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 shorteus 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-dry'd 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 ad-

vice,

Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave; Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour? Gaunt. Things sweet to taste, prove in diges

tion 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 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 K. 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 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.וע

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

A

com'st:

Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grafs 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 Cancasus ?
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 thy way:

Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay. Boling. Then, England's ground, farewel;

sweet soil, adieu!

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! Where-e'er I wander, boast of this I can,

Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.

;

i

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV.

12

The same. A Room in the King's Castle.T

Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; A
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 high-way, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears

were shed?:

A

Aum. 'Faith, none by 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 prophane 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,

J

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 dray-men 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.

Nor 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' lofs.
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