Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That sett'st the word itself against the word!-
Speak, pardon, as 'tis current in our land:
The chopping French we do not understand.
Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;
Or, in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;
That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do
pierce,
Pity may move thee, pardon to rehearse.
Boling. Good aunt, stand up.
I do not sue to stand, Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
Boling. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me. Duch. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee! Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again; Twice saying pardon, doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong.
With all my heart
A god on earth thou art.
Boling. But for our trusty brother in-law,and the abbot,
With all the rest of that consorted crew,-
Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.-
Good uncle, help to order several powers
To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:
They shall not live within this world, I swear,
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell,-and, cousin, too, adieu:
Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you
Duch. Come, my old son;-I pray God, make [Exeunt.
Enter EXTON, and a Servant.
Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what
Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?
Was it not so?
Those were his very words. Exton. Have I no friend? quoth he; he spake it twice,
And urg'd it twice together; did he not?
Serv. He did.
Exton. And, speaking it, he wistfully look'd
As who should say,-I would, thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart;
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go;
I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.
[Exeunt.
SCENE V. Pomfret. The Dungeon of the Castle.
Enter KING RICHARD.
K. Rich. I have been studying how I may
compare
This prison, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ;-Yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul;
My soul the father: and these two beget
A generation of still breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world;
In humours, like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better sort,-
As thoughts of things divine,-are intermix'd
With scruples, and do set the word itself
Against the word:
As thus,-Come, little ones! and then again,-
It is as hard to come, as for a camel
To thread the postern of a needle's eye.
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content, flatter them-
selves,-
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,-
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endured the like:
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: Sometimes am I king:
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: Then crushing penury
Persuades me, I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and, by-and-by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing:-But, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.-Musick do I hear?
[Musick.
Ha, ha! keep time:-How sour sweet musick is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the musick of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
But for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
For now hath time made me his numb'ring
clock:
[jar My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: So sighs, and tears, and
groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours :-but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.
This musick mads me, let it sound no more;
For, though it have holpe madmen to their wits,
In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad,
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter Groom.
Groom. Hail, royal prince!
K. Rich.
Thanks, noble peer;
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou? and how comest thou hither,
Where no man never comes, but that sad dog
That brings me food, to make misfortune live?
Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king; who travelling towards
York,
With much ado, at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld,
In London streets, that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid;
That horse, that I so carefully have dress'd!
K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gen-
tle friend,
How went he under him?
Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground. [his back! K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down (Since pride must have a fall), and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.
Enter Keeper, with a Dish.
Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer
stay.
[To the Groom.
K. Rich. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert
Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
Keep. My lord, will 't please you to fall to?
K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
Keep. My lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Ex.
ton, who
Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.
K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster,
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed. K. Rich. How now? what means death in this rude assault?
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instru. ment. [Snatching a weapon and killing one. Go thou, and fill another room in hell.
[He kills another, and then EXTON strikes him down.
That hand shall burn in never quenching fire, That staggers thus my person.-Exton, thy fierce hand [own land. Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high; Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward here to [Dies.
Exton. As full of valour, as of royal blood: Both have I spilt! O, 'would the deed were good! For now the devil, that told me-I did well, Says, that this deed is chronicled in hell. This dead king to the living king I'll bear ;Take hence the rest, and give them burial here. [Exeunt.
SCENE VI. Windsor. A Room in the Castle. Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE and YORK, with Lords and Attendants.
Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
Is-that the rebels have consum'd with fire
Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire ;
But whether they be ta'en, or slain, we hear not.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.
Welcome, my lord: What is the news?
North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
The next news is,-I have to London sent
The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and
The manner of their taking may appear
At large discoursed in this paper here.
Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy
And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
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