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Were then but fubjects; being now a subject,
I have a king here to my flatterer:
Being fo great, I have no need to beg.
Boling. Yet afk.

K. Rich. And fhall I have?

Boling. You fhall.

.

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

K. Rich. Whither you will, fo I were from your fights.

Boling. Go fome of you, convey him to the Tower. K. Rich. Oh, good! convey:-' conveyers are you

all,

That rife thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

[Exit. Boling. On Wednesday next we folemnly fet down Our coronation lords, prepare yourselves.

[Ex. all but Abbot, bishop of Carlisle, and Aumerle. Abbot. A woeful pageant have we here beheld. Carl. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as fharp 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 fhall not only take the facrament,

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conveyers are ye all,] To convey is a term often used in an ill fenfe, and fo Richard understands it here. Pistol fays of Stealing, convey the wife it call; and to convey is the word for flight of hand, which feems to be alluded to here. Ye are all, fays the depofed prince, jugglers, who rife with this nimble dexterity by the fall of a good king. JOHNSON.

2 On Wednesday next we folemnly fet down

Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.] The first 4to, 1598, reads,

"Let it be fo: and lo on Wednesday next

"We folemnly proclaim our coronation :
"Lords, be ready all." STEEVENS.

as fharp as thorn.] This pathetic denunciation fhews that Shakespeare intended to imprefs his auditors with dislike of the depofal of Richard. JOHNSON.

To

3 To bury mine intents, but to effect
Whatever I fhall happen to devife.

I fee, your brows are full of difcontent,
Your hearts of forrow, and your eyes of tears.-
Come home with me to fupper, and I'll lay
A plct, fhall fhew us all a merry day4.

[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.
Aftreet in London.

HIS

TH

Enter Queen and ladies.

QUEEN.

way the king will come: this is the way 5 To Julius Cæfar's ill-erected tower; To whofe flint bofom my condemned lord Is doom'd a prifoner by proud Bolingbroke. 'Here let us reft, if this rebellious earth Have any refting for her true king's queen. Enter king Richard, and guards,

But foft, but fee, or rather do not fee,
My fair rofe wither: yet look up; behold;
That you in pity may diffolve to dew,

And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.-
"O thou, the model where old Troy did stand;

[To K. Rich.

To bury- - To conceal, to keep fecret. JOHNSON. 4 In the first edition there is no perfonal appearance of king Richard, fo that all to the line at which he leaves the flage was inferted afterwards. JOHNSON.

5 To Julius Cæfar's, &c.] The Tower of London is traditionally faid to have been the work of Julius Cæfar. JouNs. Here let us reft, if, &c.] Here reft, if any rest can barbour here. MILTON.

70 thou, the model where old Troy did ftand;] The queen ufes comparative terms abfolutely. Instead of faying, Thou who ap

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peareft

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Thou map of honour; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
Why fhould hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
When triumph is become an ale-house guest?

K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not fo,
To make my end too fudden. Learn, good foul,
To think our former ftate a happy dream;

From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shews us but this. 9 I am fworn brother, fweet,
To grim neceffity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hye thee to France,
And cloilter thee in fome religious houfe:

Our holy lives muft win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have ftricken down.

Queen. What, is my Richard both in fhape and mind
Transform'd and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke
Depos'd thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrufteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing elfe, with rage
To be o'erpower'd: and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with bafe humility,

Which art a lion and a king of beasts?

K. Rich. A king of beafts, indeed-if aught but beafts,

I had been ftill a happy king of men.

Good fometime queen, prepare thee hence for France;
Think, I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st,

peareft as the ground on which the magnificence of Troy was once erected, the fays,

O thou, the model, &c.

Theu map of honour. Thou picture of greatnefs. JOHNS. Join not with grief,-] Do not thou unite with grief against me; do not, by thy additional forrows, enable grief to ftrike me down at once. My own part of forrow I can bear, but thy affliction will immediately destroy me. JOHNSON.

-6

I am fworn brother,

To grim neceffity;] I have reconciled myfelf to neccffity, I am in a ftate of amity with the constraint which I have fulained. JOHNSON,

As

As from my death-bed, my laft living leave.
In winter's tedious nights, fit by the fire

With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages, long ago betid:

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

And fend the hearers weeping to their beds.
2 For why? the fenfelefs brands will fympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compaffion, weep the fire out:
And fome will mourn in afhes, fome coal-black,
For the depofing of a rightful king.

Enter Northumberland attended.

North. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd: You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.

And, madam, there is order ta'en for you,
With all fwift fpeed, you must away to France.
K. Rich. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
The mounting Bolingbroke afcends my throne,
The time fhall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul fin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption: thou fhalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;

And he fhall think, that thou, which know'ft the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er fo little urg'd, another way

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

1

to quit their grief,] To retaliate their mournful ftories.

For why?—

JOHNSON.

-] The poet fhould have ended this fpeech with the foregoing line, and have fpared his childish prattle about the fire. JOHNSON,

North.

North. My guilt be on my head, and there's an end. -Take leave and part; for

you must part forthwith. K. Rich. Doubly divorc'd? Bad men, ye violate A two-fold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me; And then betwixt me and my married wife. Let me unkifs the oath 'twixt thee and me.

[To the queen. -And yet not fo, for with a kifs 'twas made. Part us, Northumberland. I, towards the north, Where shivering cold and fickness pines the clime; My queen to France; from whence, fet forth in pomp She came adorned hither like fweet May,

Sent back like Hollowmas, or fhort'ft of day.

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

Queen. Banifh us both, and fend the king with me. North. That were fome love, but little policy. Queen. Then whither he goes, thither let me go. K. Rich. So two, together weeping, make one woe, Weep thou for me in France; I for thee here:

3 Better far off, than near, be ne'er the near'.
Go, count thy way with fighs; I, mine with groans.
Queen. So longeft way fhall have the longest moans.
K. Rich. Twice for one ftep I'll groan, the

ing fhort,

way be

And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
Come, come, in wooing forrow let's be brief;
Since, wedding it, there is fuch length in grief.
One kifs fhall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

[They kifs. Queen. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part,

Better far off, than near, be ne'er the near.] To be never the nigher, or, as it is commonly fpoken in the mid-land counties, ne'er the ne-er, is, to make no advance towards the good defired. JOHNSON.

To

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