While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock. GROOM. Hail, royal prince! K. RICH. K. RICH. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him? GROOM. So proudly as if he had 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 burthen 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 't is time thou wert away. GROOM. What my tongue dares not that my heart shall say. KEEP. My lord, will 't please you to fall to? 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. [Exit. K. RICH. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee ! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. [Beats the Keeper. KEEP. Help, help, help! Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed. K. RICH. How now? what means death in this rude assault? Villain, thine 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 [Dies. Take hence the rest, and give them burial here. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-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, Enter FITZWATER. FITZ. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London BOLING. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot; Enter PERCY, with the BISHOP OF CARLISLE. PERCY. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster, With clog of conscience and sour melancholy, Hath yielded up his body to the grave; But here is Carlisle living, to abide Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride. Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a coffin. Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought. BOLING. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand, Upon my head, and all this famous land. EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed. BOLING. They love not poison that do poison need, To wash this blood off from my guilty hand;- [Exeunt. "In the devotion of a subject's love, Tendering the precious safety of my prince, This is the reading of the MS. Corrector of the folio of 1632, changing the original and received reading: "And free from other misbegotten hate." Mr. Collier asks, "What other misbegotten hate does he refer to ?" (ACT I., Sc. 1.) We ask, how can Bolingbroke say he is "free from wrath," when he directly after calls Mowbray 66 a traitor and a miscreant ?" He does hate Mowbray; but he is free from any other hate than that which arises from "the devotion of a subject's love." His hate from this cause was legitimate, and not "misbegotten." "Desolate, desperate, will I hence, and die." Mr. Collier says, "the repeti tion of the word desolate" in the Duchess of Gloucester's speech is unlike Shakespeare, as given in the original: "Desolate, desolate, will I hence, and die." He adds: "She was desolate because a helpless widow, and desperate because she could not move Gaunt to revenge the death of her husband." 66 (ACT I., Sc. 2.) as Desperate certainly means without hope, and in this sense the Duchess might use it; but the secondary meaning of reckless is what our poet generally attaches to it. In this very play Henry describes his son's character dissolute as desperate." The word "desperate," so used, is incompatible with the Duchess's mournful resignation to her fate. Romeo, at the tomb of Juliet, says, " tempt not a desperate man,"-a man who has no regard to consequences. "Be confident to speak, Northumberland: Thy words are but our thoughts; therefore, be bold." |