To bury mine intents, but also to effect I see your brows are full of discontent, [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I. London. A Street leading to the Tower. Enter Queen and Ladies. Queen. This way the king will come; this is the way To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower,1 To whose flint-bosom my condemned lord Enter KING RICHARD, and Guards. But soft, but see, or rather do not see, And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.- 1 By ill-erected is probably meant erected for evil purposes. 2 Map is used for picture. In the Rape of Lucrece, Shakspeare calls sleep "the map of death." 3 Inn does not, probably, here mean a house of public entertainment, but a dwelling or lodging generally; in which sense the word was anciently used. Why should hard-favored grief be lodged in thee, K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so, Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage 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 sometime 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 And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. 1 Sworn brother alludes to the fratres jurati, who, in the age of adventure, bound themselves by mutual oaths to share fortunes together. 2 To requite their mournful stories. 3 The quarto of 1597 reads tale. And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended. North. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed; You must to Pomfret, not unto the tower.. And, madam, there is order ta'en for you; K. Rich. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal And he shall think, that thou, which know'st the way To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. North. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Queen. And must we be divided? must we part? K. Rich. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart. 1 All Hallows, i. e. All Saints, Nov. 1. Mason suggests the propriety of reading" or shortest day." Queen. Banish us both, and send the king with me. North. That were some love, but little policy. 1 Queen. Then whither he goes, thither let me go. And piece the way out with a heavy heart. [They kiss. Queen. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part, To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart.3 So now I have mine own again, begone, [Kiss again. K. Rich. We make woe wanton with this fond delay. Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. A Room in the Duke of York's Palace. Enter YORK and his Duchess.* Duch. My lord, you told me, you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off Of our two cousins coming into London. 1 The quartos give this speech to the king. 2 Never the nigher, i. e. "it is better to be at a great distance, than, being near each other, to find that we are yet not likely to be peaceably and happily united." 3 So in King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 2: 66 the king hath killed his heart." 4 The first wife of Edward duke of York was Isabella, daughter of Peter the Cruel, king of Castile and Leon. He married her in 1372, and York. Where did I leave? Duch. Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,— Duch. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while? After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes That had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled had by her the duke of Aumerle, and all his other children. In introducing her, the Poet has departed widely from history; for she died in 1394, four or five years before the events related in the present play. After her death, York married Joan, daughter of John Holland, earl of Kent, who survived him about thirty-four years, and had three other husbands. 1 "The painting of this description is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read any thing comparable to it in any other language." -Dryden; Pref. to Troilus and Cressida. |