*K. Hen. Why, Wawick, hath thy knee forgot SCENE II. Saint Albans. Alarums: Excur

' War. Of one or both of us the time is come. York. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,

* K. Hen. Canst thou dispense with heaven for For I myself must hunt this deer to death.

'The bonniest gray, that e'er was bred in north.' 6 This passage will remind the classical reader of Achilles' conduct in the twenty-second Iliad, v. 205, where he expresses his determination that Hector should fall by no other hand than his own.

7 A dreadful wager; a tremendous stake.

8 The author, in making Clifford fall by the hand of York, has departed from the truth of history, a practice not uncommon with him when he does his utmost to make his characters considerable. This circumstance, however, serves to prepare the reader or spectator for the vengeance afterwards taken by Clifford's son on York and Rutland. See Bullokar's York and Rutland. At the beginning of the third part of this drama the poet has forgot this circumstance, and

* Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds

*Nor is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,
To give the enemy way: and to secure us
* By what we can, which can no more but fly.
[Alarum afar off

* Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,* If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottoms * Whom angry heavens do make their minister, *Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part

* Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly:
*He that is truly dedicate to war,
*Hath no self-love; nor he, that loves himself,
* Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,
*The name of valour.-O, let the vile world end,
[Seeing his dead Father.

* And the premised' flames of the last day
* Knit earth and heaven together!
*Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,
* Particularities and petty sounds

* To cease !2-Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
*To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve3
*The silver livery of advised4 age;

5

* And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus
*To die in ruffian battle ?-Even at this sight,
* My heart is turn'd to stone: and, while 'tis mine,
*It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
* No more will I their babes: tears virgina!
* Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
* And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,
* Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
* Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:
*Meet I an infant of the house of York,
*Into as many gobbets will I cut it,
* As wild Medea young Absyrtus did :6
* In cruelty will I seek out my fame.
'Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house :
[Taking up the body.

As did Æneas old Anchises bear,
So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders:
* But then Æneas bare a living load,
*Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine. [Exit.
Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET and SOMERSET,
fighting, and SOMERSET is killed.

Rich. So, lie thou there ;

• For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,
The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset
Hath made the wizard famous in his death."
*Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:
* Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill. [Exit.
1larums: Excursions. Enter KING HENRY,
QUEEN MARGARET, and others, retreating.
Q. Mar. Away, my lord! you are slow; for
shame, away!

there represents Clifford's death as it really
pened :-

*Of all our fortunes: but if we haply scape
* (As well we may, if not through your neglect,)
* We shall to London get; where you are lov'd;
* And where this breach, now in our fortunes made,
* May readily be stopp'd.

Enter Young CLIFFORD.

* Y. Cliff. But that my heart's on future mischiet set,

*I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;

* But fly you must; uncurable discomfit
*Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.10
Away, for relief! and we will live

*

your

* To see their day, and them our fortune give: * Away, my lord, away!

[Exeunt.

Alarum:

SCENE III. Fields near Saint Albans.
Retreat. Flourish; then enter YORK, RICHARF
PLANTAGENET, WARWICK, and Soldiers, with
Drum and Colours.

York. Of Salisbury, who can report of him;
* That winter lion, who, in rage forgets
* Aged contusions and all brush of time;11
* And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,12
* Repairs him with occasion? this happy day
* Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,
*If Salisbury be lost.

• Rich. My noble father 'Three times to-day I holp him to his horse, 'Three times bestrid him,13 thrice I led him off, 'Persuaded him from any further act:

But still, where danger was, still there I met him
* And like rich hangings in a homely house,
* So was his will in his old feeble body.

* But, noble as he is, look where he comes.
Enter SALISBURY.

'Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fough

to-day;

By the mass, so did we all.-I thank you, Richard: 'God knows, how long it is I have to live;

And it hath pleas'd him, that three times to-day "You have defended me from imminent death.*Well, lords, we have not got that which we have:14 * "Tis not enough our foes are this time fled, * Being opposites of such repairing nature. 15 For, as I hear, the king is fled to London, 'York. I know, our safety is to follow them, Chronicles represented as accomplishing them: being hap-delivered in obscure terms, any fortuitous event was the more readily supposed to verify them.

'Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast, Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in, Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.' These lines were adopted by Shakspeare from The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, upon which the Third Part of King Henry VI. is founded.

1 Premised is sent before their time. The sense is 'let the flames reserved for the last day be sent now.' 2 To cease is to stop, a verb active.

3 To achieve is to arrive at, or accomplish. 4 i. e. circumspect, cautious.

5 In that period of life which is entitled to command everence. Reverenda canities. Shakspeare has used the word in the same manner in As You Like It, where Orlando says to his brother (speaking of their father) 'thou art indeed nearer to his reverence.'

6 When Medea fled with Jason from Colchos, she murdered her brother Absyrtus, and cut his body into several pieces, that her father might be prevented for some time from pursuing her.

7 The death of Somerset here accomplishes that equivocal prediction of Jourdain the witch in the first

act :

'Let him shun castles :

Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
Than where castles mounted stand.”

Such equivocal predictions were much in vogue in early
Anes and the fall of many eminent persons is by the

8 This line, Steevens observes, may serve to coun tenance his emendation of a passage at the commencement of the third scene, Act iv. of Macbeth, where he proposed to read and wisdom is it to offer,' &c. See note on that passage.

9 This expression, the bottom of all our fortunes, is peculiarly Shakspeare's; he has it in King Henry IV

Part 1.:

"The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.'

