Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders, and in outrage, bloody here;
But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines 3,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,-
Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
Whilst we were wand'ring with the antipodes,-
Shall see us rising in our throne the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day.
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king:
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord*:

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd,
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.

Enter SALISBURY.

Welcome, my lord; How far off lies your power 5? Sal. Nor near, nor further off, my gracious lord,

3 It is not easy (says Steevens) to point out an image more striking and beautiful than this in any poet, ancient or modern.' 4 Here is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and of the passive obedience of subjects, expressed in the strongest terms. Johnson observes that it has been the fashion to impute the original of every tenet which we have been taught to think false or foolish to the reign of King James I. But this doctrine was never carried further in any country, than in this island, while the house of Tudor sat on the throne.

5 Force.

VOL. V.

G

Than this weak arm: Discomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,

O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.

Aum. Comfort, my liege: why looks your grace so pale?

K. Rich. But now, the blood of twenty thousand

men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And, till so much blood thither come again, Have I not reason to look pale and dead? All souls that will be safe, fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

Aum. Comfort, my liege: remember who you are. K. Rich. I had forgot myself: Am I not king? Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleep'st. Is not the king's name forty thousand names?? Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground, Ye favourites of a king; Are we not high? High be our thoughts: I know, my uncle York Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who Comes here?

Enter SCROOP.

Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege, Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.

6 The first quarto reads' coward majesty.'

7 So in King Richard III. :

'Besides the king's name is a tower of strength.' See a speech of Antigonus, in Plutarch, of this kind. Vol. ii. 4to. p. 199, Gr.

K. Rich. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepar'd3: The worst is worldly loss, thou canst unfold. Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care? And what loss is it, to be rid of care? Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we ? Greater he shall not be; if he serve God, We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so: Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend; They break their faith to God, as well as us: Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay : The worst is death, and death will have his day. Scroop. Glad am I, that your highness is so arm'd To bear the tidings of calamity

Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears;
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices,
Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:
The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew9 against thy state;

8 It seems to be the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and consequently to interest the reader in his fayour. He gives him only passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor, rather than of a king. In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive; but in his distress he is wise, patient, and pious.'-Johnson,

9 Yew is called double-fatal, because of the poisonous quality of the leaves, and on account of the wood being used for instruments of death. From some ancient statutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or some other wood. It has been supposed that yews were anciently planted in churchyards not only to defend the church from the wind, but on account of their use in making bows; while their poisonous quality was kept from doing mischief to the cattle in that sacred enclosure.

Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills

Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
K.Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill:
Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot 10?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.

I warrant, they have made peace with Bolingbroke. Scroop. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my lord.

K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!

Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man !

Snakes,in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart! Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas! Would they make peace? terrible hell make war Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate ;Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made With heads, and not with hands: those whom you

curse,

Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound, And lie full low, grav'd 11 in the hollow ground.

10 The mention of Bagot here is a lapse of the poet or the king; but perhaps it may have been intended to mark more strongly the perturbation of the king's mind by making him inquire at first for Bagot, whose loyalty, on further recollection, might show him the impropriety of the question.

11 i. e. buried. The verb is not peculiar to Shakspeare. We have it in Gower, and in Lord Surrey's translation of the fourth Eneid:

Cinders, think'st thou, mind this, or graved ghosts?' Shakspeare uses it again in Timon of Athens :

ditches grave you all.'

George Cavendish, in his Metrical Visions, makes the Duke of Suffolk say:

And my hedles body, vouchsafe to se it graved.'

Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire

dead?

Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads. Aum. Where is the duke, my father, with his power? K.Rich. No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors, and talk of wills: And yet not so,-for what can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own, but death; And that small model12 of the barren earth, Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings:How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd; Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd:-For within the hollow crown, That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps death his court: and there the antick sits 13,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks ;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and humour'd thus,

12 A small model, or module, for they were the same in Shakspeare's time, seems to mean in this place a small portion or quantity. It is a Latinism from 'modulus, the measure or quantity of a thing.'

13 It is not impossible that Shakspeare borrowed this idea from that most exquisite emblematic book of engravings on wood the Dance of Death, or Imagines Mortis, attributed to Holbein. See the seventh print.