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York. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?

Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
Duch. Sweet York, be patient.

[Kneels. Hear me, gentle liege. Boling. Rise up, good aunt. Duch. Not yet, I thee beseech. 92 For ever will I walk upon my knees, And never see day that the happy sees, Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy, By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.96 Aum. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee. [Kneels. York. Against them both my true joints bended be. [Kneels. Ill mayst thou thrive if thou grant any grace! Duch. Pleads he in earnest? look upon his face; 100

His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest; His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:

He prays but faintly and would be denied;
We pray with heart and soul and all beside: 104
His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they
grow:

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Duch.

Nay, do not say 'stand up;' But 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up. An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach, 113 'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech. I never long'd to hear a word till now; Say 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how: 116 The word is short, but not so short as sweet; No word like 'pardon,' for kings' mouths so meet.

York. Speak it in French, king; say, 'pardonnez moy.'

Duch. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?

120

Ah! my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That sett'st the word itself against the word.
Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;
The chopping French we do not understand. 124
Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there,
Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
That hearing how our plaints and prayers do
pierce,

Pity may move thee pardon to rehearse.
Boling. Good aunt, stand up.
Duch.

128

I do not sue to stand; Pardon is all the suit I have in hand. Boling. I pardon him, as God shall pardon

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SCENE IV. Another Room in the Castle.

Enter EXTON and a Servant.

Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake?

'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?' Was it not so? Serv.

Those were his very words.

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Enter KING RICHARD.

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With being nothing. Music do I hear? [Music.
Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. 48
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering
clock:

My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward
watch,

Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

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Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.

K. Rich. I have been studying how I may Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is

compare

This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul;
My soul the father: and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world
In humours like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd 12
With scruples, and do set the word itself
Against the word:

8

Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time
4 Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.
This music mads me: let it sound no more; 61
For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
For 'tis a sign of love, and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter Groom of the Stable.
Groom. Hail, royal prince!
K. Rich.
Thanks, noble peer;
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou? and how comest thou hither,

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20

As thus, 'Come, little ones;' and then again,
'It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a needle's eye.'
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves, 24
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,
That many have and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease, 28
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king; 32
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again; and by and by
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is

36

With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd 40

man,

64

68

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76

With much ado at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
O! how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld
In London streets, that coronation day
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dress'd. 80
K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me,
gentle friend,

How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.

K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

84

That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.

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Enter Keeper, with a dish.

Keep. [To the Groom.] Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.

K. Rich. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.

96 Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. [Exit. Keep. My lord, will't please you to fall to? K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.

Keep. My lord, I dare not: Sir Pierce of Extcn, who lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!

Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. 104 [Strikes the Keeper.

Keep. Help, help, help!

Enter EXTON and Servants, armed.

K. Rich. How now! what means death in this rude assault?

Villain, thine own hand yields thy death's instrument.

108

[Snatching a weapon and killing one. Go thou and fill another room in hell. [He kills another: then EXTON strikes him down. That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand

Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.

Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high,

112 Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die. [Dies. Exton. As full of valour as of royal blood: Both have I spilt; O! would the deed were good; For now the devil, that told me I did well, Says that this deed is chronicled in hell. This dead king to the living king I'll bear. Take hence the rest and give them burial here. [Exeunt.

116

SCENE VI.-Windsor. An Apartment in the Castle.

Flourish.

Enter BOLINGBROKE and YORK, with Lords and Attendants. Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear

Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire
Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;
But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not, 4
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Welcome, my lord. What is the news?

North. First, to thy sacred state wish ï all happiness.

The next news is: I have to London sent
The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and
Kent.

The manner of their taking may appear
At large discoursed in this paper here.

8

Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains,

And to thy worth will add right worthy gains. 12

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Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou With Cain go wander through the shade of hast wrought

A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land. 36
Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did
I this deed.

Boling. They love not poison that do poison
need,

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night,

And never show thy head by day nor light. 44
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me
grow:

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Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent.
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
March sadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt.

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K. Hen. So shaken as we are, so wan with Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;

4

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs 8
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now,
in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore,
friends,

For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old, 28
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.

32

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,

40

And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight; when all athwart there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news; 37
12 Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered;
Upon whose dead corpse' there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation
By those Welsh women done, as may not be
Without much shame re-told or spoken of.
K. Hen. It seems then that the tidings of
this broil

16

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,-
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross 20
We are impressed and engag'd to fight,-

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