This we prescribe, though no physician;
Deep malice makes too deep incision.22
Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed;
Our doctors say this is no time to bleed.2
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the duke of Norfolk, you your son.

23

Lan. To be a make-peace shall become my age. Throw down, my son, the duke of Norfolk's gage. Rich. And, Norfolk, throw down his. Lan. When, Harry? when? Obedience bids, I should not bid again.

24

Rich. Norfolk, throw down; we bid; there is

no boot.25

Nor. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy

foot.

My life thou shalt command, but not my shame :
The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
Despite of death that lives upon my grave,
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here; 26
Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;

22 In Shakespeare's time the endings ian and ion were often used as two syllables. The Faerie Queene is full of cases in point.

H.

23 In the old almanacks the best times for blood-letting were set down. The earliest English almanack known was for 1386, and has those times carefully noted.

H.

24 When was sometimes used as an exclamation of impatience. We have it again in The Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. sc. 1: "Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?"— In all the old copies, the words "obedience bids," follow when in the same line, and are repeated in the next line. Which is evidently a mistake, when and again being meant to mark the two lines as a couplet.

н.

25 There is no boot, or it booteth not, is as much as to say there is no help, resistance would be vain, or profitless.

26 Baffled in this place signifies abused, reviled, reproached in base terms; which was the ancient signification of the word, as well as to deceive or circumvent.

The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood Which breath'd this poison.

Rich.
Rage must be withstood.
Give me his gage: - Lions make leopards tame."
Nor. Yea, but not change his spots: take but my
shame,

And I resign my gage. My dear, dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten times barr'd up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live, and for that will I die.

Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage: do you begin.

Bol. O! God defend my soul from such deep sin.28 Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong, Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear;

And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. [Exit LANCASTER.

Rich. We were not born to sue, but to command: Which since we cannot do to make you friends,

27 There is an allusion here to the crest of Norfolk, which was a golden leopard.

28 So in all the quartos: the folio has Heaven for God, and foul for deep. In the second line below, the first quarto and folio have beggar-fear, the other quartos beggar-face.

H.

Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
At Coventry, upon St. Lambert's day.
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
The swelling difference of your settled hate:
Since we cannot atone you," 29 we shall see
Justice design the victor's chivalry.-
Lord Marshal, command our officers at arms
Be ready to direct these home-alarms.

SCENE II. The same.

A Room in LANCASTER'S Palace.

[Exeunt.

Enter LANCASTER and Duchess of Gloster.

1

Lan. Alas! the part 1 I had in Gloster's blood Doth more solicit me, than your exclaims, To stir against the butchers of his life: But since correction lieth in those hands, Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven; Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

29 That is, cannot reconcile you, at-one you, or make you friends. This sense of the word survives in atonement. Design, in the next The pro

line, bears the classical sense of to mark or point out. priety of the word lies in that designator was “a marshal, or master of a play or prize, who appointed every one his place, and adjudged the victory."

H.

1 That is, my consanguinity to Gloster. All the quartos have "Woodstock's blood," which was changed to Gloster's in the first folio. He was called Thomas of Woodstock by the historians, till Richard II. created him earl of Buckingham, and then duke of Gloucester.

H.

2 So in all the old copies; but generally changed to he sees in modern editions. Of course who and they refer to heaven, which is here used as a collective noun.- Hours in this line is a dissylable. See The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act i. sc. 2, uote 3.

H.

Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur ?
Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven phials of his sacred blood,
Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the destinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster, -
One phial full of Edward's sacred blood,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,—
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;

Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.
Ah! Gaunt, his blood was thine: that bed, that womb,
That mettle, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee,
Made him a man; and, though thou liv'st and breath'st,
Yet art thou slain in him: Thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.3
Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we entitle patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to venge my Gloster's death.

Lan. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,*

3 We have already seen that Shakespeare uses model with great license. Of course it here means, not the model, as we use the word, but that which is modelled, that is, the image.

H.

4 So in the quartos: in the folio God's was in both cases changed to Heaven's; doubtless on account of the statute against the irreverent use of the sacred Name. The same change was made in the first line of Lancaster's next speech, and in other places of this play.

H.

His deputy anointed in His sight,

Hath caus'd his death; the which, if wrongfully, Let Heaven revenge; for I may never lift

An angry arm against His minister.

Duch. Where, then, alas! may I complain myself? 5

Lan. To God, the widow's champion and defence. Duch. Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold

Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O! sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast;
Or, if misfortune miss the first career,
Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courser's back,
And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometime brother's wife
With her companion grief must end her life.

Lan. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry.
As much good stay with thee, as go with me!
Duch. Yet one word more. Grief boundeth
where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun;
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.
Lo! this is all: - nay, yet depart not so;
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
I shall remember more. Bid him -O! what?
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack and what shall good old York there see,

To complain is here used as a verb active. It is a literal translation of the old French phrase, me complaindre.

6 Her house in Essex.