York. Against them both, my true joints bended be. [Kneels. Ill may'st thou thrive, if thou grant any grace?! Duch. Pleads he in earnest? look upon his face; His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest ; His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast; He prays but faintly, and would be denied; We pray with heart, and soul, and all beside: His weary joints would gladly rise, I know; Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow: His prayers are full of false hypocrisy ; Ours, of true zeal and deep integrity. Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have That mercy, which true prayers ought to have. Boling. Good aunt, stand up. Duch. Nay, do not say-stand up; But, pardon, first; and afterwards, stand up. An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach, Pardon-should be the first word of thy speech. I never long'd to hear a word till now; Say-pardon, king; let pity teach thee how: The word is short, but not so short as sweet; No word like, pardon, for kings' mouths so meet. York. Speak it in French, king; say, pardonnez moy 10 Duch. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy? Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord, That sett'st the word itself against the word!— Speak, pardon, as 'tis current in our land: The chopping 11 French we do not understand. 9 This line is not in the folio. 10 The French moy being made to rhime with destroy, would seem to imply that the poet was not well acquainted with the true pronunciation of that language, perhaps it was imperfectly understood in his time by those who had not visited France. 11 The chopping French, i. e. the changing or changeable French. Thus chopping churches' is changing one church for another; and chopping logic is discoursing or interchanging logic with another. To chop and change is still a common idiom. Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there; 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, Boling. I pardon him 12. Duch. With all my heart A god on earth thou art. Boling. But for our trusty brother-in-law 13,—and the abbot 14, 1 With all the rest of that consorted crew,- thee new. 12 The old copies read ' I pardon him with all my heart.' The transposition was made by Pope. 13 The brother-in-law meant was John duke of Exeter and earl of Huntingdon (own brother to Edward II.), who had married the Lady Elizabeth, Bolingbroke's sister. 14 i. e. the abbot of Westminster. 15 Death and destruction dog thee at the heels.' King Richard III. 16 Too, which is not in the old copies, was added by Theobald for the sake of the metre. SCENE IV. Enter EXTON, and a Servant. Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake? Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear? 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 rid1 his foe. [Exeunt. Pomfret. SCENE V. 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 1 To rid and to dispatch were formerly synonymous, as may be seen in the old Dictionaries, To ridde or dispatche himself of any man.'-' To dispatche or ridde one quickly.' Vide Baret's Alvearie, 1576, in Ridde and Dispatche. So in King Henry VI. Part II. 'As deathsmen you have rid this sweet young prince.' A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world1; For no thought is contented. The better sort,- are intermix'd With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word 2: As thus,-Come, little ones; and then again,— 1 i. e. his own body. So in King Lear : 'Strives in this little world of man outscorn The to and fro conflicting wind and rain.' 2 By the word is meant the Holy Scriptures. The folio reads the faith itself against the faith. 3 This is the reading of the quarto, 1597; alluding, perhaps, to the custom of our early theatres. The title pages of some of our Moralities show that three or four characters were frequently represented by one person. The folio, and other copies, read 'in one prison.' Persuades me, I was better when a king; With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd And here have I the daintiness of ear 4 To check time broke in a disorder'd string; Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. 4 The folio reads 'to hear.' 5 Tick. 6 It should be recollected that there are three ways in which a clock notices the progress of time, viz. by the libration of the pendulum, the index on the dial, and the striking of the hour. To these the king, in his comparison, severally alludes; his sighs corresponding to the jarring or ticking of the pendulum, which at the same time that it watches or numbers the seconds, marks also their progress in minutes on the dial-plate, or outward watch, to which the king compares his eyes; and their want of figures is supplied by a succession of tears (or minute drops, to use an expression of Milton), his finger, by as regularly wiping these away, performs the office of the dial's point: his clamorous groans are the sounds that tell the hour. In King Henry IV. Part II. tears are used in a similar manner : 'But Harry lives that shall convert those tears 7 Should we not read : 'Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is |