SCENE V. Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,- War. Then let the earth be drunken with our I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly. Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine, Beseeching thee,-if with thy will it stands, Rich. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Let me embrace thee in my weary arms:- Geo. Yet let us all together to our troops, [Exeunt. SCENE IV. The same. Another Part of the Field. Excursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIF FORD. 'Rich. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone: To execute the like upon thyself; [They fight. WARWICK enters; CLIF- Rich. Nay, Warwick, single out some other For I myself will hunt this wolf to death. [Exeunt. Statius, Theb. ii. v. 453. 5 Two very similar lines in the preceding play are spoken of Richard's father by Clifford's father:-'Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase; For I myself must hunt this deer to death.' 6 The leading thought in both these soliloquies is borrowed from Holinshed, p. 665. This deadly conflict! continued ten hours in doubtful state of victorie, uncertainlie heaving and setting on both sides,' &c. Steevens points out a similar comparison in Virgil, Æn. lib. x. ver. 354, which originates with Homer, Iliad xiv. 7 This speech is mournful and soft, exquisitely suited to the character of the king, and makes a pleasing inter-1 Another Part of the Field. Alarum. Enter KING HENRY. *K. Hen. This battle fares like to the morning's war," When dying clouds contend with growing light; Sometime, the flood prevails; and then the wind; Have chid me from the battle; swearing both, * So * Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! * Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade *To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, *Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy * To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery? O, yes it doth; a thousand fold it doth. *And to conclude,-the shepherd's homely curds, *His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, *His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade *All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, * Is far beyond a prince's delicates, * His viands sparkling in a golden cup, His body couched in a curious bed, * When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him. Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his Father, dragging in the dead Body. Son. Ill blows the wind, that profits nobody.This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight, change, by affording, amidst the tumult and horror of the battle, an unexpected glimpse of rural innocence and pastoral tranquillity.-Johnson. There are some verses preserved of Henry VI. which are in a strain of the same pensive moralizing character. The reader may not be displeased to have them here subjoined, that he may compare them with the congenial thoughts the poes has attributed to him: 'Kingdoms are but cares; Pleasure is a privy [game], Who meaneth to remove the rock Shall mire himself, and hardly scape The swelling of the flood.' 8 These two horrible instances are selected to show May be possessed with some store of crowns: My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks; K. Hen. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times! Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens, 'Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity. *Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear *And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war, * Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief.1 r; Enter a Father, who has killed his Son, with the 'Fath. Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, *My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre ; post amain, Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds Nay, stay not to expostulate, make speed; 'K. Hen. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Not that I fear to stay, but love to go SCENE VI. The same. A loud Alarum. Enter Clif. Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies, deeds! O, that my death would stay these ruthful If you contend, a thousand lives must wither. 'Misthink the king, and not be satisfied! Son. Was ever son, so rued a father's death? Fath. Was ever father, so bemoan'd a son? 'K. Hen. Was ever king, so griev'd for subjects' woe ? Much is your sorrow; mine, ten times so much. Son. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep [Exit with the Body. *Fath. These arms of mine shall be thy windingsheet; my fill. the innumerable calamities of civil war. Raphael has introduced the second of these incidents in his picture of the battle of Constantine and Maxentius. 1 The king intends to say that the state of their hearts and eyes shall be like that of the kingdom in a civil war; all shall be destroyed by power formed within themselves. 2 Stratagems here means direful events. My love, and fear, glew'd many friends to thee; And what makes robbers bold, but too much lenity? Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds; The air hath got into my deadly wounds, 5 Think unfavourably of 6 Obsequious is here careful of obsequies or funeral rites. See Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 1. 