Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

K. RICH. Join not with grief; fair woman, do

not so,

To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;

From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee in some religious house:
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and
mind

Transform'd and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke
Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod;
And fawn on rage with base humility,

So, in an ancient satirical song, quoted by the Rev. T. Warton, in his Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. 45:

"Syre Simonde de Mountfort hath suore bi ys chyn,
"Hevede he nou here the erle of Waryn,

"Shuld he never more come to is yn.'

Lord Howard's magnificent seat in Essex is still called AudleyInn. STEEVENS.

I cannot agree with Steevens. Inn means a house of entertainment, and is opposed to alehouse in the following line.

M. MASON.

4 Join not with grief,] Do not thou unite with grief against me; do not, by thy additional sorrows, enable grief to strike me down at once. My own part of sorrow I can bear, but thy affliction will immediately destroy me. JOHNSON.

sIam SWORN BROTHER,

To grim necessity,] I have reconciled myself to necessity, I am in a state of amity with the constraint which I have sustained. JOHNSON.

Which art a lion, and the king of beasts"?

K. RICH. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,

I had been still a happy king of men 7.

Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:

Think, I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st, As from my death-bed, my last living leave.

In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire

With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages, long ago betid:

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs 3,
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me",

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why', the senseless brands will sympathize

The expression-sworn brother, alludes to the fratres jurati, who, in the ages of adventure, bound themselves by mutual oaths, to share fortunes together. See Mr. Whalley's note on King Henry V. Act II. Sc. I. STEEVENS.

6 THE king of beasts?] So the original quarto. In all subsequent editions-a king of beasts. MALONE.

7- king of men.] 'Tis marvellous, that Mr. Upton did not quote this passage as an evidence of our author's learning, and observe, that a more faithful translation of Homer's avat dvdgav could not have been made. STEEVENS.

8 to quit their griefs,] To retaliate their mournful stories. JOHNSON.

9 Tell thou the lamentable FALL of me,] Thus the folio. So, in King Henry VIII.:

"And when you would say something that is sad,
"Speak how I fell."

The reading, however, of the first quarto, 1597, is also much in our author's manner:

"Tell thou the lamentable tale of me."

But the consideration that fall, the reading of the folio, was not copied from the corruption of any precedent quarto, and its correspondence with the quotation from Henry VIII. induce me to think it was Shakspeare's alteration, and to depart from the original copy, which I never do without reluctance. MALONE. For why,] The poet should have ended this speech with the foregoing line, and have spared his childish prattle about the fire. JOHNSON.

The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compassion, weep the fire out :

And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.

NORTH. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;

2

You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
And, madam, there is order ta'en for you2;
With all swift speed you must away to France.
K. RICH. Northumberland, thou ladder where-
withal

The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,-
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head,
Shall break into corruption: thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;

And he shall think, that thou, which know'st the

way

To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,

Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way

To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger and deserved death.

NORTH. My guilt be on my head, and there an
end.

Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.

This is certainly childish prattle, as Johnson calls it; but it is of the same stamp with the other speeches of Richard, after the landing of Bolingbroke, which are a strange medley of sense and puerility. M. MASON.

2

there is order ta'en for you ;] So, in Othello:
"Honest lago hath ta'en order for it." MALONE.

3 AND he shall think,] The conjunction-And, without which the metre is deficient, was supplied by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS.

5

K. RICH. Doubly divorc'd?-Bad men, ye violate A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me; And then, betwixt me and my married wife.Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me; And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made 2.Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north, Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; My wife to France; from whence, set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May, Sent back like Hallowmas3, or short'st of day.

QUEEN. And must we be divided? must we part? K. RICH. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the king with

me.

NORTH. That were some love, but little policy ". QUEEN. Then whither he goes, thither let me

5

go3.

K. RICH. So two, together weeping, make one

woe.

Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near' 6.

* Let me UNKISS THE OATH 'twixt thee and me;

And yet not so, for WITH A KISS 'TWAS MADE.] A kiss appears to have been an established circumstance in our ancient nuptial ceremony. So, in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613, the Duke, on parting with his wife, says to her:

66

The kiss thou gav'st me in the church, here take."
STEEVENS.

3- Hallowmas,] All-hallows, or All-hallowtide; the first of November. STEEVENS.

4 That were some love, &c.] The quartos give this speech to the King. STEEVENS.

s Then whither he goes, thither let me go.] So, in the Book of Ruth, i. 16:-" for whither thou goest, I will go." STEEVENS. 6 Better far off, than-near, be NE'ER THE NEAR'.] To be never the nigher, or, as it is commonly spoken in the midland counties, ne'er the ne'er, is, to make no advance towards the good desired. JOHNSON.

So, in The Legend of Shore's Wife, by Thomas Churchyard, Mirrour for Magistrates, 1578:

Go, count thy way with sighs; I, mine with groans.
QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest

moans.

K. RICH. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way
being short,

And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief:
One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
Thus give I mine, and thus I take thy heart.

[They kiss. QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part,

To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart".

[Kiss again.

So, now I have mine own again, begone,
That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

K. RICH. We make woe wanton with this fond

delay:

Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.

[Exeunt.

Compel the hauke to sit, that is unmann'd,
"Or make the hound untaught to draw the deere,
"Or bring the free against his will in band,
"Or move the sad a pleasant tale to hear,

"Your time is lost, and you are never the near."

The meaning is, it is better to be at a great distance, than being near each other, to find that we yet are not likely to be peaceably and happily united.' MALONE.

Adonis :

and KILL thy HEART.] So, in our author's Venus and

they have murder'd this poor heart of mine."

MALONE.

Again, in King Henry V. Act II. Sc. I.: "he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days: the king hath kill'd his heart." STEEVENS.