SCENE II." The Coast of Wales. A Castle in view. Flourish: Drums and Trumpets. Enter King RICHARD, Bishop of Carlisle, AUMERLE, and Soldiers. K. Rich. Barkloughly-castle call you this at hand? Aum. Yea, my lord: How brooks your grace the air, After late tossing on the breaking seas?" K. Rich. Needs must I like it well; weep for joy, Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs: Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting; Salisbury. He thinks, therefore, the line is genuine. See sc. iii, p. 82. Stowe expressly says, that "Owen Glendower served King Richard at Flint-Castle." Malone. 6 Here may be properly inserted the last scene of the second Act. Johnson. 7 After late tossing &c.] The old copies redundantly read: After your late tossing, &c. Steevens. 8 smiles in meeting;] It has been proposed to read—in weeping; and this change the repetition in the next line seems plainly to point out. Steevens. As a long parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting;] σε Ως ειπων, αλόχοιο Φίλης εν χερσιν έθηκε “ ΔΑΚΡΥΟΕΝ ΓΕΛΑΣΑΣΑ.” Hom. Il. Ζ. Perhaps smiles is here used as a substantive. As a mother plays fondly with her child from whom she has been a long time parted, crying, and at the same time smiling, at meeting him. It has been proposed to read-smiles in weeping, and I once thought the emendation very plausible. But I am now persuaded the text is right. If we read weeping, the long parted mother and her child do not meet, and there is no particular cause assigned for either her smiles or her tears. Malone. From the actual smiles and tears of the long parted mother, &c. we may, I think, sufficiently infer that she had met with her child. Steevens. Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth, Bishop. Fear not, my lord; that Power, that made you king, Hath power to keep you king, in spite of all. The proffer'd means of succour and redress. Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss; 9 Guard it, I pray thee,] Guard it, signifies here, as in many other places, border it. Malone. I think, that to guard, in this place, rather means, to watch or protect. M. Mason. 1 This earth shall have a feeling,] Perhaps Milton had not forgot this passage, when he wrote, in his Comus dumb things shall be mov'd to sympathize, "And the brute earth shall lend her nerves, and shake." Steevens. 2 Fear not, my lord; &c.] Of this speech, the four last lines were restored from the first edition by Mr. Pope. They were, I suppose, omitted by the players only to shorten the scene, for they are worthy of the author and suitable to the personage. Johnson. And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse;] Thus the quarto 1597, except that the word if is wanting. The quarto 1608, and the late editions, read-And we would not. The word if was supplied by Mr. Pope. Both the metre and the sense show that it was accidentally omitted in the first copy. Malone. Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security, Grows strong and great, in substance, and in friends. and lights the lower world,] The old copies read-that lights. The emendation was made by Dr. Johnson. Sense might be obtained by a slight transposition, without changing the words of the original text: That when the searching eye of heaven, that lights The lower world, is hid behind the globe; By the lower world, as the passage is amended by Dr. Johnson, we must understand, a world lower than this of ours; I suppose, our Antipodes. Malone. That this is the sense of the passage, is obvious from the King's application of the simile: "So, when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,— "Shall see us rising in our throne the east," &c. Henley. The lower world may signify our world. Malone. He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,] It is not easy to point out an image more striking and beautiful than this, in any poet, whether ancient or modern. Steevens. For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd, A glorious angel: then, if angels fight, Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right. Welcome, my lord; How far off lies your power? And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men! O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; 6 The breath of worldly men &c.] Here is the doctrine of indefeasible right expressed in the strongest terms; but our poet did not learn it in the reign of King James, to which it is now the practice of all writers, whose opinions are regulated by fashion or interest, to impute the original of every tenet which they have been taught to think false or foolish. Johnson. Far be it from me to palliate the conduct of the wretched James; but the truth is, that the inherent rights of the people had been ill understood, or rather were not acknowledged by his predecessors. The doctrine of the divine right of kings, and of the passive obedience of subjects, have never been carried further in any country than in this island, while the house of Tudor sate on the throne. Of this fact, the Homilies, composed during the reign of young Edward, and appointed in the Thirty-nine Articles to be read in churches, furnish striking and abundant proof. Take, as an instance, the following extract from the Homily against Disobedience and wilful Rebellion: "As the name of the king is very often attributed and given unto God in holy scriptures, so doth God himself in the same scriptures sometime vouchsafe to communicate his name with earthly princes, terming them Gods." 1st part. And in the 4th part, we are directed to "call to remembrance the heavy wrath and dreadful indignation of Almighty God against subjects as do only but inwardly grudge, mutter, and murmur against their governors, though their inward treason, so privily hatched in their breasts come not to an open declaration of their doings." H. White. Aum. Comfort, my liege: why looks your grace so pale? K. Kich. But now, the blood of twenty thousand men Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And, till so much blood thither come again, Have I not reason to look pale and dead?? All souls that will be safe, fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride. Aum. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are. K. Rich. I had forgot myself: Am I not king? Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleep'st. Is not the king's name forty thousand names? 9 Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground, Ye favourites of a king; Are we not high? High be our thoughts: I know, my uncle York Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who Comes here? Enter SCROOP. Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege, Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him. K. Rich. Mine ear is open,1 and my heart prepar'd; The worst is worldly loss, thou canst unfold. 7 Have I not reason to look pale and dead?] So, in King Henry IV, P. II: "Even such a man "So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, "Drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night." Again, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: » 8 "So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim." Malone. sluggard-] So the folio. The quartos have-coward. Malone. 9 Is not the king's name forty thousand names?] Thus, in King Richard III: "Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength." See a speech of Antigonus, in Plutarch, of this kind, Vol. II, p. 199, 4to. Gr. S. W. 1 Mine ear is open, &c.] It seems to be the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and consequently to interest the reader in his favour. He gives him only passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor, rather than of a king. In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive; but in his distress he is wise, patient, and pious. Johnson. |