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.

Castle.

Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AU MERLE following.

How far brought you high Hereford on his way? K. Rich. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle,

Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next high way, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed?

Aum. 'Faith, none by me: except the north-east Which then blew bitterly against our faces, wind, Awaked the sleeping rheum; and so, by chance, Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. Rich. What said our cousin, when you parted with him?

And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Aum. Farewell:
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.

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 honor,
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.
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 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. Boling. 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.

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.

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;

And he our subjects' next degree in hope.
As were our England in reversion his,
Green. Well, he is gone; and with him go

thoughts.

these

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.

K. Rich. 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 enforced 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 post haste,
To entreat your majesty to visit him.

a Because.

K. Rich. Where lies he?

Bushy. At Ely-house.

K. Kich. Now put it, heaven, in his pncian'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 heaven, we may make haste, and come too late! [Exeunt.

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 unstay'd youth. York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;

For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

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:

men

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; *

More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music 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 ith 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:

Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it)
Like to a tenement or pelting' 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 WIL-

LOUGHBY.

York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;

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

aged Gaunt?

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:

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 sceptred 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,

• Flatter.

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,
Is it not more than shame, to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
And thou-

K. Rich.

a lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague's privilege, Dar'st with thy frozen admonition Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood, With fury, from his native residence. Now by my seat's right royal majesty, Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son, This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head, Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulders. Gaunt. O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son, For that I was his father Edward's son; That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd: My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul, (Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!) May be a precedent and witness good, That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood: Join with the present sickness that I have; And thy unkindness be like crooked age, To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower. Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! These words hereafter thy tormentors be,Convey me to my bed, then to my grave: Love they to live, that love and honor have.

[Exit, borne out by his Attendants. K. Rich. And let them die that age and sullens have;

For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
York. 'Beseech your majesty, impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him:
He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.
K. Rich. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love,
so his:

As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.
North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to
your majesty.

K. Rich. What says he now?
North.
Nay, nothing; all is said:
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be: So much for that.-Now for our Irish wars: We must supplant those rough rug-headed kernes;

Irish soldiers.

Which live like venom, where no venom else,
But only they, hath privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance, we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
York. How long shall I be patient! Ah, how
long

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong!
Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrong
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.-
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first,
In war, was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won:
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York.
O, my liege
Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to seize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time
His charters and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
Be not thyself, for how art thou a king,
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now, afore God (God forbid, I say true!)
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters pate that he hath
By his attornies-general to sue
His livery,' and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honor and allegiance cannot think.

K. Rich. Think what you will; we seize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.

York. I'll not be by the while: My liege, farewell:
What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood,
That their events can never fall out good. [Exit.
K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wiltshire
straight;

Bid him repair to us to Ely-house,
To see this business: To-morrow next
We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow;
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York lord governor of England,
For he is just and always lov'd us well.—
Claim possession; a law term.