son.

FROM KING RICHARD II.

Act III. Scene 2.

RICHARD'S DESPAIR.

Of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills;
And yet not so-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposéd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death;
And that small model1 of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed;
All murdered.-For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps Death his court; and there the Antic2 sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle-wall, and-farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends:-subjected thus,

How can you say to me, I am a king?

1 "For mould; that earth which, closing upon the body, takes its form."-JohnModel might mean here simply the bodily flesh.

2 The fool of the old farces.

FROM KING RICHARD II.

Act v. Scene 2.

YORK'S CONTRAST OF BOLINGBROKE AND RICHARD.

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.

York. Where did I leave?

Duch. At that sad stop, my lord,

Where rude misgovern'd hands, from windows' tops,
Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.

York. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,— Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,

With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,
While all tongues cried, God save thee, Bolingbroke!
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imagery, had said at once,—
Jesu preserve thee! welcome Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus,—I thank you, countrymen;
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.

Duch. Alas, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?
York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious;

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard! no man cried, God save him!
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,—
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,--

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.

FROM SECOND PART OF HENRY IV.
Act III. Scene 1.

HENRY'S SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep!-O'sleep, O gentle sleep,

F

109

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell?"
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge.

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?–
Canst thou, O partial Sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king?—Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clarence. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,

That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,

Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time!

Brak. What was your dream, my Lord? I pray you
tell me.

Clar. Methought that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy,2
And, in my company, my brother Gloster,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

1 The alarm of danger was communicated by the watchmen in garrison towns by "He had a case or box to shelter him from the weather."-Hanmer.

a bell.

The Duchess of Burgundy was the sister of Clarence, Gloucester, and Edward IV. Her court was, therefore, the natural resort of the Yorkist party.

FROM RICHARD III.

Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O, Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore agony?
Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;

O, then began the tempest to my soul!

I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,1
Who cried aloud- -What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud,—
Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,-
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;-
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments !—
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howléd in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise

1 The king-maker.

* Prince Edward, the son of Henry VI.

III

I trembling wak'd; and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell,-
Such terrible impression made my dream.
Brak. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you;

I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

Clar. O, Brakenbury, I have done those things,—
That now give evidence against my soul,-

For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites me !—
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou will be aveng'd on my misdeeds,

Yet execute thy wrath on me alone :

O, spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children !-
I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

FROM JULIUS CÆSAR.

Act III. Scene 2.

MARK ANTONY'S ORATION OVER THE BODY OF CÆSAR.

Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interréd with their bones;1
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 answer'd 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 to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
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;

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see, that on the Lupercal,2
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.

1 Compare Henry VIII. Act IV. Sc. 2.

Was this ambition?

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.

2 The feast of Lycæan Pan.