William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
Richard II (1595)
, Richard II of England, c. 1390" style="width: 150px; height: 190px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>ACT ONE
SCENE 1. London. A Room in the palace.
[Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES.]
KING RICHARD.
- Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
- Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
- Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,
- Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,
- Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
- Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
GAUNT.
- I have, my liege.
KING RICHARD.
- Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him
- If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,
- Or worthily, as a good subject should,
- On some known ground of treachery in him?
GAUNT.
- As near as I could sift him on that argument,
- On some apparent danger seen in him
- Aim'd at your Highness, no inveterate malice.
KING RICHARD.
- Then call them to our presence: face to face
- And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
- The accuser and the accused freely speak.
- High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,
- In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
[Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY.]
BOLINGBROKE.
- Many years of happy days befall
- My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
MOWBRAY.
- Each day still better other's happiness
- Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
- Add an immortal title to your crown!
KING RICHARD.
- We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,
- As well appeareth by the cause you come;
- Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.
- Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
- Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
BOLINGBROKE.
- First,—heaven be the record to my speech!—
- In the devotion of a subject's love,
- Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
- And free from other misbegotten hate,
- Come I appellant to this princely presence.
- Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
- And mark my greeting well; for what I speak
- My body shall make good upon this earth,
- Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
- Thou art a traitor and a miscreant;
- Too good to be so and too bad to live,
- Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
- The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
- Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
- With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
- And wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,
- What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.
MOWBRAY.
- Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:
- 'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
- The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
- Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;
- The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
- Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
- As to be hush'd and nought at all to say.
- First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
- From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
- Which else would post until it had return'd
- These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
- Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
- And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
- I do defy him, and I spit at him,
- Call him a slanderous coward and a villain:
- Which to maintain, I would allow him odds
- And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
- Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
- Or any other ground inhabitable,
- Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
- Meantime let this defend my loyalty:
- By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
- Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
- And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
- Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
- If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
- As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:
- By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
- Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
- What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.
MOWBRAY.
- I take it up; and by that sword I swear
- Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
- I'll answer thee in any fair degree,
- Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
- And when I mount, alive may I not light
- If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
KING RICHARD.
- What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
- It must be great that can inherit us
- So much as of a thought of ill in him.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;
- That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles
- In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,
- The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,
- Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
- Besides, I say and will in battle prove,
- Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge
- That ever was survey'd by English eye,
- That all the treasons for these eighteen years
- Complotted and contrived in this land,
- Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
- Further I say, and further will maintain
- Upon his bad life to make all this good,
- That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
- Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
- And consequently, like a traitor coward,
- Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood:
- Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
- Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
- To me for justice and rough chastisement;
- And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
- This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
KING RICHARD.
- How high a pitch his resolution soars!
- Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
MOWBRAY.
- O! let my sovereign turn away his face
- And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
- Till I have told this slander of his blood
- How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
KING RICHARD.
- Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:
- Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,—
- As he is but my father's brother's son,—
- Now, by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
- Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
- Should nothing privilege him nor partialize
- The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
- He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
- Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
MOWBRAY.
- Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
- Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
- Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
- Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers;
- The other part reserv'd I by consent,
- For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
- Upon remainder of a dear account,
- Since last I went to France to fetch his queen.
- Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,
- I slew him not; but to my own disgrace
- Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
- For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
- The honourable father to my foe,
- Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
- A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
- But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament
- I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
- Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.
- This is my fault: as for the rest appeal'd,
- It issues from the rancour of a villain,
- A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
- Which in myself I boldly will defend,
- And interchangeably hurl down my gage
- Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
- To prove myself a loyal gentleman
- Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
- In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
- Your highness to assign our trial day.
KING RICHARD.
- Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;
- Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
- This we prescribe, though no physician;
- Deep malice makes too deep incision:
- Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed,
- Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
- Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
- We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
GAUNT.
- To be a make-peace shall become my age:
- Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
KING RICHARD.
- And, Norfolk, throw down his.
GAUNT.
- When, Harry, when?
- Obedience bids I should not bid again.
KING RICHARD.
- Norfolk, throw down; we bid;
- There is no boot.
MOWBRAY.
- Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.
