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Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows1
Of double-fatal yew2 against thy ftate;
Yea, distaff women manage rusty bills
Against thy feat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill.

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green 3?

1

That

Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows] Such is the reading of all the copies, yet I doubt whether beadsmen be right, for the bow seems to be mentioned here as the proper weapon of a beadsman. The king's beadsmen were his chaplains. Trevisa calls himself the beadsman of his patron. Beadsman might likewife be any man maintained by charity to pray for his benefactor. JOHNSON.

The reading of the text is right enough: As "boys strive to speak big, and clafp their effeminate joints in stiff unwieldy arms, &c." fo his "very beadsmen learn to bend their bows" against him. Their does not abfolutely denote that the bow was their usual or proper weapon; but only taken up and appropriated by them on this occafion. PERCY. 2 Of double-fatal yew-] Called so, because the leaves of the yew are poifon, and the wood is employed for instruments of death. WARE.

From fome of the ancient statutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or fome other wood. It should seem therefore that yeus were not only planted in church-yards to defend the churches from the wind, but on account of their use in making bows; while by the benefit of being fecured in enclosed places, their poisonous quality was kept from doing mischief to cattle. STEEVENS.

3 Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?

What is become of Bushy? where is Green? Here are four of them named; and, within a very few lines, the king, hearing they had made their peace with Bolingbroke, calls them three Judasses. But how was their peace made? Why, with the loss of their heads. This being explained, Aumerle says: Is Bufpy, Green, and the earl of Wilt- Shire dead? So that Bagot ought to be left out of the question: and, indeed, he had made the best of his way for Chester, and from thence had escaped into Ireland.

The poet could not be guilty of fo much forgetfulness and abfurdity. It feems probable to me that he wrote

Where is the Earl of Wiltshire ? Where is he got? THEOBALD. This emendation Dr. Warburton adopts. Hanmer leaves a blank after Wiltshire. I believe the author, rather than transcriber, made a mistake. Where is be got does not found in my ear like an expreffion of Shakspeare. JOHNSON.

Perhaps Shakspeare intended to mark more strongly the pertur

That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.

Scroop. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my lord. K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption ! Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
Three Judasses, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war
Upon their spotted fouls for this offence!

Scroop. Sweet love, I fee, changing his property,
Turns to the fourest and most deadly hate:-
Again uncurse their fouls; their peace is made
With heads, and not with hands: those whom you curse,
Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound,
And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.

Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire, dead? Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol loft their heads. 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 duft our paper, and with rainy eyes Write forrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors, and talk of wills; And yet not fo, -for what can we bequeath, Save our deposed 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 earth4,

bation of the king by making him inquire at first for Bagot, whose loy. alty, on further recollection, might thew him the impropriety of his question. MALONE.

4 And that small model of the barren earth,] He uses model for mould. That earth, which clofing upon the body, takes its form. This interpretation the next line feems to authorize. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare generally uses model, not for an exemplar, but for a thing

made after a pattern. So, in a former scene of this play:

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- thou fee'st thy wretched brother die,

"Who was the model of thy father's life."

See Vol. III. p. 443, n. 6. Model, however, may be used for mould. See Minshieu's DICT. in v. MALONE.

Which ferves as paste and cover to our bones 5.
For heaven's fake, let us fit upon the ground,
And tell fad stories of the death of kings :-
How fome have been depos'd, some flain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd;
Some poison'd by their wives, some fleeping kill'd;
All murder'd:- For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court: and there the antick fits,
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 felf and vain conceit, -
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and-farewel king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With folemn reverence; throw away refpect,
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 fay to me I am a king?

Car. My lord, wife men ne'er wail their present woes, But presently prevent the ways to wail. To fear the foe, fince fear oppresseth strength, Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe, And fo your follies fight against yourself. Fear, and be flain; no worse can come, to fight: And fight and die, is death destroying death 8:

5 Which serves as pafte &c] A metaphor, not of the most sublime kind, taken from a pie. JOHNSON.

6

- there the antick fits, Here is an allufion to the antick or fool of old farces, whose chief part is to deride and disturb the graver and more splendid perfonages. JOHNSON.

1 Tradition,-] This word seems here used for traditional praFices & that is, eftablished or customary bomage. JOHNSON.

8

-death destroying death:] That is, to die fighting, is to return the evil that we fuffer, to destroy the destroyers. I once read-death defying death; but destroying is as well. JOHNSON.

Where

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. -

Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak fweetly, man, although thy looks be four.
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,
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:-
Your uncle York hath join'd with Bolingbroke;
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your fouthern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.

K. Rich. Thou hast said enough.-
Beshrew thee, coufin, which did lead me forth
Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
What fay you now? What comfort have we now?
By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly,
That bids me be of comfort any more.
Go, to Flint castle; there I'll pine away;
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.

Aum. My liege, one word.

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- I'll bate bim everlastingly,

That bids me be of comfort-] This fentiment is drawn from nature. Nothing is more offenfive to a mind convinced that its distress is without a remedy, and preparing to submit quietly to irresistible calamity, than these petty and conjectured comforts which unskilful officiousness thinks it virtue to adminifter. JOHNSON.

• To ear the land] i. e. to plough it. STEEVENS.

K. Rich.

K. Rich. He does me double wrong, 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.

SCENE III.

Wales. Before Flint Castle.

Enter with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, and forces
YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others.

Boling. So that by this intelligence we learn,
The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed,
With fome few private friends, upon this coaft.
North. The news is very fair and good, my lord;
Richard, not far from hence, hath hid his head.
York. It would befeem the lord Northumberland,
To fay-king Richard :-Alack the heavy day,
When fuch a facred king should hide his head!
North. Your grace mistakes; only to be brief,
Left I his title out.

York. The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been fo brief with you, to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head's length.
Boling. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
York. Take not, good coufin, further than you should,
Left you mif-take: The heavens are o'er your head.
Boling. I know it, uncle; and oppose not
Myself against their will.-But who comes here?

Enter PERCY.

Welcome, Harry; what, will not this castle yield?
Percy. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,

Againit thy entrance.

2 For taking so the bead,-] To take the bead is, to act without restraint; to take undue libertes. We now fay, we give the horse bis bead, when we relax the reins. JOHNSON.

1

Boling.

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