Page:Richard II (1921) Yale.djvu/30

18

Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate:

After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Mow. Then, thus I turn me from my country's light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.

Lay on our royal sword your banish' d hands;

Swear by the duty that you owe to God—

Our part therein we banish with yourselves—

To keep the oath that we administer:

You never shall,—so help you truth and God!—

Embrace each other's love in banishment;

Nor never look upon each other's face;

Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

This low'ring tempest of your home-bred hate;

Nor never by advised purpose meet

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

Boling. I swear.

Mow. And I, to keep all this.

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,

Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,

As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:

Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;

Since thou hast far to go, bear not along

The clogging burden of a guilty soul.

Mow. No, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,

My name be blotted from the book of life,

And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!

 174 boots: avails

compassionate; cf. n.

175 plaining: complaining

