And mark my greeting well; for what I speak,
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine foul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a mifcreant;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live ;
Since, the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
And wish, (fo please my fovereign,) ere I move,
What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword
NOR. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:
'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;
The blood is hot, that must be cool'd for this.
Yet can I not of fuch tame patience boaft,
As to be hush'd, and nought at all to say:
First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
Which else would post, until it had return'd
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
I do defy him, and I fpit at him;
Call him a flanderous coward, and a villain:
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds;
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable 4
right-drawn-] Drawn in a right or just cause.
inhabitable, That is, not habitable, uninhabitable.
Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
Mean time let this defend my loyalty, -
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLING. Pale trembling coward, there I throw
Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
And lay afide my high blood's royalty,
Which fear not reverence, makes thee to except:
If guilty dread bath left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood elfe,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devife.
NOR. I take it up; and, by that sword I swear,
Which gently lay'd my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
And, when I mount, alive may I not light,
If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!
K. RICH. What doth our coufin lay to Mowbray's
It must be great, that can inherit us5
So much as of a thought of ill in him.
BOLING. Look, what I speak my life shall prove
Ben Jonson uses the word in the same sense in his Catiline: " And pour'd on some inhabitable place. STEEVENS So alfo Braithwaite, in his Survey of Histories, 1614: "Others, in imitation of some valiant knights, have frequented defarts and inhabited provinces. MALONE.
that can inherit us, &c.] To inherit is no more than to possess, though such a use of the word may be peculiar to Shakspeare. Again, in Romeo and Juliet, A&. I. fc. ii:
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
"Inherit at my house. STEEVENS.
See Vol. IV. p. 127. n. 6. MALONE.
That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand no
In name of lendings for your highness soldiers ;
The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,
Like a false traitor, and injurious villain.
Besides I fay, and will in battle prove,-
Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,-
That all the treasons, for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and
Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life, to make all this good,
That he did plot the duke of Glofter's death;"
Suggest his foon-believing adversaries;
And, confequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluic'd out his innocent foul through streams of
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me, for justice, and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my defcent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
K. RICH. Howhigh a pitch his resolution foars!Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this? 6-for lewd employments, Lewd here signifies wicked. so used in many of our old statutes. MALONE.
Thus, in King Richard III:
"But you must trouble him with lewd complaints."
7-the duke of Glofter's death; Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest fon of Edward III.; who was murdered at Calais, in 1397. MALONE.
& Suggest his foon-believing 'adverfaries; i. e. prompt, set them on by injurious hints. Thus, in The Tempeft:
"They'll take fuggeftion, as a cat laps milk." STEEVENS.
NOR. O, let my sovereign turn away his face,
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood,"
How God, and good men, hate fo foul a liar.
K. RICH. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
(As he is but my father's brother's fon,)
Now by my scepter's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright foul;
He is our subject, Mowbray, fo art thou;
Free speech, and fearless, I to thee allow.
NOR. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou lieft!
Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais,
Disburs'd I duly to his highness' foldiers :
The other part referv'd I by confent;
For that my fovereign liege was in my debt,
Upon remainder of a dear account,
Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:
Now swallow down that lie.
I flew him not; but, to my own disgrace,
Neglected my sworn duty in that cafe. -
For you, my noble lord of Lancafter,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grieved foul:
But, ere I last receiv'd the facrament,
I did confefs it; and exactly begg'd
7-this lander of his blood,] i. e. this reproach to his
ancestry. STEEVENS.
8-my scepter's awe-] The reverence due to my scepter.
Your grace's pardon, and, I hope, I had it.
This is my fault: As for the rest appeal'd,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor :
Which in myself I boldly will defend;
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
To prove myself a loyal gentleman
Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bofom:
In hafte whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.
K. RICH. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by
Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
This we prescribe, though no physician;
Deep malice makes too deep incision:
Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed;
Our doctors say, this is no time to bleed.-
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the duke of Norfolk, you your son,
This we prescribe, though no physician'; &c.] I must make one remark in general on the rhymes throughout this whole play; they are so much inferior to the rest of the writing, that they appear to me of a different hand. What confirms this, is, that the context does every where exaaly (and frequently much better) conned, without the inserted rhymes, except in a very few places; and just there too, the rhyming verses are of a much better tafte than all the others, which rather strengthens my conjecture.
"This observation of Mr. Pope's, (says Mr. Edwards,) happens to be very unluckily placed here, because the context, without the inferted rhymes, will not connect at all. Read this passage as it would stand corre&ed by this rule, and we shall find, when the rhyming part of the dialogue is left out, King Richard begins with diffuading them from the duel, and, in the very next seetence, appoints the time and place of their combat."
Mr. Edwards's censure is rather hafty; for in the note, to which it refers, it is allowed that some rhymes must be retained to make out the connection. STEEVENS,
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