The flattering index of a direful pageant,
One heav'd a high, to be hurl'd down below:
A mother only mock'd with two fair babes;
A dream of what thou wast; a garish 10 flag,
To be the aim of every dangerous shot;
A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble;
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.

Where is thy husband now? where be thy brothers? Where be thy two sons? wherein dost thou joy? Who sues, and kneels, and says-God save the queen?

11

Where be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?
Where be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?
Decline all this 11, and see what now thou art.
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
For
queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;
For one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;
For one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;
For one commanding all, obey'd of none.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,
And left thee but a very prey to time;

Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Thou didst usurp my place. And dost thou not
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?

9 See note on p. 49, and on Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4 :—

That roars so loud and thunders in the index.'

Mr. Nares suggests that the index of a pageant was probably a painted cloth hung up before a booth where a pageant was to be exhibited.

10 Alluding to the dangerous situation of those persons to whose care the standards of armies were entrusted.

1 i. e. run through all this from first to last. So in Troilus and Cressida :-' I'll decline the whole question.' This phrase the poet borrowed from his grammar.

Now thy proud neck bears half

my burden❜d yoke;

From which even here I slip my wearied head,
And leave the burden of it all on thee.

Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance,

These English woes shall make me smile in France. Q. Eliz. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay a while, And teach me how to curse mine enemies.

Q. Mar. Forbear to sleep the night, and fast the day 12;

Compare dead happiness with living woe:
Think that thy babes were fairer than they were,
And he, that slew them, fouler than he is:

Bettering 13 thy loss makes the bad causer worse;
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.

Q. Eliz. My words are dull, O, quicken them with thine!

Q. Mar. Thy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine. [Exit Q. MARGARET. Duch. Why should calamity be full of words? Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their client woes 14, Airy succeeders of intestate joys 15,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

12 Fast has no connection with the preceding word forbear; the meaning being sleep not at night, and fast during the day.

13 Bettering is amplifying, magnifying thy loss. Shakspeare employed the word for the sake of the antithesis between better and loss.

14 Thus in Venus and Adonis :

'So of concealed sorrow may be said:

Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;
But when the heart's attorney once is mute,
The client breaks as desperate of his suit.'

15 The meaning of this harsh metaphor is: The joys already possessed being all consumed and passed away, are supposed to have died intestate; that is, to have made no will, having nothing to bequeath; and more verbal complaints are their successors, but inherit nothing but misery.

Let them have scope: though what they do impart
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart 16.
Duch. If so, then be not tongue-ty'd: go with me,
And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smother'd.
[Drum within.
I hear his drum,—be copious in exclaims.
Enter KING RICHARD, and his Train, marching.
K. Rich. Who intercepts me in my expedition?
Duch. O, she, that might have intercepted thee,
By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done.
Q. Eliz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden

crown,

Where should be branded, if that right were right, The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown, And the dire death of my poor sons, and brothers? Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children? Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?

And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?

Duch. Where is kind Hastings?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets!-strike alarum, drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed: Strike, I say.-
[Flourish. Alarums.
Either be patient and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.

16 Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.’

Macbeth.

Duch. Art thou my son?

K. Rich. Ay; I thank God, my father, and yourself.

Duch. Then patiently hear my impatience.

K. Rich. Madam, I have a touch of your condition 17,

That cannot brook the accent of reproof.

Duch. O, let me speak.

K. Rich.

Do, then; but I'll not hear. Duch. I will be mild and gentle in my words. K. Rich. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.

Duch. Art thou so hasty? I have staid for thee, God knows, in torment and in agony.

K. Rich. And came I not at last to comfort you? Duch. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well, Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. A grievous burden was thy birth to me;

Tetchy 18 and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy school-days, frightful, desperate, wild, and furious;

Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous;
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:
What comfortable hour canst thou name,
That ever grac'd me in thy company?

K. Rich. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour 19, that call'd your grace

17 A spice or particle of your disposition. So in Chapman's translation of the twenty-fourth Iliad:

his cold blood embrac'd a fiery touch

Of anger,' &c.

18 Touchy, fretful.

19 I know not what to make of this, unless we suppose with Steevens that it is an allusion to some affair of gallantry of which the duchess had been suspected. There is no mention of any thing of the kind in the Chronicles. Malone conjectures that Humphrey Hour is merely used as a ludicrous periphrasis

To breakfast once, forth of my company.
If I be so disgracious in your sight,
Let me march on, and not offend you,

Strike up Duch.

the drum.

madam.

I pr'ythee, hear me speak.

Hear me a word;

K. Rich. You speak too bitterly.

Duch.

For I shall never speak to thee again.

K. Rich. So.

Duch. Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordi

nance,

Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror ;
Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,
And never look upon thy face again.

Therefore take with thee my most heavy curse;
Which, in the day of battle, tire thee more,
Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!
My prayers on the adverse party fight;
And there the little souls of Edward's children
Whisper the spirits of thine enemies,

And promise them success and victory.
Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;

Shame serves 20 thy life, and doth thy death attend.

[Exit. Q. Eliz. Though far more cause, yet much less

spirit to curse

Abides in me; I say amen to her.

[Going. K. Rich. Stay, madam, I must speak a word with

you.

for hour, like Tom Troth, for truth, in Gabriel Harvey's Letter to Spenser. There can hardly be any allusion to the phrase of dining with Duke Humphrey,' used to express those who dined upon air, or passed their dinner hour in admiring his supposed monument in old St. Paul's Cathedral. See Mr. Nares's Glossary, or a late edition of Hall's Satires by the writer of this note, p. 62.