Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty. K. Rich. What says he?

North.

Nay, nothing; all is said; His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent. York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so; Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

150

K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.

155

XII.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT iii. SCENE 2.-THE KING'S DESPAIR.

[On the death of John of Gaunt, his son Henry Bolingbroke returned to England to claim his father's titles and estates. Landing at Ravenspurgh, a town in Yorkshire, that has long since disappeared under the constant action of the waves of the North Sea, Bolingbroke soon found himself at the head of a numerous body of discontented nobles and their followers. Perceiving how easy it would be, in the dissatisfied state of the country, to secure the throne for himself, he made open war upon King Richard. The king found himself deserted by almost the whole of his nobility; and in this scene he is introduced to us as sunk in deep despair on receipt of intelligence that even those whom he most depended upon had forsaken him and joined with Bolingbroke. Besides King Richard, the other characters in this scene are the Duke of Aumerle, son of the Duke of York and cousin of the king, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Sir Stephen Scroop.]

SCENE: The coast of Wales.

Aum. Where is the duke my father with his power?
K. Rich. No matter where; of comfort no man speak;

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;

147. My liege.-See § III. note 28.

151. Old Lancaster.-John of Gaunt's title was Duke of Lancaster.

1. With his power.-With his army.

3. Epitaphs. - Inscriptions on gravestones.

5

In suggesting such a

subject Richard implies that he has no hope left.

Let's choose executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposèd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping killed ;
All murder'd; for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life

6. Executors.-Persons appointed to see that the terms of a person's will are properly carried out.

7. Bequeath.-Leave to others in our will.

11. Small model. That small portion of earth, which, covering our bodies in the grave, is raised into a mound the length of a man. 16. The ghosts they have deposed.-To depose is to put down; no one ever deposed a ghost; Shakespeare means us to understand "the ghosts of those they have deposed." The sentence is elliptical.

19. Rounds.-Used here as a verb; equal to surrounds.

20. The antic.-In old plays the fool or buffoon, who played fantastic tricks, was called the antic; Shakespeare here uses the word as a fitting name for Death, whom he represents as scoffing and grinning.

21. Scoffing his state. The verb scoffing is here used transitively; to modernize the construction we must understand the preposition at after scoffing.

23. To monarchize.-To act the monarch, or king.

25. Which walls about our life.—Which is, as it were, a case, or fence, in which our life is placed. Shakespeare thinks of life as being apart from, and independent of, the body.

Car.

Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while;
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends; subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear, and be slain; no worse can come to fight;
And fight and die is death destroying death;
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
Aum. My father hath a power; inquire of him;
And learn to make a body of a limb.

K. Rich. Thou chid'st me well; proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.

This ague-fit of fear is over blown ;

An easy task it is to win our own.

26. Impregnable.--Not to be pierced.

30

35

40

45

29. Cover your heads.-- His attendants were standing with bare heads; Richard bids them put on their hats, since he was no longer king.

32. Have mistook.-An instance of an old participle which has changed; we now say mistaken, using mistook as a past tense.

43. Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.-This line may be paraphrased thus:- "To fear death is to act towards him as a slave to his master."

44. Hath a power.-Hath troops; see note 1.

45. Make a body of a limb.-A limb is part of a body. Aumerle means, "My father's men will form one limb, as it were, of your army; try and raise the remainder."

49. To win our own.--Alluding to the fact that he was fighting to recover that which was his own, and not to take anyone's else.

Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power? 50 Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour. Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky

The state and inclination of the day;

So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer, by small and small

55

To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken;

Your Uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,

And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.

K. Rich.

Thou hast said enough.

60

(To Aumerle.) Beshrew me, cousin, which didst lead me forth Of that sweet way I was in to despair!

What say you now? what comfort have we now?

65

A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
That power I have, discharge; and let them go
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none; let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

70

Aum. My liege, one word.

K. Rich.

He does me double wrong,

75

50. Our uncle.-This is the royal we; see § VI. note 2. 59. And all your northern castles yielded up.-There is no verb in this line; going back, we find the verb is in the preceding line; Shakespeare intends us to understand a corresponding verb, viz. are in this and the following line. It is quite in Shakespeare's style.

61. Upon his party. Upon his side.

63. Beshrew me.-May evil come to me; may I be cursed.

64. Of that sweet way.-In Richard's frame of mind despair was sweet to

him; he wanted no one to offer him consolation; he therefore rebukes Aumerle for leading him out of despair for the moment. 71. To ear the land.—To till, or plough, the land. Sax, erian. 74. My liege.-See § III. note 28.

That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.

[Exeunt.

XIII.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT V. SCENE 5.-RICHARD IN PRISON.

[The misfortunes which we saw King Richard bewailing in our last scene, were quickly followed by his imprisonment in Pomfret Castle, while Bolingbroke ascended the throne by the title of Henry IV. The account given by Shakespeare of Richard's death is that he was murdered by Sir Pierce Exton; the actual circumstances of his death are very uncertain; some historians agree in the main with Shakespeare's narrative; others maintain that the imprisoned king died of starvation, either through the intentional cruelty of his jailers, or through his own obstinacy in refusing food; while it has also been stated that he escaped, and died in Scotland.]

SCENE: Pomfret Castle.

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.

5

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

10

3. For because.-Each of these words has the same meaning; the expression is redundant. See § V. note 51.

10. In humours like the people of this world." My thoughts, with which I people my prison-world, are like the people of the outside world," for no thought is contented.