I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within. [Exit, with the body. 2 MURD. A bloody deed, and desperately de spatch'd! How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands, Re-enter first Murderer. 1 MURD. How now? what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not? By heaven, the duke shall know how slack you have been. 2 MURD. I would he knew, that I had sav'd his brother! Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say; For I repent me that the duke is slain. [Exit. 1 MURD. So do not I; go, coward, as thou art.Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole, Till that the duke give order for his burial: And when I have my meed, I will away; For this will out, and then I must not stay. [Exit. "1. Relent! 'tis cowardly and womanish. "Cla. Not to relent, is beastly, savage, devilish. My friend O, if "Come thou "A begging "1. Look behind you, my "2. Take that, and that lord. I think, with Mr. Tyrwhitt, that the added lines have been inserted in the wrong place, and have therefore adopted his arrangement. MALONE. I have regulated the text according to Mr. Tyrwhitt's instruction. STEEVENS. 66 A begging prince what beggar pities not?" To this, in the quarto, the Murderer replies: "I, thus and thus: if this will not serve "I'll chop thee in the malmesey but in the next roome—.” and then stabs him. STEEVENS. ACT II. SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter King EDWARD, (led in sick,) Queen ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS, HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and Others. K. EDW. Why, so:-now have I done a good day's work ; You peers, continue this united league: From my Redeemer to redeem me hence; And with my hand I seal my true heart's love. Lest he, that is the supreme King of kings, HAST. SO prosper I, as I swear perfect love! 4 And Now in peace-] So the quarto. The folio-more to peace. MALONE. Mr. Steevens forms a reading from both,-more in peace. BOSWELL. 5 DISSEMBLE not your hatred,] i. e. do not gloss it over. STEEVENS. I suppose he means, Divest yourselves of that concealed hatred which you have heretofore secretly borne to each other. Do not merely, says Edward, conceal and cover over your secret ill will to each other by a show of love, but eradicate hatred altogether from your bosoms. MALONE. K. EDW. Madam, yourself are * not exempt in this, Nor your son Dorset,-Buckingham, nor you ;You have been factious one against the other. Wife, love lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand; And what you do, do it unfeignedly. Q. ELIZ. There, Hastings;-I will never more remember Our former hatred, So thrive I, and mine! K. EDW. Dorset, embrace him,-Hastings, love lord marquis. DOR. This interchange of love, I here protest, [Embraces DORSET. K. EDW. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league With thy embracements to my wife's allies, BUCK. Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate Upon your grace, [To the Queen.] but with all duteous love Doth cherish you, and yours, God punish me [Embracing RIVERS, &c. K. EDW. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham, Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart. There wanteth now our brother Gloster here, To make the blessed period of this peace. 6 BUCK. And, in good time, here comes the noble duke 6. reads: * So quarto 1597; first folio, yourself is. here comes the noble duke.] So the quarto. The folio Enter GLOSter. GLO. Good-morrow to my sovereign king, and queen; And, princely peers, a happy time of day! K. EDW. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day : Brother, we have done deeds of charity; By false intelligence, or wrong surmise, If I unwittingly, or in my rage', Have aught committed that is hardly borne To reconcile me to his friendly peace : I hate it, and desire all good men's love. If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us; "And in good time 8 "Here comes Sir Richard Radcliffe and the duke." MALONE. 7 If I unwittingly, or in my rage,] So the quarto. Foliounwillingly. This line and the preceding hemistich are printed in the old copies, as one line: a mistake that has sometimes happened in the early editions of these plays. Mr. Pope, by whose licentious alterations our author's text was much corrupted, omitted the words-" or in my rage; in which he has been followed by all the subsequent editors till my edition in 1790. 8 MALONE. frown'd on me ;] I have followed the original copy in quarto. The folio adds 66 Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all. 9 With whom my soul is any jot at odds, Q. ELIZ. A holy-day shall this be kept hereafter: I would to God, all strifes were well compounded.- GLO. Why, madam, have I offer'd love for this, You do him injury, to scorn his corse. he is? Q. ELIZ. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this! BUCK. Look I so pale, lord Dorset, as the rest? The eldest son of Earl Rivers was Lord Scales; but there was no such person as Lord Woodville. MALONE. 9 I do not know, &c.] Milton in his EIKONOKAAΣTEΣ, has this observation: "The poets, and some English, have been in this point so mindful of decorum, as to put never more pious words in the mouth of any person, than of a tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse author, wherein the king might be less conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet companion of these his solitudes, William Shakspeare; who introduced the person of Richard the Third, speaking in as high a strain of piety and mortification as is uttered in any passage in this book, and sometimes to the same sense and purpose with some words in this place: 'I intended, (saith he), not only to oblige my friends, but my enemies.' The like saith Richard, Act II. Sc. I.': "I do not know that Englishman alive, "With whom my soul is any jot at odds, "More than the infant that is born to-night; "Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the tragedy, wherein the poet used not much licence in departing from the truth of history, which delivers him a deep dissembler, not of his affections only, but of religion." STEEVENS. |