Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

cree.

While we return these dukes what we de- Embrace each other's love in banishment; [A long flourish. Nor never look upon each other's face; Draw near, [To the Combatants. Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile And list, what with our council we have done. This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate; For that our kingdom's earth should not be Nor never by advised* purpose meet, soil'd To plot, contrive, or complot any ill, 'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. Boling. I swear.

With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours'
swords;

[And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set you on [cradle
To wake our peace, which in our country's
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;]
Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd
[bray,
With harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's
blood;-

drums,

Therefore, we banish you our territories:
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our
Shall not regreet our fair dominions, [fields,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Boling. Your will be done: This must my
comfort be,
[me;
That sun, that warms you here, shall shine on
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 fly-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,
[mouth:
And all unlook'd for from your highness'
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hand.
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:
And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have enjail'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd,† with my teeth and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my jailer to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now; [death,
What is thy sentence then, but speechless
Which robs my tongue from breathing native
breath?

K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compas-
sionate;

After our sentence 'plaining comes too late. Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
[Retiring.
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,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)
To keep the oath that we administer:
You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!)
Nursed. + Barred.
To move compassion:

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 traiMy name be blotted from the book of life, [tor, 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.

[ocr errors]

[Exit.

K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspéct [eyes Hath from the number of his banish'd years Pluck'd four away;-Six frozen winters spent, Return [To BOLING.] with welcome home from banishment. [word!

Boling. How long a time lies in one little 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
He shortens four years of my son's exile: [me,
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-be wasted 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 mor

row:

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 dì

gestion 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
A partial slander) sought I to avoid, [mild:
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;

* Concerted. Consideration. Had a part or share. Reproach of partiality.

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 1; 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

[blocks in formation]

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: Wo 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 exíl'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 presencet
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's 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;

Grief. † Presence chamber at court. Growling.

[ocr errors]

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,— Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman. [Exeunt.

|

SCENE IV.--The same.--A Room in the King's Castle.

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 by me: except the northeast 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 To counterfeit oppression of such grief, [craft 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, [ment, When time shall call him home from banishWhether 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 effects 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.
[land;-
Now for the rebels, which stand out in Ire-
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, fort 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 char-
ters;
[are rich,
Whereto, when they shall know what men
They shall subscribe them for large sums of
gold,

And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.'
* Expeditious.
+ Because

Enter BUSHY.

Bushy, what news?

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 physi-
cian'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
[Exeunt.

late!

ACT II.

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
Enforce attention, like deep harmony: [men
Where words are scarce, they are seldom speut
in vain :
[in pain.
For they breathe truth, that breathe their words
He, that no more may say, is listen'd more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught
to glose; *
[before:
More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives
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:
[hear,
Though Richard my life's counsel would not
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 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

[blocks in formation]

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,
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
land,
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
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; Au-
MERLE, BUSHY, Green, BAGOT, ROSS,
and WILLOUGHBY.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

K. Rich. What, comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my compo-
sition!

Old Gaunt, indeed; and gauntt 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,
Is my strict fast, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt I am 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 it-
self:

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

flatter'st me.

Gaunt. Oh! Do; thou diest, though I the

[blocks in formation]

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, bad 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 posse s'd 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 ?
Laudlord 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
shoulders.

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 tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy
May be a precedent and witness good, [souls!)
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 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
To wayward sickliness and age in him: [words
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. North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

[ocr errors]

R. Rich. What says he now? North. Nay, nothing; all is said: His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt 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 ;+

[blocks in formation]

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 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 banish-
ment,
[wrongs,
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private
Not the pervention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sov'reign'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;+
But, when he frown'd, it was against the
French,

And not against his friends: his noble band
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? [time
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from
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 sequence and succession?
Now, afore God, (God forbid, I say true!)
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patent 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

[blocks in formation]

Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part; | We three are but thyself; and, speaking so, Be merry, for our time of stay is short. Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.

[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 liberal* 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 geldedt of his patrimony.

North. Then thus:-I have from Port le
Blanc, a bay

In Brittany, receiv'd 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
Francis Quoint,-
[tagne,
All these well furnish'd by the duke of Bre-
With eight tall* ships, three thousand men of

war,

Are making hither with all due expedience,t
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,
Imp‡ 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,

North. Now, afore heaven, 'tis shame, such And make high majesty look like itself,

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 [heirs.
'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our
Ross. The commons bath he pill'd with

grievous taxes,

And lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fin'd For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their

[blocks in formation]

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,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.◊

Ross. We see the very wreck that we must And unavoided is the danger now, [suffer; For suffering so the causes of our wreck. North. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death,

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, Northumber

land:

[blocks in formation]

Away, with me, in post to Ravenspurg:
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay, and be secret, and myself 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.

I

Queen. To please the king, I did; to please cannot do it; yet I know no cause [myself, 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

Which show like grief itself, but are not so:
shadows,
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
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 sha[dows Of what is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, 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

[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »