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ACT III.

SCENE I. Bristol. Before the castle.

Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, Ross, PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, 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:
You have in manner with your sinful hours
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
Broke the possession of a royal bed

And stain'd 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,

Near to the king in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me,
Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment;

3. part, depart from.
9. happy, well endowed (in
blood and lineaments).

10

20

20. clouds. That sighs turn into clouds is a recurring fancy in Shakespeare's earlier work.

Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Razed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,
Save men's opinions and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman.

This and much more, much more than twice all this,

Condemns you to the death. See them deliver'd

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
dispatch'd.

[Exeunt Northumberland and others,
with the prisoners.

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

York. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd
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.

23. Dispark'd, disenclosed by pulling down the hedges and fences.

24. household coat, my arms blazoned in the stained glass. 25. imprese, heraldic emblem or device.

[Exeunt.

30

40

29. the death, death authoritatively inflicted, execution.

43. To fight with Glendower and his complices. This appears

to blend two distinct occasions of hostility between Henry and Glendower, as reported by

SCENE II. The coast of Wales. A castle in

view.

Drums: flourish and colours.

Enter KING RICH

ARD, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, AUMERLE,
and Soldiers.

K. Rich. Barkloughly castle call they this 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,

Holinshed. (1) Glendower
'served King Richard at Flint
Castle, when he was taken by
Henry Duke of Lancaster'; (2)
he made war against . Lord
Grey [Sept. 1400].
The
king, advertised of such re-
bellious exploits, enterprised by
the said Owen and his unruly
complices, determined to
chastise them,' etc. Shake-
speare's fighting Glendower'
seems to be a reminiscence of
(2) transferred to the date and
circumstances of (1). Theobald,
however, doubted the genuine-
ness of this isolated allusion;

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and Mr. Stone thinks these lines introduced a lost or omitted portion of the play' in which Glendower's attack on Lord Grey was presented as warfare on Richard's behalf.

I. Barkloughly, Harlech. The name is due to a mere scribal or printer's blunder in Holinshed, standing for Hertlowle' or Hertlow, the last an Anglicised form of the Old Welsh Harddlech.'

8. a long-parted mother, a mother long-parted (with her child).

And do thee favours 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 rebellion's arms.

Car. 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,

And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,

The proffer'd means of succour 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 power.
K. Rich. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou

not

That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,
Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
In murders and in outrage, boldly here;

23. senseless conjuration, adjuration of an inanimate thing. 29-32. Omitted in Ff.

20

30

40

40. boldly; Collier's emendation. Q 'bouldy'; the rest, and Ff, bloody.'

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 pluck'd from off their backs,

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath revell'd 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 off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord :

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
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: how far off lies your power?
Sal. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men !

64. near, nearer.

70. twelve thousand. Accord

50

60

70

ing to Holinshed, forty thousand.

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