Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. XIX.

THE ENTRY OF BOLINGBROKE AND RICHARD INTO LONDON.

Duke and Duchess of York.

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 window-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 imag'ry 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,
Bespoke them thus: I thank you countrymen ;
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.

Duch. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he the while?
York. As in a theatre, the eyes
of men,
After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

[ocr errors]

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl o Ricord; no mantry'd, 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,

But Heaven hath a hand in these events,
To whose high will we bound our calm contents.

SHAKSPEARE.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

REASON thus with life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would reck; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skiey influences,

That do this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict; merely thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn'st tow'rd him still. Thou art not noble ;
For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st,
Are nurs'd by baseness; thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself;
For thou exist on many a thousand grains,
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain;

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloadeth thee. Friend thou hast none;
For thy own bowels, which de call the sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the Gout, Serpigo, and the Rheum,

For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age;
But as it were an after dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied Eld; and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor bounty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

I DO remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat trimly drest ;
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new reap'd,
Shew'd like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfum'd like a milliner ;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took't away again;

Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff-And still he smil'd, and talk'd;
And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me: amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds; being gall'd
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief, and my impatience,
Answer'd, neglectingly, I know not what :
He should, or should not; for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,

Of guns, and drums, and wounds; (God save the mark!) And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth

Was parmacity, for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAP. XXII.

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

Clarence and Brakenbury.

Brak. WHY looks your grace so heavily to-day?

Clar. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,

So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,

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 tow'r And was imbark'd to cross to Burgundy,

And in my company my brother Glo'ster;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd tow'rd England,
And cited up a shousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,

That had befall'n us. As we pass'd along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Glo'ster stumbled, and in falling
Struck me (that sought to stay him) overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

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

Some lay in dead men's sculls; 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 the 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 find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »