His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing foul doth celebrate
This feaft of battles with mine adversary.-
Moft mighty liege,-and my companion peers,-
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years:
As gentle and as jocund, as to jeft,

Go I to fight; Truth hath a quiet breast.
K. Rich. Farewel, my lord: fecurely I efpy
Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.-
Order the trial, marfhal, and begin.

[The king and the lords return to their feats. Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancafter, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!

Boling. [rifing.] Strong as a tower in hope, I cry-amen. Mar. Go bear this lance [to an officer.Ĵ to Thomas duke of Norfolk.

1. Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
Stands here for God, his fovereign, and himself,
On pain to be found falfe and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him,

And dares him to fet forward to the fight.

2. Her. Here ftandeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found falfe and recreant,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,

To God, his fovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free defire,

Attending but the fignal to begin.

Mar. Sound, trumpets; and fet forward, combatants.

[A charge founded.

Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down '.

This feaft of battle-] "War is death's feat," is a proverbial faying. See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

9 — as to jest,] To jeft sometimes fignifies in old language, to play a part in a mask. FARMER.

- bath thrown bis warder down.] A warder appears to have been a kind of truncheon carried by the perfon who prefided at these single

combats. STEEVENS.

VOL. V.

C

K. Rich.

K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears, And both return back to their chairs again :Withdraw with us :-and let the trumpets found, While we return thefe dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish. [to the Combatants.

Draw near,
And lift, what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom's earth fhould not be foil'd
With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
And for our eyes do hate the dire afpéct

2

Of cruel wounds plough'd up with neighbours' fwords;
[And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of fky-afpiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, fet you on 3

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the fweet infant breath of gentle fleep;]
Which fo rouz'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harth-refounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating fhock of wrathful iron arms,

Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;-
Therefore, we banish you our territories :-
You, coufin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five fummers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the ftranger paths of banishment.

Boling. Your will be done: This must my comfort be,➡ That fun, that warms you here, fhall fhine on me;

2 And for we think the eagle-winged pride &c.] These five verses arc omitted in the other editions, and restored from the first of 1598. POPE. Dr. Warburton thinks with fome probability that these lines were rejected by Shakspeare himself. His idle cavil, that "peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when afleep", is refuted by Mr. Steevens in the fubquent note. MALONE.

3-fet you on] The old copy reads-on you. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

4 Towake our peace,] It is true, that peace awake is fill peace, as well as when asleep; but peace awakened by the tumults of thefe jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey images fufficiently oppofed to each other for the poet's purpose. To wake peace is to introduce difcord. Peace afleep, is peace exerting its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war.

STEEVENS.

And

And those his golden beams, to you here lent,
Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.
K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with fome unwillingness pronounce :
The fly-flow hours fhall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile ;-
The hopeless word of never to return-
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Nor. A heavy fentence, my moft fovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highnefs' mouth:
A dearer merit, not fo deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deferved at your highness' hand.
The language I have learn'd thefe forty years,
My native English, now I muft forego:
And now my tongue's ufe is to me no more,
Than an unftringed viol, or a harp;
Or like a cunning inftrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance

Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy fentence then, but fpeechlefs death.
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compaffionate 7;
After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Nor. Then thus f turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in folemn fhades of endless night.

[retiring. K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee. Lay on our royal fword your banish'd hands; Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,

s The fly flow bours] Mr. Pope reads-fly-flow. The former word appears to me more intelligible" the thievish minutes as they pafs." MALONE.

• A dearer merit-] Merit is here used for meed or reward. MALONE. compaffionate;] for plaintive. WARUBURTON. C 2

7

(Our

(Our part therein we banish with yourselves ",)
To keep the oath that we adminifter:

You never fhall (fo help you truth and heaven!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
This lowering tempeft of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet,

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,

'Gainst us, our ftate, our fubjects, or our land. Boling. I fwear.

Nor. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, fo far as to mine enemy9 ;-
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our fouls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail fepulcher of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confefs thy treasons, ere thou fly the realm;
Since thou haft far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty foul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd, as from hence!
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know ;
And all too foon, I fear the king shall rue.-
Farewel, my liege :-Now no way can I ftray;

8 (Our part &c.] It is a queftion much debated amongst the writers of the law of nations, whether a banifh'd man may be ftill tied in allegiance to the state which sent him into exile. Tully and lord chancellor Clarendon declare for the affirmative: Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, feems to be of the fame opinion. WARBURTON.

9 Norfolk, fo far &c.] I do not clearly fee what is the fenfe of this abrupt line, but fuppofe the meaning to be this: Norfolk, fo far I have addreffed myself to thee as to mine enemy, I now utter my last words with kindness and tenderness, Confefs thy treafons. JOHNSON.

All the old copies read: fo fare. STEEVENS.

Surely fare was a misprint for farre, the old spelling of the word now placed in the text-Perhaps the author intended that Hereford in speaking this line fhould fhew fome courtesy to Mowbray;-and the meaning may be, So much civility as an enemy has a right to, I am willing to offer to thee. MALONE.

Save

Save back to England, all the world's my way'. [Exit.
K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glaffes of thine eyes
I fee thy grieved heart: thy fad afpéct

Hath from the number of his banish'd years
Pluck'd four away;-Six frozen winters spent,

Return [to Bol.] with welcome home from banishment.
Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs,
End in a word; Such is the breath of kings.
Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exile:
But little vantage fhall I reap thereby;
For, ere the fix years, that he hath to spend,

Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dry'd lamp, and time-bewafted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me fee my fon.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou haft many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canft give:
Shorten my days thou canst with fullen forrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow 2:
Thou can't help time to furrow me with age,
But ftop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
K. Rich. Thy fon is banish'd upon good advice 3,

all the world's my way.] Perhaps Milton had this in his mind when he wrote these lines:

-

"The world was all before them, where to choose

"Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." JOHNSON. The Duke of Norfolk after his banishment went to Venice, where, says Holinfhed, for thought and melancholy he deceased." MALONE. I should point the paffage thus:

Now no way can I stray

Save back to England :-all the world's my way.

There's no way for me to go wrong, except back to England. MASON. 2 And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:] It is matter of very melancholy confideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON.

31

- upon good advice,] Upon great confideration. See Vol. I. p. 137, n. 8. MALONE.