I have been studying how I may compare This prison, where I live, unto the world: And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it: yet I'll hammer't out. My brain I'll prove the female to my soul; My soul, the father: and these two beget A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world; In humours like the people of this world, For no thought is contented. The better sort, As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word:

As thus, "Come, little ones;" and then again,"It is as hard to come, as for a camel

To thread the postern of a small needle's eye."
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves,
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then, treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then, crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king:
Then, am I king'd again; and, by and by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing-But whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.-Music do I hear? [Music.
Ha, ha! keep time.-How sour sweet music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives:
And here have I the daintiness of ear,
To check time broke in a disorder'd string,
But for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering
clock:

For 'tis a sign of love, and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter Groom.
Groom.

Hail, royal prince !

King Richard.

Thanks, noble peer; The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. What art thou? and how comest thou hither, Where no man never comes, but that sad dog That brings me food to make misfortune live? Groom.

I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king; who, travelling towards
York,

With much ado, at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
O! how it yern'd my heart, when I beheld
In London streets that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
King Richard.
Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
Groom.

So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground.

My lord, I dare not: sir Pierce of Exton,

Their watches on unto mine eyes the outward

watch,

Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs, and tears, and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.
This music mads me: let it sound no more,
For though it hath holpe madmen to their wits,
In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad.
Yet, blessing on his heart that gives it me!

contrary.

Percy.

The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster, With clog of conscience, and sour melancholy Hath yielded up his body to the grave; But here is Carlisle living, to abide Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride. Bolingbroke.

Carlisle, this is your doom :- [room, Choose out some secret place, some reverend More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life; So, as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife: For though mine enemy thou hast ever been, High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

Castle.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. London An Apartment in the Palace.

Enter King Henry, Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and others.

King Henry.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,

Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ. [friends,
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross,
We are impressed, and engag'd to fight,
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,

Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb

To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelve-month old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now.-Then, let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.
Westreorelard

And many limits of the charge set down
My liege, this haste was hot in question,
But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welchman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered;
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welchwomen done, as may not be
Without much shame re-told or spoken of.