7 In the old play the stage direction adds, with an arrow in his neck. It is thought that Beaumont and Fletcher ridiculed this, by introducing Ralph, the gro cer's prentice, in the Knight of the Burning Pestle, with 3 Of these obscure lines the following explanation by a forked arrow through his head. The circumstance is Henley is the most probable which has been offered :-related by Holinshed, p. 664: The Lord Clifford, eiHad the son been younger he would have been preclud-ther for heat or paine, putting off his gorget suddenlie, ed from the levy which brought him to the field; and with an arrow (as some saie) without a head, was strick had the father recognized him before their mortal en- en into the throte, and immediately rendered his spirit." counter, it would not have been too late to have saved 8 Hence perhaps originated the following passage in him from death. The Bard of Gray : 4 To take on is a phrase still in use in common par. jance, and signifies to persist in clamorous lamentation. | The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born, Gone to salute the rising morn.' Edw. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thes. Geo. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now? Come, York, and Richard, Warwick, and the rest Edw. Now breathe we, lords; good fortune And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful * Some troops pursue the bloody-minded queen ;- Rich. A deadly groan, like life and death's de- Edw. See who it is: and now the battle's ended, If friend, or foe, let him be gently us'd. War. They mock thee, Clifford! swear as thou blood Stifle the villain, whose unstanched thirst War. Ay, but he's dead: Off with the traitor's And rear it in the place your father's stands.- And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen: The scatter'd foe, that hopes to rise again: ford; Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch From whence that tender spray did sweetly I mean our princely father, duke of York. head, Your father's head, which Clifford placed there: Edw. Bring forth that fatal screechowl to our That nothing sung but death' to us and ours: And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak. thee? Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life, Rich. O, 'would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth; Because he would avoid such bitter taunts, Rich. Clifford, ask mercy, and obtain no grace. 1 Thus in King Richard III. :— Yet look to have them buz, to offend thine ears. And then to Britany I'll cross the sea, To effect this marriage, so it please my lord. *For on thy shoulder do I build my seat; For Gloster's dukedom is too ominous. ACT III. [Exeunt. SCENE I. A Chase in the North of England. 1 Keep. Under this thick-grown brake' we'} For through this laund" anon the deer will come; * 2 Keep. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot. 1 Keep. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross bow Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost. *Here stand we both, and aim we at the best: *And, for the time shall not seem tedious, presented these characters, Sineklo and Humphrey. Humphrey was probably Humphrey Jeaffes, mentioned Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front. 2 Departing for separation. To depart, in old lan-in Mr. Henslowe's manuscript; Sincklo we have before guage, is to part. Thus in the old marriage service:Till death us depart.' 3 We have this also in King Richard III :— Out on you, owls! nothing but songs of death. 4 Sour words; words of asperity. Verie eagre or Bowre: peracerous.'-Baret. 5 Alluding to the deaths of Thomas of Woodstock and Humphrey, duke of Gloster. The author of the old play, in which this line is found, had a passage of Hall's Chronicle in his thoughts, in which the unfortunate ends of those who had borne the title is recounted: he thus concludes:- So that this name of Gloucester is taken for an unhappie and unfortunate stile, as the proverb speaks of Segane's horse, whose ryder was ever unhorsed, and whose possessor was ever brought to miserie.' 6 In the folio copy, instead of two keepers, we have through negligence the names of the persons who re mentioned, his name being prefixed to some speeches in 8 A plain extended between woods, a lawn. K. Hen. My queen, and son, are gone to France for aid; And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words. "By this account, then, Margaret may win him; For she's a woman to be pitied much: *Her sighs will make a battery in his breast; *Her tears will pierce into a marble heart; The tiger will be mild, while she doth mourn; *And Nero will be tainted with remorse, *To hear, and see, her plaints, her brinish tears. Ay, but she's come to beg; Warwick, to give: She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry; He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward." She weeps, and says-her Henry is depos'd; He smiles, and says-his Edward is install'd; That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more: *Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong, * Inferreth arguments of mighty strength;2 * And, in conclusion, wins the king from her, With promise of his sister, and what else, *To strengthen and support King Edward's place. *O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul, * Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn.3 2 Keep. Say, what art thou, that talk'st of kings and queens? 