Bast. O! I am scalded with my violent motion And spleen of speed to see your majesty.
Sal. It seems you know not then so much as
The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
K. John. O cousin! thou art come to set And brings from him such offers of our peace 84
My liege! my lord! But now a king, now thus. P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay? 69
Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
To do the office for thee of revenge,
And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
As it on earth hath been thy servant still. 73
Now, now, you stars, that move in your right
spheres,
Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths,
And instantly return with me again,
To push destruction and perpetual shame
Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
And knows not how to do it but with tears.
Bast. O! let us pay the time but needful woe
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms, 116
Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be And we shall shock them. Nought shall make
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.
80 If England to itself do rest but true. [Exeunt.
DUKE OF AUMERLE, Son to the Duke of York. Captain of a Band of Welshmen.
SCENE I.-London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT, and other Nobles.
K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,
Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son, Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, 4 Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? Gaunt. I have, my liege.
K. Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,
The accuser and the accused freely speak:
[Exeunt some Attendants. High-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire, In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY.
Boling. Many years of happy days befall 20 My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
Mow. Each day still better other's happiness; Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown!
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak 36 It must be great that can inherit us
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor and a miscreant;
Too good to be so and too bad to live,
So much as of a thought of ill in him.
Boling. Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;
40 That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides I say and will in battle prove,
Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,
95
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and
spring.
Further I say and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams
of blood:
64 Thomas of Norfolk, what sayst thou to this? Mow. O! let my sovereign turn away his face
Call him a slanderous coward and a villain:
Which to maintain I would allow him odds,
And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable,
Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
Meantime let this defend my loyalty:
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
Boling. Pale trembling coward, there I throw
my gage,
Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood
How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes
and ears:
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,—
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to ex-As he is but my father's brother's son,
72 If guilty dread have left thee so much strength As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop: By that, and all the rites of knighthood else, Will I make good against thee, arm to arm, 76 What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise. Mow. I take it up; and by that sword I
Now, by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize 120
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
Mow. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy
heart,
Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; 136 Take honour from me, and my life is done: Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; In that I live and for that will I die.
I slew him not; but to mine own disgrace
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament
I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
Your Grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.
This is my fault: as for the rest appeal'd,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
Which in myself I boldly will defend,
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
To prove myself a loyal gentleman
Even in the best blood chamber'd in his
bosom.
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.
K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage: do you begin.
Boling. O! God defend my soul from such deep sin.
Shall I scem crest-fall'n in my father's sight, 188 144 Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this out-dar'd dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong,
K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;
Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
This we prescribe, though no physician;
Deep malice makes too deep incision:
Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed,
Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
Gaunt. To be a make-peace shall become my
age:
160
Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's
gage.
K. Rich. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
Gaunt.
When, Harry, when?
Obedience bids I should not bid again.
K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there
is no boot.
Mow. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at
thy foot.
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:
The one my duty owes; but my fair name,-
Despite of death that lives upon my grave,- 168
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here,
Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
The which no balm can cure but his heart-
blood
172 Which breath'd this poison. K. Rich. Rage must be withstood: Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame. Mow. Yea, but not change his spots: but my shame,
And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear 192 The slavish motive of recanting fear, And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. [Exit GAUNT.
K. Rich. We were not born to sue, but to command: 196 Which since we cannot do to make you friends, Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate 200
The swelling difference of your settled hate:
Since we cannot atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor's chivalry.
Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
Be ready to direct these home alarms. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.-The Same. A Room in the DUKE
OF LANCASTER'S Palace.
Enter GAUNT and DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER. Gaunt. Alas! the part I had in Woodstock's blood
Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,
To stir against the butchers of his life.
But since correction lieth in those hands
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads. 8
Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper
spur?
Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd
Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee: 32
That which in mean men we entitle patience
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
Gaunt. God's is the quarrel; for God's sub-
stitute,
Gaunt. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.
As much good stay with thee as go with me! 57
Duch. Yet one word more. Grief boundeth
where it falls,
Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun,
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.
Lo! this is all: nay, yet depart not so;
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls, 68
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
And what hear there for welcome but my
groans?
Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
To seek out sorrow that dwells every where. 72
Desolate, desolate will I hence, and die:
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
[Exeunt.
To God, my king, and his succeeding issue,
Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;
And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
64 To prove him, in defending of myself,
I shall remember more. Bid him-ah, what?-A traitor to my God, my king, and me:
And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack! and what shall good old York there see
|