A recreant and most degenerate traitor:
Which in myself I boldly will defend;
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening 15 traitor's foot,
To prove myself a loyal gentleman

Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom:
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray

Your highness to assign our trial day.

K.Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, berul'd by me: Let's purge this choler without letting blood: This we prescribe, though no physician 16; Deep malice makes too deep incision: Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed; Our doctors say, this is no time to bleed.Good uncle, let this end where it begun; We'll calm the duke of Norfolk, you your son. Gaunt. To be a make-p -peace shall become my age: Throw down, my son, the duke of Norfolk's gage. K. Rich. And, Norfolk, throw down his.

Gaunt.

When, Harry? when 17? Obedience bids, I should not bid again.

K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down; we bid; there is no boot 18.

Nor. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot: My life thou shalt command, but not my shame : The one my duty owes; but my fair name (Despite of death, that lives upon my grave 19, To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.

15 Arrogant.

16 Pope thought that some of the rhyming verses in this play were not from the hand of Shakspeare.

17 This abrupt eliptical exclamation of impatience is again used in the Taming of a Shrew:-'Why when, I say! Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.' It appears to be equivalent to when will such a thing be done?'

18 There is no boot,' or it booteth not, is as much as to say 'there is no help,' resistance would be vain, or profitless.

19 i. e. my name that lives on my grave in despite of death.

I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled 20 here;
Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;
The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breath'd this poison.

K. Rich.

Rage must be withstood: Give me his gage:-Lions make leopards 21 tame. Nor. Yea, but not change their 22 spots: take but my shame,

And I resign my gage. My dear, dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is-spotless reputation; that away,

chest

Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten times barr'd
Is-a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mine honour is my

up

life; both grow in one;

Take honour from me, and my life is done :
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live, and for that will I die.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage; do you
begin.

Boling. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin! Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdar'd dastard! Ere my tongue Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong, Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear;

And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. [Exit GAUNT.

20 Baffled in this place signifies abused, reviled, reproached in base terms;' which was the ancient signification of the word, as well as to deceive or circumvent. Vide Cotgrave in v. Baffouer. See also a note on King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.

21 There is an allusion here to the crest of Norfolk, which was a golden leopard.

22 The old copies have his spots.' The alteration was made by Pope.

K. Rich. We were not born to sue, but to com

mand:

Which since we cannot do to make you friends,

Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day;
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
The swelling difference of your settled hate;
Since we cannot atone 23 you, we shall see
Justice design 24 the victor's chivalry.-
Lord Marshal, command our officers at arms
Be ready to direct these home-alarms.

SCENE II. The same.

[Exeunt.

A Room in the Duke of Lancaster's Palace.
Enter GAUNT, and Duchess of Gloster 1.

Gaunt. Alas! the part2 I had in Gloster's blood Doth more solicit me, than your exclaims,

To stir against the butchers of his life.

But since correction lieth in those hands,
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven ;
Who when he sees3 the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

23 i. e. make them friends, to make agreement or atonement, to reconcile them to each other. Ad concordiam adducere. Lat. Mettre d'accord. Fr. Baret.

24 To design is to mark out, to show by a token. It is the sense of the Latin designo. I may here take occasion to remark that Shakspeare's learning appears to me to have been underrated; it is almost always evident in his choice of expressive terms derived from the Latin, and used in their original sense. The propriety of this expression here will be obvious, when we recollect that designator was ' a marshal, a master of the play or prize, who appointed every one his place, and adjudged the victory.'

1 The duchess of Gloster was Eleanor Bohun, widow of Duke Thomas, son of Edward III.

2 i. e. my relationship of consanguinity to Gloster.

3 The old copy erroneously reads who when they see.' VOL. V.

C

Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven phials of his sacred blood,
Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the destinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster,—
One phial full of Edward's sacred blood,

One flourishing branch of his most royal root,-
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.

Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine; that bed, that womb,
That mettle, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee,
Made him a man; and though thou liv'st, and breath'st,
Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair:
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we entitle-patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to 'venge my Gloster's death.
Gaunt. Heaven's is the quarrel; for heaven's
substitute,

His deputy anointed in his sight,

Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift

An

angry arm against his minister.

i. e. assent; consent is often used by the poet for accord, agree

ment.

Duch. Where then, alas! may I complain myself"? Gaunt. To heaven, the widow's champion and defence.

Duch. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold

Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
Or, if misfortune miss the first career,

Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courser's back,
And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometime brother's wife,
With her companion grief must end her life.

Gaunt. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry :
As much good stay with thee, as go with me!
Duch. Yet one word more;—Grief boundeth
where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun;
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.
Lo, this is all:-Nay, yet depart not so:
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
I shall remember more. Bid him-O, what?—
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack, and what shall good old York there see,
But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls",

6

5 To complain is commonly a verb neuter; but it is here used as a verb active. It is a literal translation of the old French phrase, me complaindre; and is not peculiar to Shakspeare. 6 Her house in Essex.

7 In our ancient castles the naked stone walls were only covered with tapestry or arras, hung upon tenterhooks, from which it was easily taken down on every removal of the family. (See the Preface to The Northumberland Household Book, by Dr. Percy.) The offices of our old English mansions were the rooms designed for keeping the various stores of provisions, bread,