mind:

He is as like thee as a man may be, Not like to me, nor any of my kin, And yet I love him.

2415

York. Make way, unruly woman. [Erit. Duch. After, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse; Spur, post, and get before him to the king, And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse

thee.

I'll not be long behind; though I be old, I doubt not but to ride as fast as York; And never will I rise up from the ground, Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away! [Exeunt. Be gone. In the next scene, the new monarch, moved by the tears and intreaties of the Duchess, freely pardons her son Aumerle.

Scene IV.-Enter Exton, and a Servant. Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake? 2570 'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'

Was it not so?
Serv. Those were his very words.
Exton. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he:
he spake it twice,

And urg'd it twice together; did he not?
Serv. He did.

Exton. And, speaking it, he wistly look'd 2575 As who should say,--I would thou wert the

on me;

man

That would divorce this terror from my heart;

Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come,

let's go I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe. [Exeunt. Scene V-Pomfret. The Dungeon of the Castle.

Enter King Richard.

K. Rich. I have been studying how to compare

2600

2605

ease,

Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people, 2610
And none contented: Sometimes am I king;
Then treason makes me wish myself a
beggar,
And so I am. Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again; and, by-and-by, 2615
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing:-But, whate'er
I am,

Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be
eas'd

With being nothing.-Music do I hear? [Music.
Ha, ha! keep time. (1)-How sour sweet
music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion
kept!

So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear,
To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
But, for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste

me.

clock: For now hath time made me his numb'ring

2630

My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they jar Their watches unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

(1) In the following lines we have a play upon the words time (Zeit) and musical time (Takt). 4*

Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,

(Since pride must have a fall) and break the neck

Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee Since thou, created to be aw'd by man, Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;

And yet I bear a burthen like an ass, Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing (1) Bolingbroke.

Enter Keeper, with a dish.

Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.

2675 [To the Groom. K. Rich. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away. Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. [Erit. Keep. My lord, will't please you to fall to?

K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.

Keep. My lord, I dare not; Sir Pierce of Exton, who

2680

Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. [Beats the Keeper,

Keep. Help, help, help!

Enter Exton, and Servants, armed. K. Rich. How now? what means death in this rude assault? 2685

wards York,

With much ado, at length have gotten leave

To look upon my sometimes royal master's face. 2655 O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld,

In London streets that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary! That horse that thou so often hast bestrid, That horse that I so carefully have dress'd! K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,

How went he under him? Groom. So proudly, as if he had disdain'd the ground. K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;

2665

This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.

(1) Grave, gloomy.

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with Cæsar! The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.-
He was my friend, faithful and just
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to
Rome,

to me:

10

15

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar
hath wept.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 20
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man,

cause:

25

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke;
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without
30
What cause withholds you then to mourn
for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.-)
-Bear
with me,
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.-
But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he
there,

And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters! If I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius
wrong,

Who, you all know, are honourable men.
I will not do them wrong: I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and
you,

Than I will wrong such honourable men. 45
But here's a parchment, with the seal of
Cæsar;

I found it in his closet; 'tis his will. Let but the commons hear this testament, (Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read) And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,

50

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,—
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.-

55

If you have tears, prepare to shed them

mighty heart, And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 70 Even at the base of Pompey's statue, Which all the while ran blood great Cæsar fell.

Oh! what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us, fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 75 Oh! now you weep; and I perceive you feel

The dint of pity:-these are gracious drops. Kind souls! What, weep you, when you but behold

Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look ye here!

Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, by

traitors. Good friends! sweet friends! Let me not stir you up

To such a sudden flood of mutiny!
They that have done this deed are honour-

able.

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns
of time,

15

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The of despis'd love, the law's delay, pangs The insolence of office, and the spurns, That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make 20 With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear

To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns,-puzzles the will, 25 And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn away
And lose the name of action.

(Hamlet III, 1.)

THE MURDER.

Is this a dagger, which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling, as to sight? Or art thou but 5 A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable, As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use.

(1) That is, to be no mers.

10

senses,

blood,

15

brates

for fear

25

MERCY.

crown:

His sceptre shows the force of temporal
power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of
kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway, 10
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest
God's,
When mercy seasons justice.

(Merch. of Ven. IV, 1.)