Boling. Are you contented to resign the crown? Now mark me how I will undo myself:- North. No more, but that These accusations, and these grievous crimes, K. Rich. Must I do so? and must I ravel out Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop, 1 Oil of consecration. 2 The first quarto reads duty's rites. 3 Thus the folio. The quarto reads that swear. And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,- Have here delivered me to my sour cross, And water cannot wash away your sin. North. My lord, despatch; read o'er these articles. K. Rich. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see; And yet salt water blinds them not so much, But they can see a sort of traitors here. Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest; For I have given here my soul's consent, To undeck the pompous body of a king; Make glory base; and sovereignty, a slave; Proud majesty, a subject; state, a peasant. North. My lord, K. Rich. No lord of thine, thou haught, insulting man, Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title, No, not that name was given me at the font,- Good king, great king,-(and yet not greatly good,) 3 Boling. Go, some of you, and fetch a looking-glass. [Exit an Attendant. 1 A sort is a set or company. 2 i. e. haughty. 3 His for its. It was common in the Poet's time to use the personal for the neutral pronoun. North. Read o'er this paper, while the glass doth come. K. Rich. Fiend! thou torment'st me ere I come to hell. Boling. Urge it no more, my lord Northumberland. North. The commons will not then be satisfied. K. Rich. They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough, When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that's—myself. Re-enter Attendant, with a glass. Give me that glass, and therein will I read.- And made no deeper wounds?-O, flattering glass, Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face, Did keep ten thousand men ? Was this the face, That, like the sun, did make beholders wink? 2 Was this the face, that faced so many follies, A brittle glory shineth in this face: As brittle as the glory is the face; [Dashes the glass against the ground. For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face. Boling. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed The shadow of your face. K. Rich. ; Say that again. 1 "To his household came every day to meate ten thousand men.”— Chronicle History. 2 The quarto omits this line and the four preceding words. There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king, Boling. Name it, fair cousin. K. Rich. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king : For, when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects; being now a subject, Being so great, I have no need to beg. K. Rich. And shall I have? Boling. You shall. K. Rich. Then give me leave to go. 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?-Conveyers1 are you all, That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.2 [Exeunt K. RICH., some Lords, and a 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 woful pageant have we here beheld. Car. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn. Aum. You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot? Abbot. Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament 1 "To convey" is the word for sleight of hand or juggling. Richard means that it is a term of contempt "jugglers are you all." 2 This is the last of the additional lines first printed in the quarto of 1608. In the first editions there is no personal appearance of king Richard. To bury mine intents, but also to effect [Exeunt. SCENE I. London. ACT V. 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,' 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. |