'K. Hen. More than I seem, and less than I was born to: 'A man at least, for less I should not be ; And men may talk of kings, and why not I? 2 Keep. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king. "K. Hen. Why, so I am, in mind: and that's enough. 2 Keep. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown? 1 Thus also in King Richard II. :- Not all the water in the rough rude sea It is observable that this line is one of those additions to the original play which are found in the folio and not in the quarto. 2 This line has already occurred in the former Act:Inferring arguments of mighty force.' In the old play the line occurs but once. 3 The piety of Henry scarce interests us more for his misfortunes than this his constant solicitude for the welfare of his deceitful queen.-Steevens. 4 Malone thinks that there is an allusion here to an old poem by Sir Edward Dyer, beginning-My mind to me a kingdom is.' See it in Percy's Reliques, 3d edition, vol. i. p. 293. 5 This is in every particular a falsification of history. Sir John Grey fell in the second battle of St. Albans * Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear." *Look, as I blow this feather from my face, *And as the air blows it to me again, *Obeying with my wind when I do blow, And yielding to another when it blows, *Commanded always by the greater gust; * Such is the lightness of you common men. * But do not break your oaths; for, of that sin *My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty. *Go where you will, the king shall be commanded; * And be you kings; command, and I'll obey. *1 Keep. We are true subjects to the king, King Edward. *K. Hen. So would you be again to Henry, *If he were seated as King Edward is. 1 Keep. We charge you, in God's name, and in the king's, To go with us unto the officers. 'K. Hen. In God's name, lead; your king's name be obey'd: * And what God will, then let your king perform; * And what he will, I humbly yield unto. [Exeunt. SCENE II. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOSTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY. K. Edw. Brother of Gloster, at Saint Albans' "This lady's husband, Sir John Grey, was slain, Glo. Your highness shall do well, to grant her * It were dishonour, to deny it her. fighting on the side of King Henry; and so far is it from being true that his lands were seized by the conqueror (Queen Margaret) that they were in fact seized by King Edward after his victory at Towton, 1461. The present scene is laid in 1464. Shakspeare followed the old play in this instance; but when he afterwards had occasion to mention this matter in writing his King Richard III he stated it truly as he found it in the Chronicles. In Act i. Sc. 2 of that play, Richard, addressing himself to Queen Elizabeth (the Lady Grey of the present scene,) says: In all which time you and your husband Grey Were factious for the house of Lancaster; (And, Rivers, so were you :)-was not your husband In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slam ? Malone says that this circumstance, among numerous others, proves incontestably that Shakspeare was not the original author of this and the preceding play. [Aside. 'K. Edw. Widow, we will consider of your suit ;1 May it please your highness to resolve me now; Glo. [Aside.] Ay, widow? then I'll warrant you And if what pleases him, shall pleasure you. 'Fight closer, or, good faith, you'll catch a blow. *Clar. I fear her not, unless she chance to fall. [Aside. Glo. God forbid that! for he'll take vantages. [Aside. 'K. Edw. How many children hast thou, widow? tell me. Clar. I think, he means to beg a child of her. [Aside. Glo. Nay, whip me then; he'll rather give her [Aside. two. L. Grey. Three, my most gracious lord. L Grey. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant then. Glo. Ay, good leave? have you; for you will have leave, 'Till youth take leave, and leave you to the crutch. [GLOSTER and CLARENCE retire to the other side. *K. Edw. Now tell me, madam, do you love *L. Grey. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself. * L. Grey. To do them good, I would sustain 'Glo. The widow likes him not, she knits her K. Edw. [Aside.] Her looks do argue her re- *K. Edw. Then get your husband's lands, to do* All her perfections challenge sovereignty: them good. * L. Grey. Therefore I came unto your majesty. K. Edw. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got. *L. Grey. So shall you bind me to your highness' service. *K. Edw. What service wilt thou do me, if I give them? *L. Grey. What you command, that rests in me to do. *K. Edw. But you will take exceptions to my boon. *L. Grey. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it. *K. Edw. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask. *L. Grey. Why, then I will do what your grace commands. One way, or other, she is for a king; I am a subject fit to jest withal, K. Edw. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to I speak no more than what my soul intends; L. Grey. And that is more than I will yield unto: K. Edw. You cavil, widow; I did mean, my queen. L. Grey. "Twill grieve your grace, my sons should call you-father. K. Edw. No more, than when thy daughters call thee mother. Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children, Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen. [Aside. K. Edw. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had. 2 This phrase implies readiness of assent. K |