- My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:
- The one my duty owes; but my fair name,—
- Despite of death, that lives upon my grave,—
- To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
- I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here;
- Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
- The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
- Which breath'd this poison.
KING RICHARD.
- Rage must be withstood:
- Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame.
MOWBRAY.
- Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame,
- And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
- The purest treasure mortal times afford
- Is spotless reputation; that away,
- Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
- A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest
- Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
- Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
- Take honour from me, and my life is done:
- Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
- In that I live, and for that will I die.
KING RICHARD.
- Cousin, throw down your gage: do you begin.
BOLINGBROKE.
- O! God defend my soul from such deep sin.
- Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight,
- Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
- Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue
- Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong
- Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
- The slavish motive of recanting fear,
- And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,
- Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.
[Exit GAUNT.]
KING RICHARD.
- We were not born to sue, but to command:
- Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
- Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
- At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:
- There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
- The swelling difference of your settled hate:
- Since we can not atone you, we shall see
- Justice design the victor's chivalry.
- Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
- Be ready to direct these home alarms.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. The same. A room in the DUKE OF LANCASTER's palace.
[Enter GAUNT and DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.]
GAUNT.
- Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood
- Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,
- To stir against the butchers of his life.
- But since correction lieth in those hands
- Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
- Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
- Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
- Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
DUCHESS.
- Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
- Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
- Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
- Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
- Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
- Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
- Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
- But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
- One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
- One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
- Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
- Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all vaded,
- By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.
- Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine: that bed, that womb,
- That metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee,
- Made him a man; and though thou liv'st and breath'st,
- Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
- In some large measure to thy father's death
- In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
- Who was the model of thy father's life.
- Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:
- In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
- Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
- Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
- That which in mean men we entitle patience
- Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
- What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life,
- The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
GAUNT.
- God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
- His deputy anointed in his sight,
- Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
- Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift
- An angry arm against his minister.
DUCHESS.
- Where then, alas! may I complain myself?
GAUNT.
- To God, the widow's champion and defence.
DUCHESS.
- Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
- Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold
- Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
- O! sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
- That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast.
- Or, if misfortune miss the first career,
- Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom
- That they may break his foaming courser's back,
- And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
- A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
- Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife
- With her companion, Grief, must end her life.
GAUNT.
- Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.
- As much good stay with thee as go with me!
DUCHESS.
- Yet one word more. Grief boundeth where it falls,
- Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
- I take my leave before I have begun,
- For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
- Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
- Lo! this is all: nay, yet depart not so;
- Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
- I shall remember more. Bid him—ah, what?—
- With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
- Alack! and what shall good old York there see
- But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
- Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
- And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
- Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
- To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
- Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:
- The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 3. Open space. Near Coventry.
[Lists set out, and a Throne. Heralds, &c., attending.
[Enter the Lord Marshal and AUMERLE.]
MARSHAL.
- My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?
AUMERLE.
- Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
MARSHAL.
- The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
- Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.
AUMERLE.
- Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay
- For nothing but his Majesty's approach.
[Enter KING RICHARD, who takes his seat on his Throne; GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and Others, who take their places. A trumpet is sounded, and answered by another trumpet within. Then enter MOWBRAY, in armour, defendant, preceeded by a Herald.]
KING RICHARD.
- Marshal, demand of yonder champion
- The cause of his arrival here in arms:
- Ask him his name, and orderly proceed
- To swear him in the justice of his cause.
MARSHAL.
- In God's name and the king's, say who thou art,
- And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,
- Against what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel.
- Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;
- As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!
MOWBRAY.
- My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
- Who hither come engaged by my oath,—
- Which God defend a knight should violate!—
- Both to defend my loyalty and truth
- To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,
- Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;
- And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
- To prove him, in defending of myself,
- A traitor to my God, my King, and me:
- And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
[He takes his seat.]
[Trumpet sounds. Enter BOLINGBROKE, appellant, in armour, preceeded by a Herald.]
KING RICHARD.
- Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,
- Both who he is and why he cometh hither
- Thus plated in habiliments of war;
- And formally, according to our law,
- Depose him in the justice of his cause.
MARSHAL.
- What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither
- Before King Richard in his royal lists?
- Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?
- Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
BOLINGBROKE.
- Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
- Am I; who ready here do stand in arms,
- To prove by God's grace and my body's valour,
- In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
- That he's a traitor foul and dangerous,
- To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me:
- And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
MARSHAL.
- On pain of death, no person be so bold
- Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
- Except the Marshal and such officers
- Appointed to direct these fair designs.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,
- And bow my knee before his Majesty:
- For Mowbray and myself are like two men
- That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;
- Then let us take a ceremonious leave
- And loving farewell of our several friends.
MARSHAL.
- The appellant in all duty greets your highness,
- And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
KING RICHARD. [Descends from his throne.]
- We will descend and fold him in our arms.
- Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
- So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
- Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
- Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
BOLINGBROKE.
- O! let no noble eye profane a tear
- For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.
- As confident as is the falcon's flight
- Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
- My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
- Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
- Not sick, although I have to do with death,
- But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
- Lo! as at English feasts, so I regreet
- The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:
- O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
- Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
- Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
- To reach at victory above my head,
- Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,
- And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
- That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,
- And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,
- Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
GAUNT.
- God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
- Be swift like lightning in the execution;
- And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
- Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
- Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:
- Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive!
[He takes his seat.]
MOWBRAY. [Rising.]
- However God or fortune cast my lot,
- There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,
- A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
- Never did captive with a freer heart
- Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
- His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
- More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
- This feast of battle with mine adversary.
- Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
- Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
- As gentle and as jocund as to jest
- Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.
KING RICHARD.
- Farewell, my lord: securely I espy
- Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
- Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
[The KING and the Lords return to their seats.]
MARSHAL.
- Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
- Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!
BOLINGBROKE. [Rising.]
- Strong as a tower in hope, I cry 'amen'.
MARSHAL.
- [To an officer.] Go bear this lance to Thomas,
- Duke of Norfolk.
FIRST HERALD.
- Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
- Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
- On pain to be found false and recreant,
- To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
- A traitor to his God, his King, and him;
- And dares him to set forward to the fight.
SECOND HERALD.
- Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
- On pain to be found false and recreant,
- Both to defend himself, and to approve
- Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
- To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal;
- Courageously and with a free desire,
- Attending but the signal to begin.
MARSHAL.
- Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.
[A charge sounded.]
- Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD.
- Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
- And both return back to their chairs again:
- Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound
- While we return these dukes what we decree.
[A long flourish.]
[To the Combatants.] Draw near,
- And list what with our council we have done.
- For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
- With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
- And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
- Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;
- And for we think the eagle-winged pride
- Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
- With rival-hating envy, set on you
- To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
- Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
- Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,
- With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
- And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
- Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
- And make us wade even in our kindred's blood:
- Therefore we banish you our territories:
- You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
- Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields
- Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
- But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Your will be done. This must my comfort be,
- That sun that warms you here shall shine on me;
- And those his golden beams to you here lent
- Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
KING RICHARD.
- Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
- Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
- The sly slow hours shall not determinate
- The dateless limit of thy dear exile;
- The hopeless word of 'never to return'
- Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
MOWBRAY.
- A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
- And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
- A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
- As to be cast forth in the common air,
- Have I deserved at your highness' hands.
- The language I have learn'd these forty years,
- My native English, now I must forgo;
- And now my tongue's use is to me no more
- Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
- Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up
- Or, being open, put into his hands
- That knows no touch to tune the harmony:
- Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
- Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
- And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
- Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
- I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
- Too far in years to be a pupil now:
- What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
- Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
KING RICHARD.
- It boots thee not to be compassionate:
- After our sentence plaining comes too late.
MOWBRAY.
- Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
- To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
[Retiring.]
KING RICHARD.
- 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 louring 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.
BOLINGBROKE.
- I swear.
MOWBRAY.
- And I, to keep all this.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:—
- By this time, had the king permitted us,
- One of our souls had wand'red 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.
MOWBRAY.
- 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!
- But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;
- And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.
- Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;
- Save back to England, all the world's my way.
[Exit.]
KING RICHARD.
- Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
- I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect
- Hath from the number of his banish'd years
- Pluck'd four away.—[To BOLINGBROKE.] Six frozen winters spent,
- Return with welcome home from banishment.
