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 enjail'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth and lips;
And dull, unfeeling,. barren ignorance
Is made my jailor 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?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate:
After our sentence plaining comes too late.
Nor. Then, thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night. [Retiring.
K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that ye 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 lowering 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.
Nor. And I, to keep all this.
[They kiss the king's sword. Boling. Norfolk, so fare, 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.
Nor. 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. K. Rich. 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.
Boling. 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.
K. Rich. 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 canst 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.
K. Rich. 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
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.
K. Rich. Cousin, farewell;-and, uncle, bid him so:
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
[Flourish. Exeunt King RICHARD, and Train. Aum. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know, From where do you remain, let paper show.
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 th' 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;
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?
How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
With humble and familiar courtesy ;
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 And patient underbearing of his fortune,
My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where-e'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman. [Exeunt.
SCENE IV. The Same. A Room in the King's
What reverence he did throw away on slaves;
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,
As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
goes his bonnet to an oyster wench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
"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.
Enter King RICHARD, Bagot, and GREEN, at one door; Now for the rebels, which stand out in Ireland,
K. Rich. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next highway, and there I left him.
K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were
shed?
Aum. '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.
K. Rich. What said our cousin, when you parted
Aum. Farewell: and, for my heart disdain'd 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.
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:
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere farther leisure yield them farther 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 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. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste,
To entreat your majesty to visit him.
K. Rich. Where lies he now?
Bushy. At Ely-house, my liege.
K. Rich. 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!
[Exeunt.
SCENE L-London. An Apartment in Ely-house. GAUNT on a Couch; the Duke of YORK, and Others, standing by him.
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
Gaunt. Will the king come, that I may breathe my The open ear of youth doth always listen:
last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth.
Report of fashions in proud Italy;
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your Limps after, in base imitation.
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 may 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,
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:
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
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.
Ah! 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 urg'd, 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: 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
Gaunt. O! 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 'nointed 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 befal 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 withered 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 honour 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. I do 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?
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 it ends a mortal woe. poor,
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 kerns, 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 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 wrongs,
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 rag'd 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 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.
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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,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
North. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such 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 wives, our children, and our heirs.
Ross. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And quite 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;
O, my liege! As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?
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 patents 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 honour 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.
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.-
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
[Flourish.
[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,
GREEN, and BAGOT.
North. Well, lords, the duke of Lancaster is dead.
Ross. And living too, for now his son is duke.
Willo. Barely in title, not in revenues.
North. Richly in both, if justice had her right.
Ross. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.
North. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er
speak more,
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
North. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
But basely yielded upon compromise
That which his noble 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 sing,
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.
Ross. We see the very wreck that we must suffer; And unavoided is the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.
North. Not so: even through the hollow eyes of death,
spy life peering; but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is.
Willo. Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost
Ross. Be confident to speak, Northumberland:
We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,
Thy words are but our thoughts: therefore, be bold.
North. Then thus.-I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence,
That Harry duke of Hereford, Reginald lord Cobham,
That late broke from the duke of Exeter,
His brother, archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, sir John Ramston,
Sir John Norbery, sir Robert Waterton, and Francis
Quoint,
All these well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne,
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience,
And shortly mean to touch our northern shore:
Perhaps, they had ere this, but that they stay
The first departing of the king for Ireland.
If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our scepter's gilt,
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurg;
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
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. SCENE II.-The Same. An Apartment in the Palace.
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 some thing it grieves,
More than with parting from my lord, the king.
Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty sha-
dows,
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, 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
Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,
Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
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 unthinking on no thought I think,
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
Bushy. "Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
Queen. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd
From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
For nothing hath begot my something woe;
Or something hath the nothing that I guess :
'Tis in reversion that I do possess,
But what it is, that is not yet known, what
I cannot name: 'tis nameless woe, I wot.
Bushy. Why have you not proclaim'd Northum-
berland,
And all the rest of the revolted faction, traitors?
Green. We have: whereupon the earl of Worcester
Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,
And all the household servants fled with him
To Bolingbroke.
Queen. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:
Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,
And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.
Bushy. Despair not, madam.
Queen.
Who shall hinder me?
I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope: he is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity.
Enter the Duke of YORK, part-armed.
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 God'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.
Enter a Servant.
Serv. My lord, your son was gone before I came.
York. He was?-Why, so:-go all which way it
will.-
The nobles they are fled, the commons cold,
And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.-
Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloster;
Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
Hold; take my ring.
To-day, as I came by, I called there;
Serv. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship :
But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
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 God, (So untruth had not provok'd him to it) my The king had cut off my head with my brother's.
Green. God save your majesty :-and well met, What! are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?gentlemen.
I hope, the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.
Queen. Why hop'st thou so? 'tis better hope he is,
For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope;
Then, wherefore dost thou hope, he is not shipp'd?
Green. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his
power,
And driven into despair an enemy's hope,
Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd
At Ravenspurg.
Queen.
Now, God in heaven forbid !
Green. Ah! madam, 'tis too true: and what is worse,
The lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,
The lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
How shall we do for money for these wars?-
Go, fellow, [To the Servant.] get thee home; provide
Come, sister,—cousin, I would say: pray, pardon me.—
And bring away the armour that is there.
Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
If I know how, or which way, to order these affairs,
Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen :
Th' one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
And duty bids defend; th' other again,
Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
Is my near kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,
Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,
I'll dispose of you.-Gentlemen, go muster up your men,
And meet me presently at Berkley.
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