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.
Ducн. 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:
Ev'n so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard; no man cry'd, God save himt
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.
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 skyey 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 förk
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'st 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, forget'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 thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the Gout, Serpige, 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 iches 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.
HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FOP:
IDO 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 dress'd';
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new reap'3,
Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfumed 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: among the rest demanded
My pris'ners, 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 negligently, 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 gentle-woman,
Of guns, and drums, and wounds; (God save the mark!)
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth,
Was spermaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre 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.
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 embark'd to cross to Burgundy,
Andin my company my brother Glo'ster;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd tow'rd Eng.
land,
And cited by a thousand 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 drownt
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
We
Vedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalu'd 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 food
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,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRAK. Awak'd you not with the sore agony? CLAR. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O then began the tempest to my soul
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul
Was my great father-in law, renowned Warwick,
Who cried aloud What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrick'd out aloud-
"Clarence is come! false, fleeting perjur'd Clarence,
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, furies ! take him to your torments!":
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
1 trembling wak'd; and for a season after
Could not believe but what I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
BRAK. No marvel, Ford, tl at it affi ighted you
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
CLAR. Ah! Brakenbury, I have done those things
That now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!
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