By the rough torrent of occasion;

And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offered to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience.

When we are wronged, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person

2

Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet-appearing blood,) and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now,)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

West. When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborned to grate on you!
1?
That you should seal this lawless, bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine,
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge ? 3

Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born a household cruelty,

I make my quarrel in particular.^

West. There is no need of any such redress,

Or, if there were, it not belongs to you.

Mowb. Why not to him, in part; and to us all, That feel the bruises of the days before;

And suffer the condition of these times

1 In Holinshed, the archbishop says, "Where he and his comparie were in armes, it was for feare of the king, to whom he could have no free accesse, by reason of such a multitude of flatterers as were about him."

2 Examples which every minute instances or supplies;" which even the present minute presses on their notice.

3 This line is omitted in the folio.

4 The second line of this obscure speech is omitted in the folio. Something appears to be wanting to render it intelligible. Johnson proposes to substitute the word quarrel for brother in the first line, and suggests the following paraphrase: "My general cause of discontent is public misman agement; my particular cause a domestic injury done to my natural brother," who had been beheaded by the king's order.

To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honors?
West.
O, my good lord Mowbray,1
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed,-it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the king, or in the present time,
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on. Were you not restored
To all the duke of Norfolk's seigniories,
Your noble and right well-remembered father's?
Mowb. What thing in honor had my father lost,
That need to be revived and breathed in me?
The king that loved him, as the state stood then,
Was, force perforce, compelled to banish him.
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke, and he,—
Being mounted, and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,
And the loud trumpet blowing them together;-
Then, then, when there was nothing could have stayed
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,

O, when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw ;

Then threw he down himself; and all their lives,
That by indictment, and by dint of sword,

Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

West. You speak, lord Mowbray, now you know

not what.

4

The earl of Hereford was reputed then

In England the most valiant gentleman;

Who knows, on whom fortune would then have smiled? But, if your father had been victor there,

1 The thirty-seven following lines are not in the quarto. 2 i. e. their lances fixed in the rest for the encounter.

3 The perforated part of the helmets, through which they could see to

direct their aim (visiere, Fr.).

4 This is a mistake; he was duke of Hereford.

He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry;

For all the country, in a general voice,

Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers, and love.
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,

And blessed, and graced indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.-
Here come I from our princely general,

To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace,
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them; every thing set off,
That might so much as think you enemies.

Mowb. But he hath forced us to compel this offer, And it proceeds from policy, not love.

West. Mowbray, you overween, to take it so.
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;
For, lo! within a ken our army lies;
Upon mine honor, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armor all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good.—
Say you not, then, our offer is compelled.

Mowb. Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley West. That argues but the shame of your offence. A rotten case abides no handling.

Hast. Hath the prince John a full commission,

In very ample virtue of his father,

To hear, and absolutely to determine

Of what conditions we shall stand upon ?

West. That is intended in the general's name.

I muse, you make so slight a question.

Arch. Then take, my lord of Westmoreland, this schedule;

For this contains our general grievances.

Each several article herein redressed;

All members of our cause, both here and hence,

That are insinewed to this action,

Acquitted by a true, substantial form,

And present execution of our wills
To us, and to our purposes, consigned,1
We come within our awful banks again,
And knit our powers to the arm of peace

West. This will I show the general. Please you, lords,

In sight of both our battles we may meet:

And either end in peace, which Heaven so frame;
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.

Arch.

My lord, we will do so.

[Exit WEST. Mowb. There is a thing within my bosom, tells me, That no conditions of our peace can stand.

Hast. Fear you not that. If we can make our peace Upon such large terms, and so absolute,

As our conditions shall consist3 upon,

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
Mowb. Ay, but our valuation shall be such,
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
Shall, to the king, taste of this action;
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind,
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,

And good from bad find no partition.

Arch. No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is

weary

Of dainty and such picking" grievances;

For he hath found, to end one doubt by death,

Revives two greater in the heirs of life.

And therefore will he wipe his tables clean;

And keep no telltale to his memory,

1 The old copy reads confined. Johnson proposed to read consigned; which must be understood in the Latin sense, consignatus, signed, sealed, ratified, confirmed; which was indeed the old meaning. Shakspeare use consign and consigning in other places in this sense.

2 Awful for lawful; or under the due awe of authority. 3 To consist, to rest; consisto.-Baret.

4 The faith due to a king.

5 Insignificant.

6 Alluding to table books of slate, ivory, &c.

That may repeat and history his loss

To new remembrance. For full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land,
As his misdoubts present occasion.
His foes are so enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so, and shake a friend.
So that this land, like an offensive wife,
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up,
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was upreared to execution.

Hast. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement;
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.

Arch.

"Tis very true ;-
And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.

Mowb.

Be it so.

Here is returned my lord of Westmoreland.

Re-enter WESTMORELAND.

West. The prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship

To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies? Mowb. Your grace of York, in God's name then set

forward.

Arch. Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we [Exeunt.

come.