And let thy blows, doubly redoubled, Rouze up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live. Boling. Mine innocency, and Saint George to thrive ! [He takes his seat. Nor. [Rising.] However heaven, or fortune, cast my lot, There lives or dies, true to king Richard's throne, Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace Go I to fight; Truth hath a quiet breast. K. Rich. Farewell, my lord securely I espy Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.Order the trial, marshal, and begin. [The King and the Lords return to their seats. Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right ! Boling. [Rising.] Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen. Mar. Go bear this lance [To an Officer.] to Thomas duke of Norfolk. 1 Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, And dares him to set forward to the fight. 2 Her. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, On pain to be found false and recreant, To God, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal; Attending but the signal to begin. Mar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants 10* VOL. IV. [A charge sounded -Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down. 9 K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears, And both return back to their chairs again :Withdraw with us :-and let the trumpets sound, While we return these dukes what we decree.— [A long flourish. [To the Combatants. Draw near, Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords; To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle But tread the stranger paths of banishment. Boling. Your will be done: This must my comfort be,That sun, that warms you here, shall shine on me ; And those his golden beams, to you here lent, Shall point on me, and gild my banishment. K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, The dateless limit of thy dear exíle ;- Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, [9] A warder appears to have been a kind of truncheon carried by the person who presided at these single combats STEEV. [1] These five verses are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the first of 1598. POPE. A dearer merit, not so deep a maim,' That knows no touch to tune the harmony. Is made my gaoler to attend on me. What is thy sentence then, but speechless death, Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light, You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!) This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate; 'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. [1] To deserve a merit, is a phrase of which I know not any example. I wish some copy would exhibit,- A dearer mede, and not so deep a maim.' To deserve a meed or reward, is regular and easy. JOHNS. [2] Compassionate; for plaintive. WARB [3] It is a question much debated among the writers of the law of nations, whether a banished man may be still tied in his allegiance to the state which sent him into exile. Tully and lord chancellor Clarendon declare for the a ffirmative Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, seems to be of the same opinion. WAR. [4] i. e. concerted, deliberated. STEEV. Nor. And I, to keep all this. Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy ;5- Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor, Hath from the number of his banish'd years Boling. How long a time lies in one little word! Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me, For, ere the six years, that he hath to spend, Can change their moons, and bring their times about, K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live. [5] The first folio reads fare; the second farre. Bolingbroke only uses the phrase by way of caution, lest Mowbray should think he was about to address him as a friend. Norfolk, says he, so far as a man may speak to his enemy, &c. RITSON. [6] It is matter of very melancholy consideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNS. But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage ; To smooth his fault I should have been more mild: And in the sentence my own life destroy'd. K. Rich. Cousin, farewell :—and, uncle, bid him so; Six years we banish him, and he shall go. [Flourish. Exeunt K. RICHARD 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? Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the tongue's office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart. 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 [7] That is, the reproach of partiality. This is a just picture of the struggle between principle and affection. JOHNS. [8] This, and the six verses which follow, I have ventured to supply from the old quarto. THEOB. |