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K. Rich. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king1;

For, when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,
I have a king here to my flatterer.

Being so great, I have no need to beg.
Boling. Yet ask.

K. Rich. And shall I have it?

Boling. You shall.

K. Rich. Why then give me leave to go.
Boling. Whither?

K. Rich. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.

Boling. Go, some of you; convey him to the Tower. K. Rich. O, good! Convey?-Conveyers are you all3,

That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall".

[Exeunt K. RICHARD, and Guard. Boling. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves'.

[Exeunt all but the ABBOT, Bishop of CARLISLE, and AUMERLE.

Abbot. A woeful pageant have we here beheld. Bishop. The woe's to come: the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

Fair cousin! I am greater than a king ;] The quartos read, "Fair Coz! why I am," &c. Bolingbroke's words were "fair cousin," which, it is obvious, the king ought to repeat.

99 66

5 O, good! Convey-Conveyers are you all,] To " convey," conveyer," and "conveyancer" were, in Shakespeare's time, words of double meaning. To 66 convey" meant to cheat and defraud, or, more strictly, to pick pockets; and 66 conveyers" and "conveyancers were not only lawyers, but persons who

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practised these tricks of sleight of hand.

6 That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.] This is the last line of the "new additions," which first appeared in the quarto, 1608, and afterwards in the quarto, 1615, and in the folios.

7 On Wednesday next we solemnly set down

Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.] The quartos of 1597 and 1598 read:

"Let it be so and lo! on Wednesday next

We solemnly proclaim our coronation :

Lords, be ready all."

The change was in part rendered necessary by the "new additions.”

VOL. IV.

Aum. You holy clergymen, is there no plot

To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?

Abbot. My lord, before I freely speak my mind herein,

You shall not only take the sacrament

To bury mine intents, but also to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise.

I see your brows are full of discontent,

Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears:
Come home with me to supper; I will lay

A plot, shall show us all a merry day.

[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

London. A Street leading to the Tower.

Enter QUEEN, and Attendants.

Queen. This way the king will come: this is the

way

To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower,

To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
Have any resting for her true king's queen.

Enter King RICHARD, and Guard.

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither: yet look up, behold,
That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.-
Ah! thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
Thou map of honour; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,

Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee in some religious house:
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.

Queen. What! is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform'd and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart? The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,

Which art a lion, and a king of beasts"?

K. Rich. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,

I had been still a happy king of men.

Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France: Think I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st,

As from my death-bed, my last living leave.

In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales

Of woeful ages long ago betid;

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable tale of me',

8

have STRICKEN down.] So the folios. The quartos read "thrown down," which might be measure if thrown were read as two syllables, as it was formerly often spelt, throwen.

9

and a king of beasts?] The quarto has " and the king of beasts." Tell thou the lamentable TALE of me,] This is the reading of every quarto, 1597, 1598, 1608, and 1615, and it accords with what has been previously said

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And in compassion weep the fire out;

And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.

North. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd: You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.

And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:
With all swift speed you must away to France.

K. Rich. Northumberland, thou ladder, wherewithal
The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
Shall break into corruption.
Thou shalt think,

Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all:

He shall think, that thou, which knowest the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way

To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger and deserved death.

North. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part, for you must part forthwith.

K. Rich. Doubly divorc'd!-Bad men, ye violate
A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me,
And then, betwixt me and my married wife.—
Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.-
Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,

about narrating "tales." The folio prints fall, but evidently with some loss of force, as well as of correctness.

Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; My wife to France': from whence, set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May,

Sent back like Hallowmas, or short'st of day.

Queen. And must we be divided? must we part? K. Rich. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

Queen. Banish us both, and send the king with me. North. That were some love, but little policy3. Queen. Then whither he goes, thither let me go. K. Rich. So two, together weeping, make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; Better far off, than near, be ne'er the near.

Go; count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.

Queen. So longest way shall have the longest moans. K. Rich. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being

short,

And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part:
Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

[They kiss. Queen. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good

part,

To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart.

[They kiss again.

So, now I have mine own again, begone,

That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

K. Rich. We make woe wanton with this fond

delay:

Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. [Exeunt.

2 My WIFE to France:] All the quartos have "wife :" the folio, 1623, queen. She was no longer queen, and Richard just before calls her "wife."

3 That were some love, &c.] The quartos give this speech to the king. It is probably an error, which the folio corrects.

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