My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
York. No; it 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 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 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 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 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,

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 flat-
terest 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 the land,
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick :
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'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, 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'd3 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,
land,With fury, from his native residence.

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
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

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,

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,For that I was his father Edward's son;

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 Willoughby.
York. The king is come: deal mildly with his
youth;

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.
Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with
aged Gaunt?

Gaunt. Ö, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt2 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,
(1) Paltry. (2) Lean, thin.

(3) Mad.

That blood already, like the pelican,

Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul
(Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,
Join with the present sickness that I have;
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd 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. '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.

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
York. I'll not be by, the while: My liege,
farewell:

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood,
That their events can never fall out good. [Erit.
K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wiltshire
straight;

your majesty.
K. Rich. What says he now?
North.
Nay, nothing; all is said:
His tongue is now a string less instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster has spent.
York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal wo.
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 :

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.-

We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns;||Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;

Which live like venom, where no venom else,

But only they, hath privilege to live.2
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 be 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 ;3
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's 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.
O, my liege,
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 seque.ice 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

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 revenue.
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 liberals tongue.

North. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more,

That speaks thy words again, to do thee harm! Willo. Tends that thou'dst speak, to the duke of Hereford?

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 heaven, '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 lives, our children, and our heirs.
Ross. The commons hath he pill'd' with grievous

taxes,

And 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;
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o'God's name, doth become of this?
North. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he
hath not,

But basely yielded upon compromise,

That which his 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,

(3) When of thy age.
(4) Taking possession. (5) Free.
(6) Deprived. (7) Pillaged.

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,

I 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 ours.

Ross. Be confident to speak, Northumberland:
We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.
North. Then thus:-I have, from Port le Blanc,
a bay

In Brittany, received intelligence,

That Harry Hereford, Reignold lord Cobham
[The son of Richard earl of Arundel,]
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 Fran-
cis Quoint,-

All these well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne,
With eight tall2 ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience,3
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,
Imp4 out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,5
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 my self 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. A room 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.

More than your lord's departure weep not; more's

not seen;

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, in thinking, 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 fore-father grief; mine is not so;
For nothing hath begot my something grief;
Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:
'Tis in reversion that I do possess;

But what it is, that is not yet known; what
I cannot name; 'tis nameless wo, I wot.8
Enter Green.

Green. God save your majesty !—and well met,
gentlemen:-

I hope, the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.
Queen. Why hop'st thou so? 'tis better hope,

he is;

Queen. To please the king, I did; to please my-To Bolingbroke. self,

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 something it grieves,
More than with parting from my lord the king.
Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty
shadows,

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,

(1) Perish by confidence in our security.
(2) Stout.
(3) Expedition.
(4) Supply with new feathers. (5) Gilding.

Queen. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my wo,
And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:
Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;
And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
Have wo to wo, 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 York.

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 heaven'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.

(6) Pictures.
(8) Know.

(7) Fanciful conception. (9) Drawn it back.

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.

Serv. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship:
To-day, as I came by, I called there;
But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
York. What is it, knave?

Serv. An hour before I came, the duchess died.
York. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes
Comes rushing on this woful land at once!
I know not what to do:-I would to God,
(So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,)
The king had cut off my head with my brother's.-
What, are there posts despatch'd for Ireland?—
How shall we do for money for these wars?-
Come, sister,-cousin, I would say: pray, pardon

Percy. My gracious lord, I tender you my
service,

Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;
Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm

Bushy. Thither will I with you: for little office To more approv'd service and desert.