

[8] That is, I strike for him. One of these automatons is alluded to in King Richard III. Act iv. sc. iii.

"Because that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke, "Between thy begging and my meditation." STEEVENS. [9] The word sad was in the time of our author used for grave. The expression will then be the same as if he had said, that grave, that gloomy villain.

STEEVENS.

O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld,
In London streets, that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse, that thou so often hast bestrid;
That horse, that I so carefully have dress'd!

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground.

K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down, (Since pride must have a fall,) and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee, Since thou, created to be aw'd by man, Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse; And yet I bear a burden like an ass, Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.

Enter Keeper, with a dish.

Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.

[To the Groom K. Rich. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away. · Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart

shall say.

Keep. My lord, wilt please you to fall to?

[Exit.

K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do. Keep. My lord, I dare not; sir Pierce of Exton, who Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee ! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

Keep. Help, help, help!

[Beats the Keeper.

Enter EXTON and Servants, armed.

K. Rich. How now? what means death in this rúde

assault?

Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.

[Snatching a weapon, and killing one

Go thou, and fill another room in hell.

[He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down

That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire,

That staggers thus my person.-Exton, thy fierce hand

Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.
Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.'

Exton. As full of valour, as of royal blood:
Both have I spilt; O, would the deed were good!
For now the devil, that told me I did well,
Says, that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.

SCENE VI.

[Dies.

[Exeunt.

Windsor. A Room in the Castle. Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, and YORK, with Lords and Attendants.

Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear, Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire

Our town of Cicester in Glostershire;

But whether they be ta'en, or slain, we hear not.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Welcome, my lord: What is the news?

North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness. The next news is,-I have to London sent

The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent:
The manner of their taking may appear

At large discoursed in this paper here.

[Presenting a paper. Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains; And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

Enter FITZWATER.

Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
The heads of Brocas, and sir Bennet Seely;
Two of the dangerous consorted traitors,
That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.

Boling. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot ;
Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

Enter PERCY, with the Bishop of Carlisle.

Percy. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster,

[1] The representation here given of the king's death is perfectly agreeable to Hall and Holinshed. But the fact was otherwise. He refused food for several days, and died of abstinence and a broken heart. See Walsingham, Otterbourne, the Monk of Evesham, the continuator of the History of Croyland, and the anonymous Godstow Chronicle. RITSON.