KING RICHARD II.

ACT I.

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King RICHARD, attended; LANCASTER and other Nobles, with him.

Rich. OLD John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lan

Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,2

1 The duke of Lancaster was born in 1339 in the city of Ghent, Flanders, and hence called John of Gaunt. At the time referred to in the text, 1398, he was only fifty-eight years old. The language here applied to him is such as we should now hardly apply to a man under the age of eighty. At that time men were often married at fifteen, and were usually reckoned old at fifty; and to reach the age of sixty was then as uncommon as it now is to reach fourscore. So much has been added to the average of human life by the ease, comfort, and art of modern times. Some years ago, the subject of judicial reform being in debate in the senate of New York, Mr. Verplanck referred to the passage in the text, and commented upon it as follows: "The mode of life of those steel-clad warriors, mixed of alternate hardships and wild excess, with little attention to cleanliness either in their persons of their dwellings, with the total absence of all tolerable surgical or medical skill, to relieve the most ordinary malady, or what would now be considered as a slight wound, broke them down at a comparatively early age. They were old men, time-honoured patriarchs, at an age when a modern English barrister, or colonel. is often called a rising young man.'"

H.

2 Band and bond were anciently used in the same sense, both of them being from the verb to bind. Of course Lancaster had on a former occasion pledged himself, had given his oath and bond, that his son should appear for combat at the time and place

Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ? Lan. I have, my liege.

Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice; Or worthily, as a good subject should, On some known ground of treachery in him? Lan. As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some apparent danger seen in him, Aim'd at your highness; no inveterate malice.

Rich. Then call them to our presence: face to face, And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear The accuser, and the accused, freely speak.

[Exeunt some Attendants. High stomach'd are they both, and full of ire, In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

3

Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and NORFOLK.

Bol. May many years of happy days befall My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege! Nor. Each day still better other's happiness; Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown!

appointed. This was in accordance with ancient custom.
In the Faerie Queene, Book iv. can. 3, stan. 3:

"These three that hardie chalenge tooke in hand,
For Canacee with Cambell for to fight;
The day was set, that all might understand,
And pledges pawnd the same to keepe aright."

T'hus

H.

3 Henry Plantagenet, the eldest son of John of Gaunt, was surnamed Bolingbroke from having been born at the town of that name in Lincolnshire.

4

Rich. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us, As well appeareth by the cause you come; Namely, to appeal each other of high treason. Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ? Bol. First, Heaven be the record to my speech! In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak,
My body shall make good upon this earth,

Or
my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live;
Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
And wish, (so please my sovereign,) ere I move,
What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword
may prove."

Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal : 'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,

The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain:
The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this;
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast,
As to be hush'd, and nought at all to say.
First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech,

4 That is, by the cause you come on. Shakespeare often omits the preposition in such cases.

5 That is, my sword drawn in a right or just cause.

Which else would post, until it had return'd
These terms of treason doubled down his throat
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,

And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
I do defy him, and I spit at him;

Call him a slanderous coward, and a villain:
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds;
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable"
Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
Meantime, let this defend my loyalty;
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
Bol. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my
gage,

8

Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
If guilty dread have left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.*

H.

6 All the quartos have doubled; the first folio has doubly. 7 That is, unhabitable, or, as we should now say, uninhabita ble; a strictly classical use of the word, which is from in, privative, and habitabilis. Mr. Collier quotes a like instance of the word from Heywood's General History of Women, 1624 : « Where all the country was scorched by the heat of the sun, and the place almost inhabitable for the multitude of serpents." A case still more in point occurs in Holland's Plutarch: "Haply by the di vine providence so ordering all, that some parts of the world should be habitable, others inhabitable, according to excessive cold, extreme heat, and a mean temperature of both."

H.

8 So in the first quarto. All the other old editions have a king. But the speaker plainly refers to his present sovereign; so that the is manifestly right.

H.

So in the first quarto. The second has, -"What I have

Nor. I take it up; and, by that sword I swear, Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder, I'll answer thee in any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:

And, when I mount, alive may I not light,

If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

Rich. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?

It must be great, that can inherit us

10

So much as of a thought of ill in him.

Bol. Look, what I speak," my life shall prove it

true;

That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,"
Like a false traitor, and injurious villain.
Besides, I say, and will in battle prove, –
Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye, -
That all the treasons, for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,

spoke, or thou canst devise." The third and fourth,- -"What i have spoke, or what thou canst devise." The first folio,

I have spoken, or thou canst devise."

What

H.

10 Shakespeare sometimes uses inherit in the sense of possess; as in The Tempest, Act iv. sc. 1: «The great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve." Thus, also, Spenser in his Ruins of Time, verse 383:

"To highest heaven, where now he doth inherite
All happinesse in Hebe's silver bowre."

H.

11 So the first quarto. The others have said. As Bolingbroke apparently refers to what he is going to say, the present tense, speak, seems more proper.

66

H.

12 Lewd was anciently much used in the sense of knavish, wicked. Thus in Holinshed: The breaking of an oath, in a case that may prejudice, procureth greevous punishments from God against them that so lewdlie doo offend." See Much Ado about Nothing Act v. sc. 1, note 25.

H