Alas, I look'd," when some of you should say, [Flourish. Exeunt K. RICH. and Train. Aum. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know, From where you do remain, let paper show. Mar. My lord, no leave take I: for I will ride, As far as land will let me, by your side. Gaunt. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends? you, Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten. Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure. Boling. My heart will sigh, when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage. Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return. Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make 20 Will but remember me, what a deal of world I wander from the jewels that I love. Must I not serve a long apprenticehood To foreign passages; and in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else, But that I was a journeyman to grief? 20 This speech and that which follows are not in the folio. Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven 21 visits, Are to a wise man ports and happy havens: Teach thy necessity to reason thus ; There is no virtue like necessity. Think not the king did banish thee; But thou the king 22: Woe doth the heavier sit, The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd 23; 21 So Nonnus:-' aidéρos ôμμa; i. e. the sun. Thus in the Rape of Lucrece : "The eye of heaven is out.' And in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. i. c. iii. st. 4 :— As the great eye of heaven shyned bright.' 22 Shakspeare probably remembered Euphues' exhortation to Botonio to take his exile patiently. Nature hath given to man a country no more than she hath a house, or lands, or livings. Socrates would neither call himself an Athenian, neither a Grecian; but a citizen of the world. Plato would never accompt him banished, that had the sunne, fire, ayre, water, and earth, that he had before; where he felt the winter's blast, and the summer's blaze; where the same sunne and same moone shined: whereby he noted that every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind.-When it was cast in Diogenes' teeth, that the Sinoponetes had banished him from Pontus; Yea, said he, I them of Diogenes.' 23 We have other allusions to the practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence chamber in Shakspeare. So in Cymbeline: Tarquin thus Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd The chastity he wounded.' See Hentzner's account of the presence chamber in the palace at Greenwich, 1598.-Itiner. p. 135. The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay. Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu; My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! SCENE IV. The same. A Room in the King's Castle. Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMERLE following. K. Rich. We did observe 1.-Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? 24 There is a passage resembling this in the fifth book of Cicero's Tusculan Questions, which were translated and published by John Dolman, in 1561. There is also something which might serve for a hint in Euphues. 25 Dr. Johnson thought that the first act should end here. 1 The king here addressed Green and Bagot, who, we may suppose had been talking to him of Bolingbroke's 'courtship to the common people,' at the time of his departure. 'Yes,' says Richard, we did observe it.' Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next high way, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed? 2 Aum. 'Faith, none by me: except the north-east wind, Which then blew bitterly against our faces, K. Rich. What said our cousin, when you parted with him? Aum. Farewell: And, for my heart disdained that my tongue K. Rich. He is our cousin, cousin ; but 'tis doubt, What reverence he did throw away on slaves; 2 The first folio and the quarto of 1597 read "Faith, none for The emendation was made in the folio, 1632. me.' 3 The earlier quarto copies read Ourself and Bushy,' and no more. The folio: 'Ourself, and Bushy here, Bagot, and Greene.' In the quarto the stage direction says, 'Enter the King, with Bushie,' &c.; but in the folio, 'Enter the King, Aumerle,' &c. because it was observed that Bushy comes in afterward. On this account we have adopted a transposition made in the quarto of 1634. Wooing poor craftsmen, with the craft of smiles, go these thoughts. For our affairs in hand: If that come short, Enter BUSHY. Bushy, what news? Bushy. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord; 4 To illustrate this, it should be remembered that courtesying (the act of reverence now confined to women) was anciently practised by mén. 5. Spes altera Romæ. - Virg. 6 Shakspeare often uses expedient for expeditious; but here its ordinary signification of fit, proper, will suit the context equally well. 7 i. e. cause. |