North. Read o'er this paper, while the glass doth

come.

K. Rich. Fiend! thou torment'st me ere I come to hell.

Boling. Urge it no more, my lord Northumberland. North. The commons will not then be satisfied. K. Rich. They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough, When I do see the very book indeed

Where all my sins are writ, and that's—myself.

Re-enter Attendant, with a glass.

Give me that glass, and therein will I read.-
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds?-O, flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face,
That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face,
That, like the sun, did make beholders wink? 2
Was this the face, that faced so many follies,
And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?

A brittle glory shineth in this face :

As brittle as the glory is the face;

[Dashes the glass against the ground.

For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.—
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,-
How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

Boling. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed The shadow of your face.

K. Rich.

Say that again.
Ha! let's see :-

The shadow of my sorrow?
'Tis very true, my grief lies all within ;
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief,
That swells with silence in the tortured soul

;

1 "To his household came every day to meate ten thousand men."Chronicle History.

2 The quarto omits this line and the four preceding words.

There lies the substance and I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
And then be gone, and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?

Boling.

Name it, fair cousin.

K. Rich. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king: For, when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

I have a king here to my flatterer.

Being so great, I have no need to beg.
Boling. Yet ask.

K. Rich. And shall I have?

Boling. You shall.

K. Rich. Then give me leave to go.
Boling. Whither?

K. Rich. Whither you will, so I were from your
sights.

Boling. Go, some of you, convey him to the tower.
K. Rich. O, good! Convey?-Conveyers' are you

all,

That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.2

[Exeunt K. RICH., some Lords, and a Guard. Boling. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.

[Exeunt all but the Abbot, Bishop of Carlisle,
and AUMERle.

yet

unborn

Abbot. A woful pageant have we here beheld.
Car. The woe's to come; the children
Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
Aum. You holy clergymen, is there no plot

To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?

Abbot. Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament

1 "To convey" is the word for sleight of hand or juggling. Richard means that it is a term of contempt-"jugglers are you all."

2 This is the last of the additional lines first printed in the quarto of 1608. In the first editions there is no personal appearance of king

Richard.

www

To bury mine intents, but also to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise.-

I see your brows are full of discontent,
Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
Come home with me to supper; I will lay
A plot, shall show us all a merry day.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. London. A Street leading to the Tower.

Enter Queen and Ladies.

Queen. This way the king will come; this is the

way

To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower,1

To whose flint-bosom my condemned lord
Is doomed a prisoner, by proud Bolingbroke.
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
Have any resting for her true king's queen.

Enter KING RICHARD, and Guards.

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither. Yet look up; behold;
That you in pity may dissolve to dew,

And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.-
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
Thou map of honor; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,3

1 By ill-erected is probably meant erected for evil purposes.

2 Map is used for picture. In the Rape of Lucrece, Shakspeare calls sleep "the map of death."

3 Inn does not, probably, here mean a house of public entertainment, but a dwelling or lodging generally; in which sense the word was anciently used.

Why should hard-favored grief be lodged in thee,
When triumph is become an ale-house guest?

K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awaked, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this; I am sworn brother,1 sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister there in some religious house.
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transformed and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke
Deposed thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpowered; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly; kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,

Which art a lion and a king of beasts?

K. Rich. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,

I had been still a happy king of men.

Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France;
Think I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.

In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid;

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compassion, weep the fire out;

1 Sworn brother alludes to the fratres jurati, who, in the age of adventure, bound themselves by mutual oaths to share fortunes together.

And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.

North. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed; You must to Pomfret, not unto the tower..

And, madam, there is order ta'en for you;
With all swift speed you must away to France.

K. Rich. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,—
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;

And he shall think, that thou, which know'st the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er so little urged, another way

To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger, and deserved death.

North. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.

K. Rich. Doubly divorced?-Bad men, ye violate A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me; And then betwixt me and my married wife.— Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me; And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.Part us, Northumberland. I towards the north, Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; My wife to France; from whence, set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May,

Sent back like Hallowmas,1 or short'st of day.

Queen. And must we be divided? must we part? K. Rich. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

1 All Hallows, i. e. All Saints, Nov. 1. Mason suggests the propriety of reading "or shortest day."