BOLINGBROKE.
- How long a time lies in one little word!
- Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
- End in a word: such is the breath of kings.
GAUNT.
- I thank my liege that in regard of me
- He shortens four years of my son's exile;
- But little vantage shall I reap thereby:
- For, ere the six years that he hath to spend
- Can change their moons and bring their times about,
- My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
- Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
- My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
- And blindfold death not let me see my son.
KING RICHARD.
- Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
GAUNT.
- But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:
- Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
- And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;
- Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,
- But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
- Thy word is current with him for my death,
- But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
KING RICHARD.
- Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
- Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
- Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower?
GAUNT.
- Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
- You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather
- You would have bid me argue like a father.
- O! had it been a stranger, not my child,
- To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.:
- A partial slander sought I to avoid,
- And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
- Alas! I look'd when some of you should say
- I was too strict to make mine own away;
- But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
- Against my will to do myself this wrong.
KING RICHARD.
- Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:
- Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
[Flourish. Exit KING RICHARD and Train.]
AUMERLE.
- Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know,
- From where you do remain let paper show.
MARSHAL.
- My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,
- As far as land will let me, by your side.
GAUNT.
- O! to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
- That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE.
- I have too few to take my leave of you,
- When the tongue's office should be prodigal
- To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
GAUNT.
- Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
GAUNT.
- What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE.
- To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
GAUNT.
- Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.
BOLINGBROKE.
- My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
- Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
GAUNT.
- The sullen passage of thy weary steps
- Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
- The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
- Will but remember me what a deal of world
- I wander from the jewels that I love.
- Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
- To foreign passages, and in the end,
- Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
- But that I was a journeyman to grief?
GAUNT.
- All places that the eye of heaven visits
- Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
- Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
- There is no virtue like necessity.
- Think not the king did banish thee,
- But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,
- Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
- Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
- And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose
- Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
- And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
- Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
- To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st.
- Suppose the singing birds musicians,
- The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
- The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
- Than a delightful measure or a dance;
- For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
- The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
BOLINGBROKE.
- O! who can hold a fire in his hand
- By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
- Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
- By bare imagination of a feast?
- Or wallow naked in December snow
- By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
- O, no! the apprehension of the good
- Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
- Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
- Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.
GAUNT.
- Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.
- Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
BOLINGBROKE.
- Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;
- My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
- Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
- Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 4. London. A room in the King's castle.
[Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN, at one door; AUMERLE at another.]
KING RICHARD.
- We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,
- How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
AUMERLE.
- I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
- But to the next highway, and there I left him.
KING RICHARD.
- And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
AUMERLE.
- Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,
- Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
- Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
- Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD.
- What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE.
- 'Farewell:'
- And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
- Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
- To counterfeit oppression of such grief
- That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
- Marry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours
- And added years to his short banishment,
- He should have had a volume of farewells;
- But since it would not, he had none of me.
KING RICHARD.
- He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
- When time shall call him home from banishment,
- Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
- Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,
- Observ'd his courtship to the common people,
- How he did seem to dive into their hearts
- With humble and familiar courtesy,
- What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
- Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
- And patient underbearing of his fortune,
- As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
- Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
- A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
- And had the tribute of his supple knee,
- With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';
- As were our England in reversion his,
- And he our subjects' next degree in hope.
GREEN.
- Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.
- Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland;
- Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
- Ere further leisure yield them further means
- For their advantage and your highness' loss.
KING RICHARD.
- We will ourself in person to this war.
- And, for our coffers, with too great a court
- And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
- We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
- The revenue whereof shall furnish us
- For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
- Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
- Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
- They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
- And send them after to supply our wants;
- For we will make for Ireland presently.
[Enter BUSHY.]
Bushy, what news?
BUSHY.
- Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
- Suddenly taken, and hath sent poste-haste
- To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD.
- Where lies he?
BUSHY.
- At Ely House.
KING RICHARD.
- Now put it, God, in his physician's mind
- To help him to his grave immediately!
- The lining of his coffers shall make coats
- To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
- Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:
- Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!
ALL. Amen.
[Exeunt.]