For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.

Au. Comfort, my liege. Why looks your grace so pale ?

K. Ri. But now, the blood of twenty thousand

men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And, till so much blood thither come again,

Have I not reason to look pale and dead? All souls that will be safe, fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

Au. Comfort, my liege: remember who you are. K. Ri. I had forgot myself. Am I not king? Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleep'st. Is not the king's name forty thousand names? Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground, Ye favorites of a king: are we not high? High be our thoughts: I know, my uncle York Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

Enter SCROOP.

Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege,

Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!

K. Ri. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared; The worst is worldly loss, thou canst unfold. Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care; And what loss is it, to be rid of care? Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?

Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God, as well as us:
Cry, woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay;

The worst is-death, and death will have his day. Scroop. Glad am I, that your highness is so arm'd To bear the tidings of calamity.

Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores, As if the world were all dissolved to tears;

So high above his limits swells the rage

Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land

With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel. White beards have arm'd their thin and hairless

scalps

Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's

voices,

Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown.
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. Ri. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so if.
Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green?
That they nave let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.

I warrant, they have made peace with Bolingbroke. Scroop. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my lord.

K. Ri. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption !

Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my

heart!

Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas! Would they make peace? terrible hell make war Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate. Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made With heads, and not with hands: those whom you

curse,

Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound,
And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.

Au. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire

dead?

Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.

Au. Where, is the duke my father with his power"? K. Ri. No matter where; of comfort no man

speak :

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs :
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so;-for what can we bequeathe,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?