King Richard the Second.

Edmund of Langley, Duke of York; }
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster;

uncles to the

King.

Henry, furnamed Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, fon to John of Gaunt; afterwards King Henry IV. Duke of Aumerle, fon to the Duke of York.

Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

Duke of Surrey.

Earl of Salisbury.

Earl Berkley.'

Bufhy,

Bagot,
Green, J

}

creatures to King Richard.

Earl of Northumberland:

Henry Percy, his fon.

Lord Rofs.

Lord Willoughby. Lord Fitzwater.

Bishop of Carlisle. Abbot of Westminster.

Lord Marshal; and another lord.

Sir Pierce of Exton. Sir Stephen Scroop.
Captain of a band of Welchmen.

Queen to King Richard.
Duchefs of Glofter.
Duchefs of York.

Lady attending on the Queen.

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, two Gardeners, Keeper, Meffenger, Groom, and other Attendants. SCENE, difperfedly in England and Wales.

Duke of Aumerle,] Aumerle, or Aumale, is the French for what we now call Albemarle, which is a town in Normandy. The old historians generally use the French title. STEEVENS.

3 Earl Berkley.] It ought to be Lord Berkley. There was no Earl Berkley till fome ages after. STEEVENS.

4 Lord Rofs.] Now fpelt Roos, one of the Duke of Rutland's titles. STEEVENS.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT I. SCENE I.

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King RICHARD, attended; JOHN of GAUNT, and other nobles, with him.

K. RICH. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,

Haft thou, according to thy oath and band,* Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold fon; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leifure would not let us hear, Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? GAUNT. I have, my liege.

K. RICH. Tell me moreover, haft thou founded him,

If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;

2thy oath and band,] When thefe public challenges were accepted, each combatant found a pledge for his appearance at the time and place appointed. So, in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. IV. C. iii. ft. 3:

"The day was fet, that all might understand,

"And pledges pawn'd the fame to keep aright." The old copies read band inftead of bond. The former is right. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

66

My mafter is arrested on a band." STEEVENS.

Band and Bond were formerly fynonymous. See note on the

To thruft his icy fingers in my maw;
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their courfe
Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north
To make his bleak winds kifs my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you much,'
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,3
And fo ingrateful, you deny me that.

P. HEN. O, that there were fome virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. JOHN.

The falt in them is hot.

9 To thruft his icy fingers in my marw;] Decker, in The Gul's Hornbook, 1609, has the fame thought: "the morning waxing cold, thruft bis frofty fingers into thy bofome."

Again, in a pamphlet entitled, The great Froft, Cold Doings, &c. in London, 1608: "The cold hand of winter is thrust into our bofoms." STEEVENS.

The correfponding paffage in the old play runs thus:

Philip, fome drink. O, for the frozen Alps
"To tumble on, and cool this inward heat,
"That rageth as a furnace feven-fold hot."

There is fo ftrong a refemblance, not only in the thought, but in the expreffion, between the paffage before us and the following lines in two of Marlowe's plays, that we may fairly fuppofe them to have been in our author's thoughts:

Again:

"O, I am dull, and the cold hand of fleep

"Hath thruft his icy fingers in my breaft,

"And made a froft within me." Luft's Dominion.

O, poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen,
"Fetch me fome water for my burning breaft,
"To cool and comfort me with longer date.'

Tamburlaine, 1591.

Luft's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained unpublished for a great number of years, and was first printed in 1657, by Francis Kirkman, a bookfeller. It must however have been written before 1593, in which year Marlowe died.

2

MALONE.

I do not afk you much,] We should read, for the fake of metre, with Sir T. Hanmer,-I afk not much. STEEVENS.

3

the word.

o ftrait,] i. e. narrow, avaricious; an unusual fenfe of STEEVENS.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison
Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize
On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the Bastard.

BAST. O, I am fcalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty.

K. JOHN. O coufin, thou art come to fet mine

eye:

The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;
And all the shrouds,+ wherewith my life should fail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
My heart hath one poor ftring to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou feeft, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.'

BAST. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward; Where, heaven he knows, how we fhall answer him:

For, in a night, the best part of my power,

4 And all the fhrouds,] Shakspeare here ufes the word shrouds in its true fenfe. The frouds are the great ropes, which come from each fide of the maft. In modern poetry the word frequently fignifies the fails of a fhip. MALONE.

This latter ufage of the word-shrouds, has hitherto escaped my notice. STEEVENS.

5 And module of confounded royalty.] Module and model, it has been already obferved, were in our author's time only different modes of fpelling the fame word. Model fignified not an archetype after which fomething was to be formed, but the thing formed after an archetype; and hence it is ufed by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for a reprefentation. So, in The London Prodigal, 1605:

"Dear copy of my husband! O let me kifs thee!

"How like him is this model?" See Vol. VI. p. 321, n. 5. MALONE.

[Kiffing a picture.

As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,

Devoured by the unexpected flood." [The King dies.
SAL. You breathe these dead news in as dead an

ear.

My liege! my lord!-But now a king,—now thus. P. HEN. Even fo muft I run on, and even so stop. What furety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay!

BAST. Art thou gone fo? I do but stay behind, To do the office for thee of revenge;

And then my foul fhall wait on thee to heaven,
As it on earth hath been thy fervant ftill..

Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,

Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths;

And instantly return with me again,

To push destruction, and perpetual fhame,
Out of the weak door of our fainting land:
Straight let us feek, or straight we shall be fought;
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

SAL. It seems, you know not then so much as we:
The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour fince came from the Dauphin;
And brings from him fuch offers of our peace
As we with honour and respect may take,
With purpose presently to leave this war.

BAST. He will the rather do it, when he fees Ourselves well finewed to our defence.

6 Were in the washes, all unwarily, &c.] This untoward accident really happened to King John himself. As he paffed from Lynn to Lincolnshire, he loft by an inundation all his treasure, carriages, baggage, and regalia. MALONE.