Page 1053 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! And other times to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean [50]
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue, [55]
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
’Tis not ten years gone

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars. It is but eight years since [60]
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,

Who like a brother toiled in my affairs
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by − [65]

[To Warwick]
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember −
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then checked and rated by Northumberland,

Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which [70]
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne’ −
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,

But that necessity so bowed the state
That I and greatness were compelled to kiss −
‘The time shall come’, thus did he follow it, [75]
‘The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,

Shall break into corruption.’ So went on,
Foretelling this same time’s condition
And the division of our amity.

WARWICK
There is a history in all men’s lives, [80]