And by the glorious worth of my descent, K. Rich. How high a pitch his resolution soars !- Nor. O, let my sovereign turn away his face, How God, and good men, hate so foul a liar. K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears. Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Since last I went to France to fetch his queen.2 Now swallow down that lie.For Gloster's death, I slew him not, but, to my own disgrace, Once did I lay in ambush for your life— 1 Reproach to his ancestry. 2 The duke of Norfolk was joined in commission with Edward, earl of Rutland (the Aumerle of this play), to go to France in the year 1395, to demand in marriage Isabel, eldest daughter of Charles VI., then between seven and eight years of age. Richard was married to his young consort in November, 1396, at Calais; his first wife, Anne, daughter of Charles IV., emperor of Germany, died at Shene, on Whit Sunday, 1394. His marriage with Isabella was merely political: it was accompanied with an agreement for a truce between France and England for thirty years. wwww I did confess it; and exactly begged Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom. Your highness to assign our trial day. K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me. Deep malice makes too deep incision: Gaunt. When, Harry? when? 3 Obedience bids, I should not bid again. K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down; we bid; there is no boot.4 Nor. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame: The one my duty owes; but my fair name (Despite of death, that lives upon my grave) 5 To dark dishonor's use thou shalt not have. 1 Charged. 2 Pope thought that some of the rhyming verses in this play were not from the hand of Shakspeare. 3 This abrupt elliptical exclamation of impatience is again used in the Taming of the Shrew :-" Why, when, I say! Nay, good, sweet Kate, be merry.' It appears to be equivalent to "when will such a thing be done?" 4 "There is no boot," or it booteth not, is as much as to say resistance would be profitless. 5 i. e. my name that lives on my grave in despite of death. I am disgraced, impeached, and baffled1 here; 2 K. Rich. And I resign my gage. My dear, dear lord, Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay. K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage; do you begin. Boling. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin! Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this out-dared dastard! Ere my tongue Shall wound mine honor with such feeble wrong, Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear; And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbor, even in Mowbray's face [Exit GAUNT. K. Rich. We were not born to sue, but to com mand; Which since we cannot do to make you friends, Be ready, as your lives shall answer it, 1 Baffled, in this place, signifies "abused, reviled, reproached in base terms;" which was the ancient signification of the word, as well as to deceive or circumvent. 2 There is an allusion here to the crest of Norfolk, which was a golden leopard. The old copies have "his spots." The alteration was made by Pope. At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day; 2 [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. A Room in the Duke of Lancaster's Palace. Enter GAUNT, and Duchess of Gloster.3 4 Gaunt. Alas! the part I had in Gloster's blood To stir against the butchers of his life. 5 Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven phials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root. Some of those seven are dried by nature's course, Some of those branches by the destinies cut; But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster,One phial full of Edward's sacred blood, One flourishing branch of his most royal root,Is cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt; Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded, 1 i. e. make them friends, reconcile them. 2 To design is to mark out, to show by a token. It is the sense of the Latin designo. 3 The duchess of Gloster was Eleanor Bohun, widow of duke Thomas, son of Edward III. 4 i. e. my relationship of consanguinity to Gloster. 5 The old copy erroneously reads " Who, when they see." By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe. Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine; that bed, that womb, That mettle, that self-mould, that fashioned thee, Made him a man; and though thou liv'st, and breath'st, Yet art thou slain in him; thou dost consent What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caused his death; the which, if wrongfully, An angry arm against his minister. Duch. Where then, alas! may I complain myself?1 Gaunt. To Heaven, the widow's champion and defence. Duch. Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight; A caitiff, recreant to my cousin Hereford! 1 To complain is commonly a verb neuter; but it is here used as a verb active. It is a literal translation of the old French phrase me complaindre, and is not peculiar to Shakspeare. |