K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.

Lay on our royal sword your banished hands:
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves)
To keep the oath that we administer:—
You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!)
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 adviséd 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.

Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:By this time, had the King permitted us, One of our souls had wandered in the air, Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh, As now our flesh is banished 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 banished 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. [Exit. K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine

eyes

I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspéct
Hath from the number of his banished years

Plucked four away.-Six frozen winters spent, Return [To BOLINGBROKE] 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 banished upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:
Why at our justice seem'st thou, then, to lour?

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion

sour.

You urged 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 destroyed.
Alas! I looked 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.
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 shew.

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 plea

sure.

Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so; Which finds it an enforcéd 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 exíled 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 thougo'st, not whence thou com'st.
Suppose the singing birds musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strewed;

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 banished, yet a true-born Englishman.
[Exeunt.

When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,
Observed 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 't were 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.

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,

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 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 listened more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught
to glose:

More are men's ends marked 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 stopped 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 buzzed 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 inspired; And thus, expiring, do foretel 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 sceptered 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,
Feared 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, blesséd Mary's son:
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased 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

agéd Gaunt?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composi-
tion!

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 watched:
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, sayst 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 thy land,
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick:
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Committ'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, incagéd 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 possessed,
Which art possessed 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 shoul-
ders.

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 tapped out and drunkenly caroused.
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.

His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. York. Be York the next that must be bank

rupt 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 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 possessed.
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,