Return [To BOLING.] with welcome home from banish

ment.

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 exíle:
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 :
The 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 digestion

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.

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 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 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 Caucasus ?
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, farewell; 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 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 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.

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 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.

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,

VOL. VI.