Mar. 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? Boling. 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. Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Boling. To men in joy: but grief makes one hour

ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure. Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return.

Boling. 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:

2

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
Boling. 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 fantastick 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

K. Rich. 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.

SCENE I.-London. A Room in Ely-house. GAUNT on a Couch; the DUKE OF YORK, and others standing by him.

Gaunt. Will the king come? that I may breathe my last

In wholesome counsel to his unstayed youth. York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;

For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

Gaunt. O, but they say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain : For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.

He, that no more must say, is listen'd more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to
glose 4;

More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before:
The setting sun, and musick at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last;
Writ in remembrance, more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As, praises of his state: then, there are found
Lascivious metres; to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen:
Report of fashions in proud Italy;
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after, in base imitation,

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity,
(So it be new, there's no respect how vile,)
That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
Direct not him, whose way himself will choose;
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
Gaunt. Methinks, I am a prophet new inspir'd;
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him :
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last :
For violent fires soon burn out themselves:
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes, that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise ;
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
(For Christian service, and true chivalry,)
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son:

'Flatter.

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Like to a tenement or pelting 5 farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds;
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself:
O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter KING RICHARD, and QUEEN; AUMERLE,
BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross, and WILLOUGHBY.
York. The king is come: deal mildly with his
youth;

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more. Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster? K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt ?

6

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old: Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast; And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt? For sleeping England long time have I watch'd; Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt: The pleasure that some fathers feed upon, Is my strict fast, I mean my children's looks; And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt: Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones. K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

Gaunt. No, misery makes sport to mock itself: Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee. K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live?

Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those that die. K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st thou flatter'st me.

Gaunt. Oh! no; thou diest, though I the sicker be. K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill. Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I see

thee ill;

Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill,
Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land,
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick :
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame;
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease:
But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
5 Paltry.
6 Lean, thin.

If it be so, out with it boldly, man;
Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
Ross. No good at all, that I can do for him;
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Stript and bereft of all his patrimony.

4

wrongs are borne,

In him a royal prince, and many more
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The king is not himself, but basely led

By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,
That will the king severely prosecute

'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs. Ross. The commons hath he pill'd 9 with grievous taxes,

And lost their hearts; the nobles hath he fin'd
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
Willo. And daily new exactions are devis'd;
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what :
But what, in heaven's name, doth become of this?
North. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath

not,

But basely yielded upon compromise

That which his ancestors achiev'd with blows:
More hath he spent in peace, than they in wars
Ross. The earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
Willo. The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken

man.

North. Reproach, and dissolution, hangeth over

him.

Ross. He hath not money for these Irish wars, His burdenous taxations notwithstanding, But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

North. His noble kinsman: most degenerate king! But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest şing, Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm: We see the wind sit sore upon our sails, And yet we strike not, but securely perish.1

Ross. We see the very wreck that we must suffer; And unavoided is the danger now, For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

Stay, and be secret, and myself will go.

Ross. To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.

Willo. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there. [Exeunt. A Room in the Palace.

SCENE II.

- - The same.

Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT. Bushy. Madam, your majesty is too much sad: You promis'd, when you parted with the king, To lay aside life-harming heaviness, And entertain a cheerful disposition.

Queen. To please the king, I did; to please myself, I cannot do it; yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard: Yet, again, methinks, Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, Is coming towards me; and my inward soul With nothing trembles: at something it grieves, More than with parting from my lord the king.

Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,

Which show like grief itself, but are not so:
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives 6, which, rightly gaz'd upon,
Show nothing but confusion; ey'd awry,
Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty,
Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
Finds shapes of grief, more than himself to wail;
Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows
Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,
More than your lord's departure weep not; more's

not seen:

Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,

death,

Queen. It may be so; but yet my inward soul Persuades me, it is otherwise: Howe'er it be, I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad, As, — though, in thinking on no thought I think,— Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink. Bushy. 'Tis nothing but conceit7, my gracious

Green Here comes the duke of York. Queen. With signs of war about his aged neck; O, full of careful business are his looks! Uncle,

For heaven's sake, speak comfortable words.

York. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts: Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives but crosses, care, and grief. Your husband he is gone to save far off, Whilst others come to make him lose at home: Here am I left to underprop his land; Who, weak with age, cannot support myself; Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made; Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

Hold, take my ring.

Serv. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship : To-day, as I came by, I called there; But I shall grieve you to report the rest.

York. What is it, knave?

Serv. An hour before I came, the duchess died. York. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes Comes rushing on this woeful land at once! I know not what to do: I would to heaven, (So my untruth9 had not provok'd him to it,) The king had cut off my head with my brother's. 9 Disloyalty.

Go, fellow, [To the Servant.] get thee home, provide some carts,

And bring away the armour that is there. —

[Exit Servant. Gentlemen, will you go muster men? if I know How, or which way, to order these affairs, Thus thrust disorderly into my hands, Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen ; The one's my sovereign, whom both my oath And duty bids defend; the other again, Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd; Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. Well, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll Dispose of you: Go, muster up your men, And meet me presently at Berkley-castle. I should to Plashy too,But time will not permit : - All is uneven, And every thing is left at six and seven.

[Exeunt YORK and QUEEN. Bushy. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland, But none returns. For us to levy power, Proportionable to the enemy,

Is all impossible.

Green. Besides, our nearness to the king in love, Is near the hate of those love not the king.

Bagot. And that's the wavering commons: for

their love

Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,
By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
Bushy. Wherein the king stands generally con-
demn'd.

Bagot. If judgment lie in them, then so do we, Because we ever have been near the king.

Green. Well, I'll for refuge straight to Bristol castle;

The earl of Wiltshire is already there.

Bushy. Thither will I with you: for little office The hateful commons will perform for us; Except like curs to tear us all to pieces. Will you go along with us?

Bagot. No; I'll to Ireland to his majesty. Farewell if heart's presages be not vain, We three here part, that ne'er shall meet again. Bushy. That's as York thrives to beat back Boling

broke.

Green. Alas, poor duke! the task he undertakes Is-numb'ring sands, and drinking oceans dry; Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly. Bushy. Farewell at once; for once, for all, and

ever.

Green. Well, we may meet again. Bagot.

I fear me, never. [Exeunt.

The Wilds in Gloucestershire.

Enter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, with

Forces.

Boling. How far is it, my lord, to Berkley now?
North. Believe me, noble lord,

I am a stranger here in Glostershire.
These high wild hills, and rough uneven ways,
Draw out our miles and make them wearisome:
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and délectable.
But, I bethink me, what a weary way