And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:

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,
A loyal, just, and upright gentleman:
Never did captive with a freer heart

Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace
His golden uncontrol'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
This feast of battle with mine adversary.—
Most mighty liege,-and my companion peers,-
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years
As gentle and as jocund, as to jest,

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,
Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him,

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,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,

To God, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free desire,

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,
And list, what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspéct

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;
[And for we think, the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set you on

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep ;]*
Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray ;
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood ;-
Therefore, we banish you our territories :-
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

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,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce :
The fly-slow hours shall not determinate

The dateless limit of thy dear exíle ;-
The hopeless word of-never to return
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlock'd-for from your highness' mouth :

[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,'
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hand.
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:
And now my tongue's use is to me no more,
Than an unstringed viol, or a harp;
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance,

Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy sentence then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate ;2
After our sentence, plaining comes too late.

Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night. [Retiring.
K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,) 3
To keep the oath that we administer :-

You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised 4 purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
Boling. I swear.

[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-
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail sepúlchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confess thy treasons, ere thou fly the realm ;
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heav'n banish'd, as from hence !
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know ;
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.-
Farewell, my liege :-Now no way can I stray;
Save back to England, all the world's my way. [Exit.
K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspéct

Hath from the number of his banish'd years
Pluck'd four away ;—Six frozen winters spent,
Return [To BOLING.] with welcome home from ban-
ishment.

Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs,
End in a word; Such is the breath of kings.

Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exile:
But little vantage shall I reap thereby;

For, ere the six years, that he hath to spend,

Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son,

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give =
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow :6
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,

[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 ;
Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
K. Rich. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;
Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower?
Gaunt. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion sour.
You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather,
You would have bid me argue like a father :-
O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

To smooth his fault I should have been more mild:
A partial slander7 sought I to avoid,

And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
Alas, I look'd, when some of you should say,
I was too strict, to make mine own away;
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.

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.