Imatges de pàgina
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His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest ; His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast: He prays but faintly, and would be denied; We pray with heart, and soul, and all beside:

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His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:
His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;
Ours, of true zeal and deep integrity.

Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have
That mercy, which true prayers ought to have.
Boling. Good aunt, stand up.

Duch.
Nay, do not say-stand up;
But, pardon, first; and afterwards, stand up.
An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
Pardon-should be the first word of thy speech.
I never long'd to hear a word till now;
Say-pardon, king; let pity teach thee how:
The word is short, but not so short as sweet;

No word like, pardon, for kings' mouths so meet. York. Speak it in French, king; say, pardonnez moy*.

Duch. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That set'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.
Duch.

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.

Excuse me.

Boling.

I pardon him.

Duch.

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 true. Duch. Come, my old son;-I pray God make [Exeunt.

thee new.

SCENE IV.

Enter Exton, and a Servant.

Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake ?

Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear? Was it not so?

Serv.

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 on

me;

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.

* Forces.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Pomfret. The dungeon of the castle.

Enter King Richard.

K. Rich. I have been studying how I may com

pare

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 t:

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 themselves,-
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,-

His own body.

+ Little gate.

+ Holy scripture.

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 endur'd 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:
My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they jar*
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 t.
This musick mads me, let it sound no more;
For, though it have holpe madmen to their wits,

Tick.

t Strike for him, like the figure of a man on a bell.

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.

Thanks, noble peer;

Groom. Hail, royal prince!
K. Rich.
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 sometimest master's face.,
O, how it yern'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, gentle friend,

How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground. K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

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 mau 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 ;

An ornamented buckle, and also a jewel in ge neral.

+ Former.

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