Mar. Go bear this lance-[To an Officer.]-to Thomas, duke of Norfolk.

1 Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,

Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him;
And dares him to set forward to the fight.

2 Her. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
To God, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free desire,
Attending but the signal to begin.

Mar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, com[A charge sounded.

batants.

Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.
K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and

their spears,

And both return back to their chairs again.— Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound, While we return these dukes what we decree.[A long flourish. Draw near,-[To the Combatants.]—and list, what with our council we have done.

For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd 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 on you

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep ;]
Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
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:
Therefore, we banish you our territories :-
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

Boling. Your will be done. This must my

comfort be,

That sun that warms you here shall shine on me; 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 sly 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,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hands.
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 jailor to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now;
What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K.Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate:
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 ye owe to God,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)
To keep the oath that we administer :-
You never shall (so help you truth and God!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,
'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
Boling. I swear.

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 traitor, My name be blotted from the book of life, And I from heaven banish'd, as from hence. But what thou art, God, 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.

[Eril.

K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banish'd years
Pluck'd four away.-[To BOLINGBROKE.] Six
frozen winters spent,

Return with welcome home from banishment.
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 exile;
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

Aum. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know,

From where do you 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 th' 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 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 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 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!
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, at one door; AUMERLE at another.

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 for 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 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 knee,

SCENE I.-London. An Apartment 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 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 glose;

More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before.
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.
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 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 foretell 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;
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:

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.
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.
Ah! 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 WIL-

LOUGHBY.

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. 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. O! 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 'nointed 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,