Unless you please to enter in the castle,
And there repose you for this night.

Boling. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
But we must win your grace, to go with us
To Bristol castle; which, they say, is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,

Which I have sworn to weed, and pluck away.

York. It may be, I will go with you :-but yet I'll

pause;

For I am loath to break our country's laws.

Nor friends, nor foes, to me welcome you are;

Things past redress, are now with me past care.

SCENE IV.1 A Camp in Wales.

Enter SALISBURY, and a Captain.

[Exeunt.

Cap. My lord of Salisbury, we have staid ten days, And hardly kept our countrymen together,

And yet we hear no tidings from the king;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.

Sal. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman. The king reposeth all his confidence

In thee.

Cap. 'Tis thought the king is dead: we will not stay. The bay-trees in our country are all withered, And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change; Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other, to enjoy by rage and war. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.— Farewell; our countrymen are gone and fled, As well assured, Richard their king is dead.

[Exit.

1 Johnson thought this scene had been, by some accident, transposed, and that it should stand as the second scene in the third act.

Sal. Ah, Richard! with the eyes of heavy mind,
I see thy glory, like a shooting star,
Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.

[Exit.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Bolingbroke's Camp at Bristol.

Enter BOLINGBROKE, York, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, Ross. Officers behind, with BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners.

Boling. Bring forth these men.

Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls
(Since presently your souls must part your bodies)
With too much urging your pernicious lives,
For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood
From off my hands, here, in the view of men,
I will unfold some causes of your deaths.
You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
By you unhappied and disfigured clean.1
You have, in manner, with your sinful hours,
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;
Broke the possession of a royal bed,2

1

And stained the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
Myself-a prince, by fortune of my birth,

1 i. e. quite, completely.

2 There seems to be no authority for this. Isabel, Richard's second queen, was but nine years old at this period; his first queen, Anne, died in 1392, and he was very fond of her.

Near to the king in blood, and near in love,
Till you did make him misinterpret me,-
Have stooped my neck under your injuries,
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment;
Whilst you have fed upon my seigniories,
Disparked1 my parks, and felled my forest woods;
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Razed out my impress, leaving me no sign,—
Save men's opinions, and my living blood,-
To show the world I am a gentleman.

2

This, and much more, much more than twice all this, Condemns you to the death.-See them delivered over To execution and the hand of death.

Bushy. More welcome is the stroke of death to me, Than Bolingbroke to England.-Lords, farewell. Green. My comfort is,—that Heaven will take our souls,

And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

Boling. My lord Northumberland, see them despatched.

[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others,
with Prisoners.

Uncle, you say, the queen is at your house;
For Heaven's sake, fairly let her be entreated.
Tell her, I send to her my kind commends;
Take special care my greetings be delivered.

York. A gentleman of mine I have despatched
With letters of your love to her at large.

Boling. Thanks, gentle uncle.-Come, lords, away, To fight with Glendower and his complices; Awhile to work, and, after, holiday.

[Exeunt.3

1 To dispark signifies to divest a park of its name and character, by destroying the inclosures, and the vert (or whatever bears green leaves, whether wood or underwood), and the beasts of the chase therein; laying it open.

2 The impress was a device, or motto.

3 Johnson says, "here may be properly inserted the last scene of the second act."

SCENE II. The Coast of Wales. A Castle in view. Flourish: drums and trumpets.

Enter KING RICHARD, Bishop of Carlisle, AUMERLE, and Soldiers.

K. Rich. Barkloughly castle call you1this at hand ? Aum. Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air, After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

K. Rich. Needs must I like it well; I weep for joy, To stand upon my kingdom once again.

Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.
As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles, in meeting,
So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favor with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;
But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder;
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.-
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords;
This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul, rebellious arms.

Bishop. Fear not, my lord; that Power, that made you king,

Hath power to keep you king, in spite of all.
The means that Heaven yields must be embraced,
And not neglected; else, if Heaven would,

1 The quarto of 1597 reads they.

And we will not, Heaven's offer we refuse;
The proffered means of succor and redress.

Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss; Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,

Grows strong and great, in substance, and in friends.

K. Rich. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not,
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and1 lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders, and in outrage, bloody here;
But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,-
Who all this while hath revelled in the night,
Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes,-
Shall see us rising in our throne the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day;
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough, rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord;

For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed,
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay

A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,

Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right.

Enter SALISBURY.

Welcome, my lord.
Sal. Nor near nor
Than this weak arm.

How far off lies your power? farther off, my gracious lord, Discomfort guides my tongue,

1 The old copies read "that lights," &c. The alteration was made by Johnson.