10 Parts may stand for parties; but I cannot help thinking that it is an error for party; by which, as Mr. Tyrwhitt and Steevens observe, the jingle of hearts and parts would be avoided.

11 Warburton would substitute 'all bruise of time.' But, as Steevens observes, 'the brush of time' is the gradual detrition of time.

12 i. e. the height of youth: the brow of a hill is its summit.

13 That is 'three times I saw him fallen, and striding over him defended him till he recovered.'

14 i. e. we have not secured that which we have ao quired.

15 i. e. being enemies that are likely so soon to rally and recover themselves from this defeat. To repair, in ancient language, was to renovate, to restore to a former condition.

Rich. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I

aid.

[Throwing down the DUKE of SOMERSET'S
Head.

* York. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my

sons.

What, is your grace dead, my lord of Somerset ?
Norf. Such hope have all the line of John of
Gaunt!

Rich. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's
head.

War. And so do I.--Victorious prince of York,
Before I see thee seated in that throne
Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,
I vow by heaven, these eyes shall never close.
This is the palace of the fearful king,

And this the regal seat: possess it, York:
For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.
York. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I
will;

• For hither we have broken in by force.
Norf. We'll all assist you; he, that flies, shall die.
York. Thanks, gentle Norfolk.-Stay by me, my
lords ;-

And, soldiers, stay, and lodge by me this night.
War. And, when the king comes, offer him no
violence,

'Unless he seek to thrust you out by force.

[They retire.

*York. The queen, this day, here holds her par-
liament,

*But little thinks we shall be of her council:
* By words, or blows, here let us win our right.
Rich. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.
War. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,
Unless Plantagenet, duke of York, be king;
And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice
Hath made us by-words to our enemies.

' York. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute;
I mean to take possession of my right.
War. Neither the king, nor he that loves him best,
'The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.2
'I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares :—
Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.
[WARWICK leads YORK to the Throne,
who seats himself.

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND, WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red Roses in their Hats.

K. Hen. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits, Even in the chair of state! belike, he means (Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,) To aspire unto the crown, and reign as king.Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father ; And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have.vow'd revenge

On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.

North. If I be not, heavens, be reveng'd on me! Clif. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.

West. What, shall we suffer this? let's pluck him |

down:

'My heart for anger burns, I cannot brook it.

K. Hen. Be patient, gentle earl of Westmoreland. Clif. Patience is for poltroons, and such as he; He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.

1 Shakspeare was also led into this anachronism by the old plays. At the time of the first battle of St. Albans, where Richard is represented to have fought in the last scene of the preceding play, he was not one year old; having been born at Fotheringay Castle, October 21, 1454. At the time to which the third scene of the present act refers, he was but six years old; and in the fifth act, in which Henry is represented as having been killed by him in the Tower, not more than sixteen and eight months.

2 The allusion is to falconry. Hawks had sometimes little bells hung on them, perhaps to dare the birds; that s, to fright them from rising.

3 The old play reads as the kingdom is.' Why Shakspeare altered it, it is not easy to say, for the new

My gracious lord, here m the parliament
Let us assail the family of York.

North. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so. K. Hen. Ah, know you not, the city favours them And they have troops of soldiers at their back? Exe. But when the duke is slain, they'll quickly fly.

K. Hen Far be the thought of this from Henry's
heart,

To make a shambles of the parliament-house!
Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,
Shall be the war that Henry means to use.—

[They advance to the Duke.
Thou factious duke of York, descend my throne,
And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet:
I am thy sovereign.
York.
Thou art deceiv'd, I am thine.
Exe. For shame, come down; he made thee duke
of York.

York. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was 3
Exe. Thy father was a traitor to the crown,
War. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown,
In following this usurping Henry.

Clif. Whom should he follow, but his natural king?
War. True, Clifford; and that's Richard, duke of
York.

'K. Hen. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my
throne ?

'York. It must and shall be so. Content thyself. War. Be duke of Lancaster, let him be king. West. He is both king and duke of Lancaster: And that the lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.

War. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget, That we are those, which chas'd you from the field, And slew your fathers, and with colours spread March'd through the city to the palace gates.

'North. Yes, Warwick, I remember it. to my grief;

And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.

West. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,
Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives,
Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.

Clif. Urge it no more; lest that, instead of words,
I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger,
As shall revenge his death, before I stir.

' War. Poor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless
threats!

York. Will you, we show our title to the crown?
If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.

K. Hen. What title hast thou, traitor, to the
crown?

K. Hen. The lord protector lost it, and not I;
When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.
Rich. You are old enough now, and yet, methinks
you lose :-

Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.
Edw. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.
Mont. Good brother [To YORK,] as thou lov'st

and honour'st arms,

Let's fight it out, and not stand caviling thus.
Rich. Sound drums and trumpets, and the king
will fly.

line only exhibits the same meaning more obscurely. York means that the dukedom was his inheritance from his father, as the earldom of March was his inheritance from his mother. His title to the crown was not as duke of York, but as earl of March, and by naming that he covertly asserts his right to the crown.

4 Another mistake of the author of the old play. York's father was earl of Cambridge, and was beheaded in the lifetime of his elder brother, Edward duke of York.

5 The military reputation of King Henry V. is the sole support of his son. The name of King Henry tne Fifth dispersed the followers of Cade.

6 Since. A contraction of sithence

Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.
But, be it as it may :-I here entail

The crown to thee, and to thine heirs forever ;
Conditionally, that here thou take an oath,
To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,

'K. Hen. An if he may, then am I lawful king: To honour me as thy king and sovereign;