SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter KING RICHARD, attended: JOHN of GAUST, and other Nobles, with him. King Richard.

LD1 John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,

Hast thou, according to thy oath and

band,

1 Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster. Our ancestors, in their estimate of old age, appear to have reckoned somewhat differently from us, and to have considered men as old whom we should now esteem as middle-aged. With them, every man that had passed fifty seems to have been accounted an old man. John of Gaunt, at that period when the commencement of this play is laid (1398), was only fifty-eight years old: he died in 1399, aged fifty-nine. This may have arisen from its being customary in former times to enter life at an earlier period than we do now. Those who married at fifteen, had at fifty been masters of a house and family for thirty-five years. But the increased longevity of the men of the present age, arising from improved habits of cleanliness and more efficient medical and surgical aid, may account for the change in our notions.

2 When these public challenges were accepted, each combatant found a pledge for his appearance at the time and place ar Band and bond were formerly synonymous.

Brought hither Henry Hereford3 thy bold son; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ? Gaunt. I have, my liege.

K. Rich. Tell me moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;

Or worthily as a good subject should,

On some known ground of treachery in him?
Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that argu-

ment,

On some apparent danger seen in him,

Aim'd at your highness; no inveterate malice.

K. Rich. Then call them to our presence, face to face,

And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
Th' accuser, and the accused, freely speak :-
[Exeunt some Attendants.
High stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and
NORFOLK.

Boling. Many years of happy days befall
My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
Nor. Each day still better other's happiness;
Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
Add an immortal title to your crown!

3 In the old play, and in Harding's Chronicle, Bolingbroke's title is written Herford and Harford. This was the pronunciation of our poet's time, and he therefore uses this word as a dissyllable.

4 Drayton asserts that Henry Plantagenet, the eldest son of John of Gaunt, was not distinguished by the name of Bolingbroke till after he had assumed the crown. He is called earl of Hereford by the old historians, and was surnamed Bolingbroke from having been born at the town of that name in Lincolnshire, about

K. Rich. We thank you both: yet one but flatters u5,
As well appeareth by the cause you comes:
Namely, to appeal each other of high treason-
Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
Boling. First, (heaven be the record of my speech!)
In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,

Come I appellant to this princely presence-
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live:
Since, the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
And wish (so please my sovereign), ere I move,
What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword

prove.

zeal :

Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my "Tis not the trial of a woman's war, The bitter clamour of two eager tongues, Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain : The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this: Yet can I not of such tame patience boast, As to be hush'd, and nought at all to say. First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;

By the cause you come, i. e. by the cause you come on. The suppression of the preposition has been shown to have been frequent with Shakespeare.

6 My right-drawn sword is my sword drawn in a right

cause:

BB

Which else would post, until it had return'd
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,

And let him be no kinsman to my liege
I do defy him, and I spit at him ;

Call him—a slanderous coward, and a villain :
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitableR

Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
Mean time, let this defend my loyalty :—
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

Boling. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,

Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise9.
Nor. I take it up; and, by that sword I swear,
Which gently lay'd my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;

And, when I mount, alive may I not light,
If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

? Doubled is the reading of the quartos, the folio has doubly. * Inhabitable, i.e. uninhabitable. Thus used by Ben Jonson and others. Thus in Holland's Plutarch :-" Haply by the divine providence so ordering all, that some parts of the world should be habitable, others inhabitable, according to excessive cold, extreme heat, and a mean temperature of both."

9 Thus the first quarto. The quarto 1598 omits worse: the other quartos, to assist the metre, read "or what thou canst devise." The folio has "What I have spoken, or thou canst devise."

K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's

charge?

It must be great, that can inherit 10 us

So much as of a thought of ill in him.

Boling. Look, what I speak my life shall prove it

true:

That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath detain'd for lewd 11 employments,
Like a false traitor, and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,-
Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,—
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,

Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
Farther I say, and farther will maintain

Upon his bad life, to make all this good,-
That he did plot the duke of Gloster's death 12;
Suggest 13 his soon-believing adversaries;

And, consequently, like a traitor coward,

Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood:
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice, and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

10 To inherit, in the language of Shakespeare, is to possess:"Such delight

Among fresh female buds shall you this night Inherit at my house."-Romeo and Juliet, Act Thus the quarto 1597. The other quartos and folioa 11 Lewd formerly signified knavish, ungracious, naugh its now general acceptation. Vide note on Much A Nothing, Act v. Sc. 1. Vol. ii. p. 172.

b Thus the first quarto, all the other editions have fal 12 Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward 127 was murdered at Calais in 1397. See Froissart, chap. ces 13 Suggest, i. e. prompt them, set them