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 raged, do rage the more.

Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

K. Rich. What, comfort, man? How is't with aged Caunt?
Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition!

Old Gaunt, indeed: and gaunt 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 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 flatter'st 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'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?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:

Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
And

K. Rich. And thou 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 caroused:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,

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 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.

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty. K. 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 kernes;*
Which live like venom, where no venom else,

But only they, hath privilege to live.t

*Light troops.

† Alluding to the idea that no venomous reptiles live in Ireland.

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 raged 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 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, pleased
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 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.

* When of thy age.

†Taking possession.

K. Rich. Think what you will; we seize into our hands His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.

York. I'll not be by, the while: My liege, farewell: What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;

But by bad courses may be understood,

That their events can never fall out good.

K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wiltshire straight, Bid him repair to us to Ely-house,

To see this business: To-morrow next

We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow;

[Exit.

And we create, in absence of ourself,

Our uncle York lord governor of England,

Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;

For he is just, and always loved us well.

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 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 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 fined

For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
Willo. And daily new exactions are devised;
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 achieved 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,
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 Francis Quoint,— All these well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne,

With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,

Are making hither with all due expedience,

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 broken pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
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 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 promised, when you parted with the king,

* Perish by over-confidence in our security. * Stout.

+ Unavoidable.

§ Supply with new feathers.