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'd23;

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 hand24,
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!

23 We have other allusions to the practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence chamber in Shakspeare. So in Cymbeline :

--Tarquin thus

Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded.'

See Hentzner's account of the presence chamber in the palace at
Greenwich, 1598.-Itiner. p. 135.

24 There is a passage resembling this in the fifth book of Cicero's Tusculan Questions, which were translated and published by John Dolman, in 1561 There is also something which

might serve for a hint in Euphues.

Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman25,

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

The same. A Room in the King's Castle..

Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMERLE following.

K. Rich. We did observe1.-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?

Aum. 'Faith, none by2 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.

25 Dr. Johnson thought that the first act should end here. 1 The king here addressed Green and Bagot, who, we may suppose had been talking to him of Bolingbroke's 'courtship to the common people,' at the time of his departure. 'Yes,' says Richard, we did observe it.'

The first folio and the quarto of 1597 read "Faith, noue for me. The emendation was made in the folio, 1632.

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 Bushy3, 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 kneet,
With-Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;
As were our England in reversion his,

And he our subjects' next degree in hopes.

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,
We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;

3 The earlier quarto copies read 'Ourself and Bushy,' and no more. The folio: :

'Ourself, and Bushy here, Bagot, and Greene.' In the quarto the stage direction says, 'Enter the King, with Bushie, &c.; but in the folio 'Enter the King, Aumerle,' &c. because it was observed that Bushy comes in afterward. On this account we have adopted a transposition made in the quarto of 1634.

4 To illustrate this, it should be remembered that courtesying (the act of reverence now confined to women) was anciently practised by men.

5 Spes altera Romae.-Virg.

6 Shakspeare often uses expedient for expeditious; but here its ordinary signification of fit, proper, will suit the context equally

well.

7 i, e. cause.

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 God, we may make haste, and come too late!

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. London. A Room in Ely-house.

GAUNT on a Couch; the DUKE OF YORK1, and others standing by him.

Gaunt. Will the king come? that I may breathe my last

In wholesome counsel to his unstaied youth.

1 Edmond duke of York was the fifth son of Edward III. and was born, in 1441, at Langley, near St. Albans, Herts; from

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 glose2;

More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music at the close3,

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 Italy4;

Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after, in base imitation.

whence he had his surname. 'He was of an indolent disposition, a lover of pleasure, and adverse to business; easily prevailed upon to lie still, and consult his own quiet, and never acting with spirit upon any occasion.' Lowth's William of Wykeham, p. 205. 2 To insinuate, to lie, to flatter.

3 "This I suppose to be a musical term,' says Steevens. So in Lingua, 1607:

'I dare engage my ears the close will jar.'

Surely this is a supererogatory conclusion. Shakspeare evidently means no more than that music is sweetest in its close; or when the last sweet sounds rest on the delighted ear. But Steevens's soul, like that of his great coadjutor, does not seem to have been attuned to harmony. The context might however have shown him how superfluous his supposition was; and I have to apolo gize for diverting the attention of the reader from this beautiful passage for a moment.

The poet has charged the times of King Richard II. with a folly not perhaps known then, but very frequent in his own time, and much lamented by the wisest of our ancestors.