A traitor to his God, his king, and him;
And dares him to set forward to the fight.

2 Her. 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 heaven, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free desire,

Attending but the signal to begin.

Mar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.

Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.

[A charge sounded.

K. Rich. 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.-

[To the Combatants.] Draw near,

And list, what with our council we have done.
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.

[A long flourish.

Boling. 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.

K. Rich. 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.

Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth. Thus I turn me from my country's light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

K. Rich. 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 heaven,
To keep the oath that we administer :-
You never shall (so help you truth and God!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Ner 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

[Retiring.

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.

Boling. Norfolk, so far, 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, heaven, 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.

K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grievèd heart: thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banish'd years

[Exit.

Pluck'd four away.-[To BOLING.] 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.

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 you do 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 dolor of the heart.

Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
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.

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.

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.

SCENE IV.-The Court.

[Exeunt.

Enter KING RICHard, Bagot, and GREEN; AUMERLE following.
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 with him? Aum. "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.

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.

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 farther leisure yield them farther means,
For their advantage, and your higness' 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.

Bushy, what news?

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?

Bushy. At Ely-house.

K. Rich. Now put it, heaven, 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 heaven, we may make haste, and come too late! [Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-London. An Apartment 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 unstaid 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:
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: