The heavy accent of thy moving tongue, And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended. NORTH. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd; You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower. The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,— And he shall think 3, that thou, which know'st the way To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. NORTH. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith. This is certainly childish prattle, as Johnson calls it; but it is of the same stamp with the other speeches of Richard, after the landing of Bolingbroke, which are a strange medley of sense and puerility. M. MASON. 2 there is order ta'en for you;] So, in Othello: 3 AND he shall think,] The conjunction-And, without which the metre is deficient, was supplied by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS. K. RICH. Doubly divorc'd?-Bad men, ye violate A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me; And then, betwixt me and my married wife.Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me; And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made 2.Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north, Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; My wife to France; from whence, set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May, Sent back like Hallowmas3, or short'st of day. QUEEN. And must we be divided? must we part? K. RICH. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart. QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the king with me. NORTH. That were some love, but little policy *. QUEEN. Then whither he goes, thither let me go 5. K. RICH. So two, together weeping, make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; 2 Let me UNKISS THE OATH 'twixt thee and me; And yet not so, for WITH A KISS 'TWAS MADE.] A kiss appears to have been an established circumstance in our ancient nuptial ceremony. So, in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613, the Duke, on parting with his wife, says to her: 3 "The kiss thou gav'st me in the church, here take.” STEEVENS. Hallowmas,] All-hallows, or All-hallowtide; the first of November. STEEVENS. 4 That were some love, &c.] The quartos give this speech to the King. STEEVENS. 5 Then whither he goes, thither let me go.] So, in the Book of Ruth, i. 16:- "for whither thou goest, I will go." STEEVENS. 6 Better far off, than-near, be NE'ER THE NEAR'.] To be never the nigher, or, as it is commonly spoken in the midland counties, ne'er the ne'er, is, to make no advance towards the good desired. JOHNSON. So, in The Legend of Shore's Wife, by Thomas Churchyard, Mirrour for Magistrates, 1578: Go, count thy way with sighs; I, mine with groans. QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans. K. RICH. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short, And piece the way out with a heavy heart. [They kiss. QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part, To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart". [Kiss again. So, now I have mine own again, begone, K. RICH. We make woe wanton with this fond delay : Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. [Exeunt. "Compel the hauke to sit, that is unmann'd, "Your time is lost, and you are never the near." The meaning is, it is better to be at a great distance, than being near each other, to find that we yet are not likely to be peaceably and happily united.' MALONE. Adonis : and KILL thy HEART.] So, in our author's Venus and 66 they have murder'd this poor heart of mine." MALONE. Again, in King Henry V. Act II. Sc. I.: "he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days: the king hath kill'd his heart." STEEVENS. SCENE II. London. A Room in the Duke of YORK's Palace. Enter YORK, and his Duchess". DUCH. My lord, you told me, you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgovern'd hands, from windows' tops, Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard's head. YORK. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and firy steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,- You would have thought the very windows spake, 7-and his DUCHESS.] The first wife of Edward Duke of York, was Isabella, the younger daughter and co-heir of Peter, king of Castle and Leon, called the Cruel. He married her in 1372, and by her he had the Duke of Aumerle, and all his other children. In introducing her in the scene in the present play, our poet has departed more widely from history than he has done in making Richard's queen sustain the part he has assigned to her; for Isabella of France, who, as has been already observed, was a child in 1398, he has introduced as a woman; but the Duchess of York he has summoned from the grave, for she died in the year 1394, four or five years before the commencement of the present play. After her death, the Duke of York married Joan, daughter of John Holland, Earl of Kent, who survived him about thirty-four years, and had afterwards three other husbands. MALONE. 8 Through casements darted their desiring eyes DUCH. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while ? YORK. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him; No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: 8 With PAINTED IMAG'RY, had SAID at once,] Our author probably was thinking of the painted clothes that were hung in the streets, in the pageants that were exhibited in his own time; in which the figures sometimes had labels issuing from their mouths, containing sentences of gratulation. MALONE. 9 As in a theatre, &c.] "The painting of this description (says Dryden, in his Preface to Troilus and Cressida,) is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read any thing comparable to it, in any other language." STEEVENS. Are idly bent -] That is, carelessly turned, thrown without attention. This the poet learned by his attendance and practice on the stage. JOHNSON. 2 His face still combating WITH TEARS AND SMILES, The badges of his grief and patience,] There is, I believe, no image which our poet more delighted in than this. So, in a former scene of this play: "As a long-parted mother with her child, 66 Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting." |