To keep the oath that we administer: You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!) Nor never look upon each other's face; To plot, contrive, or complot any ill, 'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. BOLING. I swear. NOR. And I, to keep all this. 3 BOLING. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy ; By this time, had the king permitted us, One of our souls had wander'd in the air, Tully and Lord Chancellor Clarendon declare for the affirmative; Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, seems to be of the same opinion. WARBURton. 2 advised] i. e. concerted, deliberated. So, in The Merchant of Venice: with more advised watch." STEEVENS. 3 Norfolk, so far, &c.] I do not clearly see what is the sense of this abrupt line; but suppose the meaning to be this: Hereford immediately after his oath of perpetual enmity, addresses Norfolk, and, fearing some misconstruction, turns to the King, and says "so far as to mine enemy,"—that is, 'I should say nothing to him but what enemies may say to each other.' Reviewing this passage, I rather think it should be understood thus. Norfolk, so far I have addressed myself to thee as to mine enemy; I now utter my last words with kindness and tenderness; Confess thy treasons.' JOHNSON. 66 so fare, as to mine enemy." i. e. he only wishes him to fare like his enemy, and he disdains to say fare well as Aumerle does in the next scene. TOLLET. Surely fare was a misprint for farre, the old spelling of the word now placed in the text.-Perhaps the author intended that Hereford in speaking this line should show some courtesy to Mowbray ;-and the meaning may be: So much civility as an enemy has a right to, I am willing to offer to thee.' MALONE. Sir T. Hanmer's marginal direction is-In salutation. STEEVENS. The first folio reads fare; the second farre. Bolingbroke only uses the phrase by way of caution, lest Mowbray should think he was about to address him as a friend. Norfolk, says he, so far as a man may speak to his enemy, &c. RITSON. Banish'd this frail sepúlchre of our flesh *, NOR. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor, I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspéct BOLING. How long a time lies in one little word! 4 - this frail sepúlchre of our flesh,] So, afterwards: thou King Richard's tomb, 66 "And not King Richard—." And Milton, in Samson Agonistes: "Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave." HENLEY. 5 all the world's my way.] Perhaps Milton had this in his mind when he wrote these lines: "The world was all before them, where to choose JOHNSON. The Duke of Norfolk after his banishment went to Venice, where, says Holinshed, "for thought and melancholy he deceased." MALONE. Now no way can I stray, "Save back to England :-all the world's my way." There's no way for me to go wrong, except back to England. M. MASON. Most certainly, by such a punctuation, the poet's meaning would be lost. MALONE. Four lagging winters and four wanton springs, GAUNT. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me He shortens four years of my son's exíle : But little vantage shall I reap thereby; For, ere the six years, that he hath to spend, My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light, K. RICH. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live. GAUNT. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give: Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a mor row: Thou canst help time to furrow me with age, 8 K. RICH. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice", Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave R; Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower? GAUNT. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion sour. You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather, 6 And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:] It is matter of very melancholy consideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON. 7 upon good advice,] Upon great consideration. MALONE. So, in King Henry VI. Part II. : "But with advice and silent secrecy." STEEVENS. 8 a PARTY-verdict gave ;] i. e. you had yourself a part or share in the verdict that I pronounced. MALONE. O, had it been a stranger 9, not my child, To smooth his fault I should have been more mild: And in the sentence my own life destroy'd. K. RICH. Cousin, farewell:-and, uncle, bid him so; Six years we banish him, and he shall go. [Flourish. Exeunt King RICHARD and Train. AUM. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know, From where you do remain, let paper show. MAR. My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride, As far as land will let me, by your side. GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends? GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. BOLING. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. GAUNT. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. * Quarto 1597, aboundant. 9 O, had it been a stranger,] This couplet is wanting in the folio. STEEVENS. A partial slander-] That is, the reproach of partiality. This is a just picture of the struggle between principle and affection. JOHNSON. This couplet, which is wanting in the folio edition, has been arbitrarily placed by some of the modern editors at the conclusion of Gaunt's speech. In the three oldest quartos it follows the fifth line of it. In the fourth quarto, which seems copied from the folio, the passage is omitted. STEEVENS. BOLING. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten. GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for plea sure. BOLING. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage. GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return. BOLING. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make 2 Will but remember me, what a deal* of world 3 * Quartos, 1598, 1608, and 1615, what deal. 2 Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make-] This, and the six verses which follow, I have ventured to supply from the old quarto. The allusion, it is true, to an apprenticeship, and becoming a journeyman, is not in the sublime taste; nor, as Horace has expressed it: "spirat tragicum satis:" however, as there is no doubt of the passage being genuine, the lines are not so despicable as to deserve being quite lost. THEObald. 3 - journeyman to grief?] I am afraid our author in this place designed a very poor quibble, as journey signifies both travel and a day's work. However, he is not to be censured for what he himself rejected. JOHNSON. The quarto, in which these lines are found, is said in its titlepage to have been corrected by the author; and the play is indeed more accurately printed than most of the other single copies. There is now, however, no certain method of knowing by whom the rejection was made. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens has here made a great mistake. The lines in question are found in the first quarto of 1597, and continued in those of 1598, 1608, and 1615, all of which are now before me; but what these late copies read, what they insert, or what they omit, it is quite loss of time to examine. Not the smallest authority belongs to them; nor would they carry any with them, even if their titlepages announced that they were revised and corrected by the |