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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,

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 honour; thou King Richard's tomb,
And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn!
Why should hard-favoured grief be lodged in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse 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
Shews us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee 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 even here thou tak'st,
As from my deathbed, 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 sympathise
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compassion, weep the fire out;
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 where-

withal

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 deservéd death.

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Where rude misgoverned hands, from windows' tops,

Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head. York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,
With slow but stately pace kept on his course,
While all tongues cried, "God save thee, Bo-
lingbroke!"

You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage: and that all the walls,
With painted imagery, had said at once,
"Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!"
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus: "I thank you, countrymen :"
And thus still doing, thus he passed along.
Duch. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he
the while?

York. As, in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious,—

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's

eyes

Did scowl on Richard. No man cried, God save him:

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home :
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off
(His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience),

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled

The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,

And barbarism itself have pitied him.
But heaven hath a hand in these events;
To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
Whose state and honour I for aye allow.

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Aum. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not: God knows I had as lief be none as one. York. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,

Lest you be cropped before you come to prime. What news from Oxford? hold those jousts and triumphs?

Aum. For aught I know, my lord, they do. York. You will be there, I know.

Aum. If God prevent it not: I purpose so. York. What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom?

Yea, look'st thou pale? let me see the writing. Aum. My lord, 't is nothing.

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York. I will be satisfied: let me see it, I say. [Snatches it, and reads. Treason; foul treason!-villain, traitor, slave! Duch. What is the matter, my lord? York. Ho! who is within there? [Enter a Servant.]-Saddle my horse.

God for his mercy, what treachery is here! Duch. Why, what is it, my lord? York. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.[Exit Servant. Now by mine honour, by my life, my troth, I will appeach the villain.

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York. Give me my boots, I say.
Duch. Why, York, what wilt thou do?
Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?
Have we more sons, or are we like to have?
Is not my teeming date drunk up with time;
And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine
age,

And rob me of a happy mother's name?
Is he not like thee; is he not thine own?
York. Thou fond mad woman,
Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?

A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,
And interchangeably set down their hands,
To kill the King at Oxford.

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Enter BOLINGBROKE as King; PERCY, and other Lords.

Boling. Can no man tell of my unthrifty son? "Tis full three months since I did see him last: If any plague hang over us, 't is he.

I would to God, my lords, he might be found:
Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,
For there, they say, he daily doth frequent,
With unrestrainéd loose companions:
Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,
And beat our watch, and rob our passengers:
While he, young, wanton, and effeminate boy,

Takes on the point of honour to support So dissolute a crew.

Percy. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,

And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford. Boling. And what said the gallant?

Percy. His answer was, he would unto the stews,
And from the common'st creature pluck a glove,
And wear it as a favour: and with that
He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
Boling. As dissolute as desperate: yet through
both

I see some sparkles of a better hope,
Which elder days may happily bring forth.-
But who comes here?

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I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King:
Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove
A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
Boling. O heinous, strong, and bold con-
spiracy!-

O loyal father of a treacherous son;
Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,
From whence this stream, through muddy passages,
Hath held his current and defiled himself!
Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.

York. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd; And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.

Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies.
Thou kill'st me in his life: giving him breath,
The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
Duch. [within]. What ho, my liege! for God's
sake, let me in.

Boling. What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?

Duch. A woman and thine aunt, great King:

't is I.

Speak with me, pity me, open the door:
A beggar begs that never begged before.

Boling. Our scene is altered, from a serious thing,

And now changed to "The Beggar and the
King."-

My dangerous cousin, let your mother in :
I know she's come to pray for your foul sin.
York. If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,
More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
This festered joint cut off, the rest rests sound:
This let alone will all the rest confound.

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