His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
This feast of battles with mine adversary.--
Moft mighty liege,--and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years :
As gentle and as jocund, as to jest,
Go I to fight; Truth hath a quiet breaft.

K. Rich. Farewel, my lord: securely I espy
Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
Order the trial, marshal, and begin.

[The king and the lords return to their seats. Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right! Boling.

[rifing.] Strong as a tower in hope, I cry-amen. Mar. Go bear this lance (10 an officer. J to Thomas duke

of Norfolk. 1. Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself, On pain to be found false and recreant, To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, A traitor to his God, his king, and him, And dares him to set forward to the fight. 2. Her. Here ftandeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of

Norfolk, On pain to be found false and recreant, Both to defend himself, and to approve Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, To God, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal; Courageously, and with a free desire, Attending but the signal to begin. Mar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.

[A charge founded. Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down'.

• Tbis feast of battlem) “War is death's feas," is a proverbial saying. See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

- as to jest,] To jest sometimes fignifies in old language, to play a part in a mask. FARMER.

- barb brown bis warder down.] A warder appears to have been a kind of truncheon carried by the person who prefided at these fingle combats. STEEVENS. VOL. V.

с

K. Rich.

9

1

1

K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
And both return back to their chairs again :-
Withdraw with us :--and let the trumpets sound,
While we return these dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish. Draw near,

[to the Combatants.
And list, what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom's earth should not be foil'd
With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of cruel wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;
[And for we think the eagle-winged pride ?
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set you on?
To wake our peace 4, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;]
Which so rouz'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating 1hock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood ;-
Therefore, we banish you our territories :-
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

Boling. Your will be done: This must my comfort be,
That sun, that warms you here, shall shine on me;

2 And for we ibink tbe eagle-winged pride &c.] These five verses are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the first of 1598. Pope.

Dr. Warburton thinks with some probability that these lines were rejected by Shakspeare himself. His idle cavil, that “ peace awake is still peace, as well as when asleep", is refuted by Mr. Steevens in the subquent note.

MALONE. 3 - set you on) The old copy reads-on you. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

4 Towake our peace,] It is true, that peace awake is fill peace, as well as when asleep; but peace awakened by the tumults of these jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey inages fufficiently opposed to each other for the poet's purpose. To wake peace is to introduce discord. Peace asleep, is peace exerting its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war. STEEVENS.

And

And those his golden beams, to you here lent,
Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce :
The fly-flow hours s fhall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile ;--
The hopeless word of never to return-
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Nor. A heavy sentence, my most fovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
A dearer merito, not so deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hand.
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native Ěnglish, now I muft forego:
And now my tongue's use is to me no more,
Than an unstringed viol, or a harp ;
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And duli, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now;
What is thy sentence then, but speechless death.
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate ? ;
After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Nor. Then thus f turn me from my country's light, Todwell in solemn shades of endless night. [retiring.

K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,

5 The fly. Now bourse) Mr. Pope reads--fly-low. The former word appears to me more intelligible :" the thievish minutes as they pafs." MALONE. 6 A dearer merit-] Merit is here used for meed or reward. MALONE. compalionate;s for plaintive. WARUBURTON. C 2

(Our

7

(Our part therein we banish with yourselves)
To keep the oath that we adminifter:
You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
This lowering tempeft of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,
'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

Boling. I swear.
Nor. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy';
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail sepulcher of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confess thy treasons, ere thou fly the realm ;
Since thou haft far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd, as from hence!
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know ;
And all too soon, I fear the king shall rue.-
Farewel, my liege :-Now no way can I ftray;

8 (Our part &c.] It is a question much debated amongst the writers of the law of nations, whether a banish'd man may be still tied in allegiance to the state which sent him into exile. Tully and lord chancellor Clarendon declare for the affirmative : Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, seems to be of the same opinion. WARBURTON.

9 Norfolk, so far &c.] I do not clearly see what is the sense of this abrupt lire, but suppose the meaning to be this : Norfolk, so far I have addreiled myself to thee as to mine enemy, I now utter my last words with kindness and tenderness, Confess tby creasons. JOHNSON.

All the old copies read : ro fare. STEEVENS.

Surely fare was a misprint for forre, the old spelling of the word now placed in the text-Perhaps the author intended that Hereford in speaking this line should shew some courtesy to Mowbray ;--and the meaning may be, So much civility as an enemy has a right to, I am willing to offer to thee. MALONE,

Save back to England, all the world's my way'. [Exit.

K. Ķich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes I see thy grieved heart: thy fad aspect Hath from the number of his banish'd years Pluck'd four away ;-Six frozen winters spent, Return [to Bol.) with welcome home from banishment.

Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs,
End in a word ; Such is the breath of kings.

Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exile :
But little vantage shall I reap thereby
For, ere the six years, that he hath to spend,
Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dry'd lamp, and time-bewafted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou haft many years to live. Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give : Shorten my days thou canst with

sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow :
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage ;
Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
K. Rich. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice ",

- all the world's my way. ] Perhaps Milton had this in his mind when he wrote these lines :

16 The world was all before them, where to choose

• Their place of reft, and Providence their guide.” JOHNSON. The Duke of Norfolk after his banithment went to Venice, where, says Holinthed, “ for thought and melancholy he deceased.” MALONE. I lhould point the passage thus :

Now no way can I Aray Save back to England :--all the world's my way. There's no way for me to go wrong, except back to England. MASON,

? And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow :) It is matter of very melancholy confideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON.

3 - upon good advice,] Upon great confideration. Sce Vol. I. p. 137, no S, MALONE.

Whereto

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