Enter BERKLEY.

North. It is my lord of Berkley, as I

guess. Berk. My lord of Hereford, my message is to you. Boling. My lord, my answer is-to Lancaster;" And I am come to seek that name in England: And I must find that title in your tongue

Before I make reply to aught you say.

Berk. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning,

To raze one title of your honor out.

To you, my lord, I come, (what lord you will,)
From the most gracious regent of this land,
The duke of York; to know, what pricks you on
To take advantage of the absent time,
And fright our native peace with self-born arms.

Enter YORK, attended.

2

Boling. I shall not need transport my words by

you;

Here comes his grace in person. My noble uncle!

[Kneels. York. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee, Whose duty is deceivable and false. Boling. My gracious uncle!

York. Tut, tut! grace me no grace, nor uncle me.3 I am no traitor's uncle; and that word-grace,

In an ungracious mouth, is but profane.

Why have those banished and forbidden legs

Dared once to touch a dust of England's ground?

But then more why-why have they dared to march
So many miles upon her peaceful bosom;
Frighting her pale-faced villages with war,

1 "Your message, you say, is to my lord of Hereford. My answer is, It is not to him; it is to the duke of Lancaster."

2 Time of the king's absence.

3 In Romeo and Juliet we have the same kind of phraseology :—

"Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds."

And ostentation of despised1 arms?

Com'st thou because the anointed king is hence?
Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind,
And in my loyal bosom lies his power.

Were I but now the lord of such hot youth,
As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself,
Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
O, then, how quickly should this arm of mine,
Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee,
And minister correction to thy fault!

Boling. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault; On what condition stands it, and wherein ?

York. Even in condition of the worst degree,

In gross rebellion, and detested treason.

Thou art a banished man, and here art come,

Before the expiration of thy time,

In braving arms against thy sovereign.

eye.

Boling. As I was banished, I was banished Hereford; But as I come, I come for Lancaster. And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace, Look on my wrongs with an indifferent? You are my father, for, methinks, in you I see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father! Will you permit that I shall stand condemned A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties Plucked from my arms perforce, and given away To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born? If that my cousin king be king of England, It must be granted, I am duke of Lancaster.

1 Perhaps Shakspeare here uses despised for hated or hateful arms. Sir Thomas Hanmer changed it to despiteful; but the old copies all agree in reading despised. Shakspeare uses the word again in a singular sense in Othello, Act i. Sc. 1, where Brabantio exclaims upon the loss of his daughter:

It has been suggested that "despised is used to denote the general contempt in which the British held the French forces. The duke of Bretagne furnished Bolingbroke with three thousand French soldiers."

2 In tifferent is impartial. The instances of this use of the word among the Poet's contemporaries are very numerous.

You have a son, Aumerle, my noble kinsman;
Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,
He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,
To rouse his wrongs,' and chase them to the bay.
I am denied to sue my livery here,

And yet my letters patent give me leave:
My father's goods are all distrained, and sold;
And these, and all, are all amiss employed.
What would you have me do? I am a subject,
And challenge law. Attorneys are denied me;
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.

2

North. The noble duke hath been too much abused.
Ross. It stands your grace upon to do him right.
Willo. Base men by his endowments are made great.
York. My lords of England, let me tell you this,-
I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,
And labored all I could to do him right.
But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
Be his own carver, and cut out his way,

To find out right with wrong,-it may not be;
And you, that do abet him in this kind,

Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.

North. The noble duke hath sworn, his coming is But for his own; and, for the right of that, We all have strongly sworn to give him aid; And let him ne'er see joy, that breaks that oath. York. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms; I cannot mend it, I must needs confess, Because my power is weak, and all ill left. But, if I could,-by him that gave me life!I would attach you all, and make you stoop Unto the sovereign mercy of the king; But, since I cannot, be it known to you, I do remain as neuter. So, So, fare you well;

1 Wrongs is probably here used for wrongers.

2 Steevens explains the phrase, “It stands your grace_upon," to mean, "it is your interest; it is matter of consequence to you." But hear Baret“The heyre is bound; the heyre ought, or it is the heyre's part to defend; it standeth him upon; or is in his charge. Incumbit defensio mortis hæredi.” The phrase is therefore equivalent to it is incumbent upon your grace.

Unless you please to enter in the castle,
And there repose you for this night.

Boling. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
But we must win your grace, to go with us
To Bristol castle; which, they say, is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,

Which I have sworn to weed, and pluck away.
York. It may be, I will go with you-but yet I'll

pause;

For I am loath to break our country's laws.

Nor friends, nor foes, to me welcome you are;
Things past redress, are now with me past care.

SCENE IV.1 A Camp in Wales.

Enter SALISBURY, and a Captain.

[Exeunt.

Cap. My lord of Salisbury, we have staid ten days, And hardly kept our countrymen together,

And yet we hear no tidings from the king;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.

Sal. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman. The king reposeth all his confidence

In thee.

Cap. 'Tis thought the king is dead: we will not stay. The bay-trees in our country are all withered, And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change; Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other, to enjoy by rage and war. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.Farewell; our countrymen are gone and fled, As well assured, Richard their king is dead.

[Exit.

1 Johnson thought this scene had been, by some accident, transposed, and that it should stand as the second scene in the third act.

Sal. Ah, Richard! with the eyes of heavy mind, I see thy glory, like a shooting star,

Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.

[Exit.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Bolingbroke's Camp at Bristol.

Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, Ross. Officers behind, with BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners.

Boling. Bring forth these men.-
Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls
(Since presently your souls must part your bodies)
With too much urging your pernicious lives,
For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood
From off my hands, here, in the view of men,
I will unfold some causes of your deaths.
You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
By you unhappied and disfigured clean.'
You have, in manner, with your sinful hours,
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;
Broke the possession of a royal bed,2

And stained the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
Myself-a prince, by fortune of my birth,

1 i. e. quite, completely.

2 There seems to be no authority for this. Isabel, Richard's second queen, was but nine years old at this period; his first queen, Anne, died in 1392, and he was very fond of her.