But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier fit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, fay-I fent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not-the king exíl'd thee: or fuppofe,
Devouring peftilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy foul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'ft, not whence thou com'ft:
Suppose the finging birds, muficians;

The grafs whereon thou tread'ft, the prefence ftrew'd;"

• Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king:] The fame thought occurs in Coriolanus
M. MASON.

"I banish you."

All places that the eye of heaven vifits,

Are to a wife man ports and happy havens:-
Think not the king did banish thee;

But thou the king:] Shakspeare, when he wrote the paffage before us, probably remembered that part of Lyly's Euphues, 1580, in which Euphues exhorts Botanio to take his exile patiently. Among other arguments he obferves, that "Nature hath given to man a country no more than the hath a house, or lands, or livings. Socrates would neither call himself an Athenian, neither a Grecian, but a citizen of the world. Plato would never account him banished, that had the funne, ayre, water, and earth, that he had before; where he felt the winter's blaft and the fummer's blaze; where the fame funne and the same moone fhined whereby he noted that every place was a country to a wife man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind. When it was caft in Diogenes' teeth, that the Sinoponetes had banished him Pontus, yea, faid he, I them of Diogenes." MALONE.

:

7the prefence firew'd ;] Shakspeare has other allufions to the ancient practice of ftrewing rushes over the floor of the prefence chamber. HENLEY.

Tarquin thus

"Did foftly prefs the rushes, ere he waken'd

"The chastity he wounded:-" STEEVENS.

See Hentzner's account of the prefence chamber, in the palace at Greenwich, 1598. Itinerar. p. 135. MALONE.

The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance:
For gnarling forrow hath lefs power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.

BOLING. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus ?9
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feaft?
Or wallow naked in December fnow,
By thinking on fantastick fummer's heat?
O, no! the apprehenfion of the good,
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
Fell forrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the fore.

8

than a delightful measure,] A measure was a formal So, in King Richard III:

court dance.

"Our dreadful marches to delightful measures."

STEEVENS.

9 O, who can hold a fire in his hand, &c.] Fire is here, as in many other places, used as a diffyllable. MALONE.

It has been remarked, that there is a paffage resembling this in Tully's Fifth Book of Tufculan Queftions. Speaking of Epicurus, he fays:-" Sed unâ fe dicit recordatione acquiefcere præteritarum voluptatum: ut fi quis æftuans, cum vim caloris non facile patiatur, recordari velit fe aliquando in Arpinati noftro gelidis fluminibus circumfufum fuiffe. Non enim video, quomodo fedare poffint mala præfentia præteritæ voluptates." The Tufculan Questions of Cicero had been tranflated early enough for Shakspeare to have seen them. STEEVENS.

Shakspeare, however, I believe, was thinking on the words of Lyly, in the page from which an extract has been already made:

I fpeake this to this end, that though thy exile seem grievous to thee, yet guiding thy felfe with the rules of phylofophy, it should be more tolerable: he that is cold, doth not cover himselfe with care but with clothes; he that is washed in the raine, drieth himselfe by the fire, not by his fancy; and thou which art banished," &c. MALONE.

GAUNT. Come, come, my fon, I'll bring thee on thy way:

Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay. BOLING. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet foil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where-e'er I wander, boaft of this I can,-
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.'

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The fame. A Room in the King's Caftle.

Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMERLE following.

?

K. RICH. We did obferve.-Coufin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way AUM. I brought high Hereford, if you call him fo, But to the next highway, and there I left him. K. RICH. And, fay, what ftore of parting tears were fhed?

AUM. 'Faith, none by me :2 except the north-east wind,

I yet a trueborn Englishman.] Here the firft Act ought to end, that between the first and second Acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his fon, return, and fall fick. Then the first scene of the second A&t begins with a natural conversation, interrupted by a meffage from John of Gaunt, by which the King is called to vifit him, which vifit is paid in the following scene. As the play is now divided, more time paffes between the two laft fcenes of the firft A&t, than between the firft A&t and the fecond. JOHNSON.

2

none by me :] The old copies read-for me. With the other modern editors I have here adopted an emendation made

ᎠᏎ

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awak'd the fleeping rheum; and fo, by chance,
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. RICH. What said our coufin, when you parted with him?

AUM. Farewell:

And, for heart difdained that my tongue

my

Should fo profane the word, that taught me craft To counterfeit oppreffion of fuch grief,

That words fee'd buried in my forrow's grave. Marry, would the word farewell have lengthen'd hours,

And added years to his fhort banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells;
But, fince it would not, he had none of me.

K. RICH. He is our coufin, coufin; but 'tis doubt,
When time fhall call him home from banifhment,
Whether our kinsman come to fee his friends.
Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,3
Obferv'd his courtship to the common people:-
How he did feem to dive into their hearts,
With humble and familiar courtesy;

What reverence he did throw away on flaves; Wooing poor craftsmen, with the craft of fmiles,

by the editor of the fecond folio; but without neceffity. For me, may mean, on my part. Thus we say, "For me, I am content," &c. where these words have the fame fignification as here. MALONE.

If we read for me, the expreffion will be equivocal, and feem as if it meant-no tears were fhed on my account. So, in the preceding scene:

3

66

O, let no noble eye profane a tear "For me," &c. STEEVENS.

·Bagot here, and Green,] The old copies read-here Bagot. The tranfpofition was made in a quarto of no value, printed in 1634. MALONE.

And patient underbearing of his fortune,
As 'twere, to banish their affects with him.
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid-God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his fupple knee,+
With-Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;-
As were our England in reverfion his,

And he our fubjects' next degree in hope.5

GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him

thoughts.

go

these

Now for the rebels, which ftand out in Ireland;—
Expedient manage must be made, my liege;
Ere further leifure yield them further means,
For their advantage, and your highness' lofs.

K. RICH. We will ourself in perfon to this war.
And, for our coffers 7-with too great a court,
And liberal largefs,-are grown fomewhat light,
We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
The revenue whereof fhall furnith us

For our affairs in hand: If that come fhort,
Our fubftitutes at home fhall have blank charters;
Whereto, when they fhall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large fums.of gold,

4 the tribute of his fupple knee,] To illuftrate this phrafe, it thould be remembered that courtefying, (the act of reverence now confined to women,) was anciently practifed by men.

STEEVENS.

And he our fubjects' next degree in hope.] Spes altera Romæ.
Virg. MALONE.

Expedient-] i. e. expeditious. So, in King John: "His marches are expedient to this town.' STEEVENS. for our coffers-] i. e. becaufe. So, at the beginning of this scene :

7

"And, for my heart disdained that my tongue," &c. Again, in Othello:

66

Haply, for I am black-;" STEEVENS.