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When I do see the very book indeed

Where all my sins are writ,' and that's-myself.

Re-enter Attendant, with a Glass.

Give me that glass, and therein will I read.-
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds ?-O, flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face,
That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face,
That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?
Was this the face, that fac'd so many follies,
And was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?
A brittle glory shineth in this face :

As brittle as the glory is the face;

[Dashes the glass against the ground. For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.

Boling. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd The shadow of your face.

K. Rich. Say that again.

The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see:'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;

And these external manners of lament

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief,
That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul;
There lies the substance: and I thank_thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
And then be gone, and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?

Boling. Name it, fair cousin.

K.Rich. Fair cousin? Why, I am greater than a king:

For, when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

I have a king here to my flatterer.

Being so great, I have no need to beg.

Boling. Yet ask.

[1] This phrase is from the 139th Psalm, V. 15: "-- and in thy beck were all my members written." STEEV.

K. Rich. And shall I have?

Boling. You shall.

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

K. Rich. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
Boling. Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower.
K. Rich. O, good! Convey?-Conveyers

are you all,2 That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

[Exeunt K. RICHARD, some Lords, and a Guard.. Boling. On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down Our coronation : lords prepare yourselves.

[Exeunt all but the Abbot, Bishop of Carlisle,
and AUMERLE.

Abbot. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
Car. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn. 3
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 shall not only take the sacrament
To bury mine intents, but to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise :-
I see your brows are full of discontent,

Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears;
Come home with me to supper; I will lay
A plot, shall show us all a merry day.

ACT V.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.—London. A Street leading to the Tower.

Queen and Ladies.

Queen.

THIS way the king will come; this is the way
To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower,"

Enter

[2] To convey is a term often used in an ill sense, and so Richard under. stands it here. Pistol says of stealing, convey, the wise it call and to convey is the word for sleight of hand, which seems to be alluded to here. "Ye are all," says the deposed prince, "jugglers, who rise with this nimble dexterity by the fall of a good king." JOHNS.

.[3] This pathetic denunciation shews that Shakspeare intended to impress his auitors with a dislike of the deposal of Richard. JOHNS.

[4] To conceal, to keep secret. JOHNS.

[51 The tower of London is traditionally said to have been the work of Julius Caesar. JOHNS.

!

[merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]

K. Richard. Learn, good soul, to think our former happy state a dream.

To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke :
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
Have any resting for her true king's queen.5

Enter King RICHARD and Guards.

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither: Yet look up; behold;
That you in pity may dissolve to dew,

And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.—
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
Thou map of honour; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
Why should 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 so,
To make my end too sudden :9 learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee in some religious house :
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform'd, and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke
Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,

ical:

"Here rest, if any rest can harbour here." MILTON.

Even the Cronykil of A. of Wyntown, on this occasion is not unpoet

"The king Richard of Yngland

"Wes in his flowris than Regnand :

"Bot his flowris eftyr sone

"Fadyt, and ware all undone."

[7] Thou picture of greatness.

JOHNS.

B. IX. ch. xviii. v. 61, &c.

STEEV.

Model, it has already been observed, is used by our author, for a thing made after a pattern. He is, I believe, singular in this use of the word.

MALONE.

[9] Do not thou unite with grief against me; do not, by thy additional sorrows, enable grief to strike me down at once. My own part of sorrow I can bear, but thy affliction will immediately destroy me. JOHNS.

[1] I have reconciled myself to necessity, I am in a state of amity with the constraint I have sustained JOHNS.

The expression-sworn_brother, alludes to the fratres jurati, who in the ages of adventure bound themselves by mutual oaths, to share fortunes together. STEEV.

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